Social Distancing Chronicles - Easter Sunday

I've been meaning to from almost the beginning of our current situation to sit down and journal what life looks like for us here in the O'Brien household. What a different world we live in. A new virus has attacked the earth, WHO has declared it a pandemic and we have been encouraged (with good reason) to socially distance ourselves from other people. So, this is not day one of the crisis, but it is day one of me finally stopping to take a moment to write about how this pandemic has impacted our family.

Today is Easter Sunday, so there is a lot to say right about the difference between our "normal" life and how our current climate has changed how we celebrate special events.

I want to proceed my story with an explanation, that in February when we got home from Florida and Disney, I immediately got a stuffy ear, that turned into an ear infection. This stuffy ear and infection lasted a little over four weeks. In fact, it cleared up just a few days before we were mandated by the state to practice social distancing and to stay home as much as possible with the "Safer At Home" order. This time was so frustrating to me. Not only was I in pain, but I started to isolate myself even at this point because going out in to public and being with people was difficult. I would often have to ask people to repeat themselves and I would have to pay close attention so that I could hear everything they were saying. So, when the order was given that we had to stay home and go out for only essential activities, I was already a pro. 

I won't bore you by going through the weeks of journaling that I have missed out and will instead fast forward to today.

To start off, we did not do a typical Easter morning at our house. We do try to stay home as much as possible, so I had discussed with my husband that I didn't really care to have a ton of candy that we give to our son. We are also in the midst of potty training and are using a reward system for him to earn prizes after he has gone potty so many times, so we didn't want to get him a lot of toys and devalue the reward system that we have put in to place. Instead, we gave Joe a couple of small lego cars to put together with us. Then we prepped to go to church.

Church looks a whole lot of different. Because of the social distancing order we can not assemble within the confines of a building for our corporate worship. Many churches are doing online services and that is something our church does for our mid-week Bible study service, but for Sunday mornings we do a "drive in" service. They have a stage with a canopy up where they lead worship and our Pastor preaches from. All of us stay in our cars and we park around the stage. They do live stream the service on Facebook as well for those who are not able to attend.

The last three weeks, we dressed pretty casual since we were just going to be in our car anyway. I mean, if the only person who is going to see me is the two guys who see me everyday, then there is no need to be extra right? But I had told my husband a few days ago, that it was Easter Sunday and that we wouldn't be able to do everything that a typical Easter Sunday looks like for us, but that didn't mean that we couldn't dress up and look nice. So that is what Joe & I did. We got out our Sunday best to celebrate a living God.

On an ordinary Sunday, I teach Sunday School to the two and three year old classroom. We do not currently have Sunday School, but I had wanted to still provide crafts and some type of learning for the kids in my class. So, I have been making up little "lessons to go" to hand out to the parents and kids when we get there. This is something I truly enjoy. It gives me something to focus and work on and I feel like maybe I'm helping out all the mama's by providing something for them to do with the kids since we are all restricted in our homes.

I'm kicking off a mom's group so that I can share how we assembled the crafts. I've been wanting to find an outlet to share all my resources and ideas anyway. Last week, a friend encouraged me to start the group. It isn't that I don't have anything to do, but I do enjoy learning and sharing. If you are interested in joining you can join the group on Facebook here.

One of the things that I do enjoy about our drive in services is that I am able to see the faces of people that I love. Because we are practicing social distancing, we have to keep approximately a 6 ft distance between us, but it is so lovely to see the smiling faces of those that I love. One day, I will be able to hug them all and I cannot wait for that day.

Once church was over, we came home, ate a very simple meal and went outside to our backyard for awhile. I had been working on building Joe a shelter/fort from some old limbs/sticks that we had around the yard. We had some storms earlier in the week and it knocked over what I had gotten done, but I was ok with it because I had to move it anyway. So, I played with Joe for a little big kicking a ball around the yard and then I started to reassemble the new fort in its new location. This time I am going to wrap so much twine around it that this for will have no other option, but to stay standing.

We were not out there too long. The mosquitos started to attack me and I was not interested in being out too long in that. I hope that this is not a precursor to the summer with them and half hope that the drop in temperature that has been forecasted is accurate because maybe it will kill off some of the ones that are in our backyard already.

At this point, my son and husband have been playing and I've been taking some time to blog, read, schedule social media posts and work my Thirty-One business. 

In spite of all that is happening, I am blessed and thankful for the opportunity to learn about how I can slow down and also how I can stretch myself to grow and learn.