Not that we haven’t been taking the pandemic seriously, we have. We have been practicing social distancing and have been teleworking and only going out to refill on essentials like milk once a week. However, today the Governer for our state canceled school for the rest of the year. While we expected this to happen. SHIT JUST GOT REAL.

The realization that the kids were stuck in the house for the next 8 weeks working on schoolwork hit hard. It’s that moment that reality just hits. Maybe a brain cell kicks in. We all have that moment where we just stop and think Wow, for me that was the Governor’s declaration that schools have closed the rest of the year.

In #TeamJackson we live in a world of snark and sarcasm where we can learn to laugh with each other and laugh at ourselves. We have to find our new normal and figure out what our new boundaries are.

We have been experiencing boundaries in a whole new way. My sister is the Head of nursing for infectious disease at one of the Michigan hospitals. Basically she is on the front lines dealing with ‘corona’geddin. As you can also imagine, she is void of free time. I was blessed to have the opportunity to chat with her. It gave her time to vent, and for me to just listen. Of course, we talked about how to protect ourselves and what to wear if we needed to go out in public, etc. While my sister has 4 medical degrees and is medically minded, I am not. I can barely spell body parts. She instructed me, very patiently, how to lower our risk of exposure if we had to go out. When I told her we were going to head to the grocery store the next day for our weekly trip to get milk, she gave me strict instructions on what to do and how to do it. There are specifics on how to don and undon a mask, gloves. (Who knew – in a nonmedical environment this was new to me). To her instructions I gathered our masks, gloves, sanitizer, and several other items, hats, etc and had it all ready to go.

The next morning my husband and I donned the gear and made our plans. We knew which store we needed to go to, and a secondary store if we reached shopping limits. We put our phones in baggies, so we could use them if needed but did not contaminate the phone, same with our license and payment card. We knew how we would wipe things down and in which order. You enter our house through the side door into the laundry room and we had a plan to get the clothes into the wash. We were ready! We were ready to enter the warzone. The Mission Impossible theme was playing in the background as we backed the car out of the driveway. The trip went swimmingly, 6 ft perimeter, and social distancing in full glory. Were we possibly overboard, maybe, but rather safe than sorry. We arrived home perfectly as planned to the tune of the Rocky theme, the roar of the crowd was deafening, the fans were going wild. Yes we did it! We got MILK! There was a serious sense of accomplishment.

In the laundry room, we quickly stripped down according to the plan and loaded everything into the washer and got it going. As I turned to fist bump my husband with the #TeamJackson Woot Woot!! We stopped still. There was total silence (well except for the washer). Houston, we have a problem! We both just stared at each other. We had no clothes in the laundry room. We had planned everything except clothes!!! Having been under shelter in place our laundry is done – our laundry room is empty! No dirty towels, nothing! Void of fabric anything! Now our bedroom is as far on the other side of the house as possible and we have quite the open floor plan. There are no hiding places. Making a break for it is our only option. By now my kids heard that we were back and were heading our way. Not wanting to burn the image of two parents standing buck naked in the laundry room into my kids’ retinas, Special K sent the kids to get their dirty pajamas from the previous night in their rooms upstairs. Thankfully they bought this wild errand without too much discussion.

When the coast was clear, we made our break. We streaked back to our bedroom and slammed the door behind us. Panting and out of breath, we looked at each other and started to laugh, We laughed hard! Here we were. We planned everything! We planned everything except clothes, freaking clothes. OMG! All of this for milk. Is this really our new normal?

My point here is this. What we are experiencing is so different and can be downright frightening at times. We are all trying to adjust and find a new normal. We are all trying to be the best parents we can be for our kids. Two weeks ago, we would not have thought twice about going to the store to get milk. But here we are. We naked as jaybirds laughing about our ability to concoct this incredible plan to avoid germs but forgetting clothes. While we are all relearning normal, don’t forget to laugh, be patient and give your self a break. Most importantly be able to laugh at your self.

You better believe we will try again tomorrow.