42. survive a pandemic (50x50)

Flippantly, when I think about this, I think there's no way that I could have added this to a leap list until after the fact. It just never occurred to me that, as an American living in Baltimore Maryland, I would ever experience a global pandemic and state-instituted quarantine. that's some privilege, right there.

we did though.

This was a spectacular year, literally, it was a sight to see and live through. We already knew that it was going to be full of change and adventure because we started the year off by deciding that we were going to become a family of five. We quit smoking before we arrived in Connecticut for the winter holiday. In Vermont we heard an announcement about another virus that was impacting Wuhan, China and we asked Roddy's school about the foreign exchange students expected to travel from China. It only took a few days for them to respond saying that they were cancelling the program for the Spring semester.

Grammy had moved in with us in 2019 so that she could split her time between St. Marks and Timberlost, the new house she was building from the ground up in Canaan Valley, West Virginia. We knew that the house wasn't going to be complete before bebe #3 arrived, but that we'd have support for going to Johns Hopkins hospital again. We knew that we would have six months of maternity leave with Deloitte from June to December.

Then shit got real.

Collectively, the adaptations that we faced together every single day were nothing short of revolutionary. We switched to 100% remote work, had a baby in a pandemic, lived through Stella's toddlerhood, absorbed Roddy back into the daily routine when school shut down, had to decide what to do about preschool for Stella and kindergarten for Roddy for the year, quit Mom's, had our car wrecked on Calvert, lived without a car for a few months, got promoted, bought a new car,  invited Christy to live with us because the YMCA was putting her at risk so she quit, managed a few months of remote kindergarten, switched projects and accounts after maternity leave, came back from maternity early, decided to move for a better school district,  had a serious health scare with Jason getting a blood clot in his kidney and Grandbear with another heart problem, sold Calvert Street house, bought another house, moved into a airBnB while improvements were made on Anneslie, moved into Anneslie, fought a serious case of dermatitis.

We went through a lot of bubbles. We wasted a lot of water in the backyard pool. We ate Lucky Charms for a week straight while we figured out a grocery game plan and the kids pooped green for a week as a result. We saved so much money with working remotely. We doubled down into living with the grand parents in Connecticut and West Virginia through maternity leave in the height of the pandemic. We took seven COVID tests. We went on a lot picnics after Amelia was born. We bought a lot of face masks, never had a problem with toilet paper, Grammy stocked us up when she moved in from Arlington. We had our little "pod" with the Coonce's. We never got sick, there were one or two little stomach bugs that passed through the family after a grocery trip. We had hose fights with the next door neighbors. 

We made it through because Jason is #allheart. Because Deloitte provided amazing benefits. Because I worked my ass off while Jason was a Stay At Home Dad. We never gave up on each other. We never lost our sense of humor (much).