Part 5: Chapter 8

Hike and Haircuts

Saturday, June 6, 2020
	A miracle has occurred. Last night Steve and I had a date. That was not the miracle, but it was nice. During the evening’s golden hour, we picked up Subway sandwiches and took a hike in the hills. The mustard on the hills has lost its bright yellow hue and turned a lovely blonde color.
	Cherise and Jacob were watching the kids at our place for perhaps the last time. The future of these free babysitting dates is uncertain since Cherise’s new nursing job leaves her rather exhausted on her days off. She has also been moved from the ER room to the COVID floor. Next week, she gets fitted into safety gear. Seems that nurses now have to dress like astronauts to work with COVID patients.
	Anyway, date walk with Steve was lovely. The weather was unexpectedly perfect, so perfect in fact that my two layers of pants were entirely unnecessary. Halfway up Turnball Canyon Trail, I announced to Steve that I was going to shed a layer. It would’ve gone fine if I hadn’t gotten the outer pants stuck on my tennis shoes and tripped. Steve just stared and said “Oh wow!” as if I were his show for the day.
	This breaks the tension for my outlining all the reasons why it would be better for my sanity if he would move his office to the back bedroom. He listens quietly, takes a swig of his water, and then says, “Okay. I’ll move.” No discussion, no push-back, just “Okay, I’ll move.” 
	Can you believe it? I asked him what changed his mind. He shrugged and said he didn’t know it was so important to me. I am kicking myself for waiting so long to explain this to him.
	We move him back there after gals group and haircuts this morning. Theo dances through all the furniture, finding little hideouts and crawl spaces and generally getting in the way. Opal wields the vacuum and sucks up all the dust from the uncovered floor spaces until she loses interest and decides to crawl around the furniture with Theo. Johnny finds wires and equipment that he isn’t suppose to touch.
	With Steve’s desk in the back bedroom, the living room feels gargantuan. The space is long and open with two sets of French doors, one facing the street, the other facing our schooling deck. A low support beam with crown molding runs the width of the room making a natural separation between a living room proper and where Steve’s desk used to be. Not sure what we’ll do with the space now. Maybe we’ll have a dining area. Maybe I can situate my desk in this space and actually use it. Maybe this can be the rough and tumble space. Maybe we can make an arts and crafts table for the kids and get Gilbert to show off his never-seen-before portraits.
	School ended for the kids yesterday. Never mind when the children’s elementary school says it’s over. I say it’s over now. Goodbye first grade. I’m through making Theo and Opal do superfluous assignments. I’m done fighting over capitalization and whether to use a pencil or pen in math. This has been the longest school year on record and I’m ready to call it quits. Hats off to teachers and home-schooling moms everywhere. There’s a reason they do what they do and I do not do.
	Celebrated the end of school with brownies. Opal made graduation hats out of green construction paper, but Theo smooshed his hat on purpose and then Johnny got a hold of the hats and ripped them. Opal shouted angrily at her brothers while I tried to soothe things over by letting the children watch Octonauts on Netflix.
	Yes, realize this is bad parenting, but was feeling very un-celebratory about the entire day. For the last few months, I’d been rushing the children through school, ignoring their questions and observations to get them to finish their journals, finish their math, and finish their reading so we could to make it to the end! And now here we are at the end and there’s no reward except two and a half unplanned months with nowhere to go and nothing to do. God-have-mercy, I hope schools open again at the end of summer.