Yesterday I sorted through and cleaned out my April 2020 photo folder. As you all would know, April 2020 was when most of the world was on pretty tight lockdown mode. In the U.S., in our region, this was the strictest, most extreme lockdown period we ever had, I’d say.
Literally everything was closed and/ or cancelled for weeks. It was sooooo weird. We’d obviously never experienced anything like that before.
Sorting through the photos, it felt almost surreal to look back on. But at the same time, I felt this huge wave of nostalgia wash over me.
I say this next part with a bit of trepidation, because I have no desire to “tempt the fates” or anything of the sort. But looking back, we had some really, really good times that month!! And I did a great job of documenting it all in photos, which I’m very grateful for.
I have pictures of us:
- “homeschooling” + their little desk/ workstation set-ups
- going on a lot of walks, scooter rides, and bike rides
- cooking a lot! I took pics of lots of our meals.
- Asher drawing a lot
- reading together
- watching movies and eating a lot of popcorn
- celebrating Easter in lockdown mode- but it was a really nice Easter, with special meals and candles and cinnamon rolls and Easter eggs and more
- playing games
- getting “take out” ice cream from a drive-thru and going for drives listening to music
- baking lemon bars and banana bread
- exercising together- workout videos + home workouts sent by the soccer coach + taking turns running on the treadmill
- practicing soccer drills outside with Ivan and orange cones set up all over our cul-de-sac
- kids on Zoom- from school to swim team “meet-ups” to piano lessons
- Asher making and painting a huge Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland out of boxes on the driveway
We did a LOT of really fun family activities. Way more than we normally do. So looking back at that month actually made me feel very nostalgic and almost a little sad! (Though to be clear, Universe, I am not saying I want to go back to lockdowns. Don’t misinterpret what I’m saying!)
I guess what I am saying, though, is that as horribly crappy as the pandemic has been, I think that initial lockdown period will be a time I’ll always remember with a bit of fondness. Because it was just the ultimate “pause” in normal life that we never would have taken otherwise.
Later, things just got really hard, as we all had to go back to working + trying to juggle all the unknowns + schooling from home got… very old. But in the beginning, it was new and novel and “temporary”. Which made it kind of special and almost fun, for us. For a little while. 😉
Another thing I apparently did with all my free time in April 2020 was gather a little collection of pandemic-themed memes. lol. Here are a few I ran across that made me laugh!
And perhaps, the funniest one of all….. This list of a sample “COVID-19 Daily Schedule”. HAHAHAHAHA!! Can I just say, Yeah, right! I honestly think I saved this from Facebook thinking this sounded like a good (and do-able) idea (and it does, on paper…).
But I highly doubt a single family in the world ever accomplished a schedule like this while navigating new home school technology, parents working from home, kids getting bored and antsy and, well, the stress of everything else.
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful for finally making time to clean out our kitchen junk drawer last night, which was driving me insane. And to Ivan for helping me sort through a bin of weird cables, random screws, old batteries, packages of Christmas light fuses and other gadgets that I had no idea what they even were.
GRATEFUL KAE 
I agree looking back on the early days of the pandemic we did so much stuff as a family and it was quite nice despite the terrible circumstances. Just so thankful my family was in a position to embrace it.
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First – I hope this comment actually goes through! I had another one that never showed up… so we’ll see.
I do have a lot of fondness for April 2020…. recognizing that my family was SO lucky to be able to just be at home, both parents could WFH, etc. I have a lot of friends/family who are in healthcare and it was not their experience at all and was quite terrible. I also have the cute pics of homeschool workstations, lots of baking, lots of drives and socially distanced waving at friends from like 20 feet away, outside, etc. The rough part about it that I remember is how freaking COLD April 2020 was (and 2022 is shaping up to be the same – SIGH!) so we couldn’t really do much outside then which was annoying. I think I went through a deep dark place in late March 2020, after reading a ton about covid and coming to the realization that this would be hanging around for at least a year (ahhh…. only a year would have been nice huh??) but by April my mentality had shifted. Some of the stuff we did then was just so absurd – but none of us knew!!!!! (Like not going into stores at all, trying to disinfect groceries???? Only did that one once)
I also have seen a lot of the last images you shared – and the comparison covid schedule that was the version of the one you shared that was reality 😛 LOTS of good memes from this time period!!!!
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I just found this comment in the spam folder!! I will have to remember to check in there. No idea why it marked you as spam!!
And YES about some of the funny stuff people did in the beginning that we now know was really quite absurd!! Lol!!! I remember us ordering a pizza and literally using tissues to open the box, to avoid even touching it at all… and then disinfecting the counter where the box had sat… hahahah. A little excessive/unnecessary…. 😂
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I think that I started to read your blog right around the start of the pandemic! So it’s crazy to think we’ve “known” each other for over 2 years! Time flies!
Early pandemic days were rough for us… we had Paul home with us for 7 weeks started in mid-March. I found out I was pregnant at the end of March and was so anxious about the 8-week ultrasound. Paul was 2 and a total handful. He watched tons of Little Baby Bum because it was the only thing that would entertain him/allow him to get work done. I worked on my laptop on the couch for those 7 weeks and could only take calls while he was napping. Luckily my company and coworkers were very understanding! Things were MUCH BETTER when he went back to school after my 8 week ultrasound! A choir of angels might have sang as we dropped him off (which was rough – he did not want to go back to school!). And things got even better when playgrounds were reopened for ‘play at your own risk’. We decided to take that risk because it was good for our sanity!
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I think we had a similar experience! Those first few weeks of lockdown we just huddled home as a family and all thought it…would go away more quickly. We did a lot of isolated adventuring (we live in a small province and when they opened up trails, we did a lot of hiking/walking on beaches…and NO ONE else seemed to be out). And we made a lot of really special memories.
But it quickly got really tough for so many reasons. Levi never got to return to preschool, work things started to pick up…and juggling it all just became awful.
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i feel the same about the pandemic era. It felt surreal and so long ago now that we came out of it. It was a life changing experience for me and for our family, something we will forever talk about. The hardest part was the unknown duration of it, after the first 6 months when we realized it was going to last for a while, I just accepted that this would be our life now, not more thinking to Survive it but instead to thrive it, to make the best out of it everyday. We became more resilient and appreciate the normal life even more than more. Getting back to full schedule is harder than expected as we got used to not having commuting time, and rest whenever we felt like. 🙂 fortunately work still is pretty flexible so I can still work from home when I need.
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