Wednesday, April 8

My daughter made dinner tonight while I was on a call for work. Just prior to that, my son made donuts. “I’m bored,” he said. “I’m making donuts.” [pause] “Do we have buttermilk?”

We did not have buttermilk, but he learned how to make it. The donuts are delicious. I am eating one for dessert, having already eaten the cheese quesadillas, black beans and yellow rice, complete with homemade guacamole, prepared by my 14-year-old.

Having older kids is the best. I loved my littles, and I miss those days sometimes. But watching tweens and teens become who they are becoming is humbling. Witnessing their emotional growth and watching as their worldview at once expands and becomes more focused to each of them and what they believe is remarkable.

When I was blogging about parenting young kids, I remember writing a post about saying “Yes.” The post resonated with other bloggers. Young kids are curious, ask questions all the time, and push the limits as they are finding their ways in the world. Often the result is that they hear the word “no” many, many times each day. I remember saying to my kids, as they got beyond the toddler years but still were early on in grade school, “Don’t make me say no again.” In other words, you already know, kiddo, what the answer to that question about Twizzlers is going to be. I already said yes to ice cream and Teddy Grahams. Don’t ask if we can add Twizzlers to the grocery cart if you know the answer is going to be no.

I don’t know if that’s considered good parenting or maybe just selfish parenting. But I thought about those days tonight as I cleaned up the kitchen, wiping chocolate frosting from the counter and loading the dishwasher. As my son was deciding to make donuts it was his decision alone. He didn’t ask. He wasn’t worried about getting a no, but he also didn’t need a yes from me. He just announced and then moved forward with the buttermilk question. And a no quickly became a yes. We don’t have it but we have vinegar and milk.

Saying yes to my teenagers, either literally or by omission of not saying no, is the equivalent of watching them become. They are finding their own ways, and as we all navigate this family isolation together without our usual engagements, outings, obligations, friends and peers, they are figuring out little by little how to adjust.

I went to the grocery store today. It was stressful. I wore a mask. I had to wait outside on the sidewalk marked off with chalk and tape (why both, I wondered), stepping up to the next line each time a person was allowed into the store (only after someone exited). I went the wrong way down the cereal aisle and only realized it at the other end when the arrow on the floor was pointing the opposite way of the way I was moving. I turned around and went back down the aisle, and soon I couldn’t not notice the blue tape arrows on the floor. I bought enough food to last, I hope, nearly two weeks. We’ll see. It’s difficult to stock up for my family for any extended period of time, but my cart was full, the bill was high, and I needed two carts to get the bagged groceries out to my car.

My kids helped me safely put away the groceries as I decontaminated them, trying my best to stay unemotional. It took hours to do the waiting in line, the shopping, the waiting in line again at the register, the waiting while my many, many groceries were bagged. I felt uncomfortable not helping bag, but I followed the directions on the plexiglass. (“Please stand behind the plexiglass until your order is finished.”) The cashier disinfected the belt, the scanner, the register between every customer. I did not bring my reusable bags. When I got home, I wiped down everything. I stripped to my underwear in the kitchen and took a hot shower. Hours after I left the house and got in my car with the still-full gas tank, more than three weeks since I last filled it.

When I think about all of these steps it took to be sure my family has food for the next week or two, I am exhausted and utterly empty. I don’t know if I am not letting myself feel or if I have nothing left to feel about the stark reality of living in this world of invisible and yet very real danger.

The danger right now comes in at 1.5 million cases of Covid-19. Nearly a third of those worldwide cases are in the U.S. More than a third of those are in New York. Total deaths in the U.S. is more than 14,500.

Stay safe, everyone.