Today I  rearranged the living room, changed the light shade in the entryway, baked PB&J rolls, simmered a spaghetti sauce for two hours, read about Pat the cat with Livvy, finished the basketball hoop with the boys, helped Kyrah with her math, and watched the girls and the dog pretend to be horses and jump over a cardboard fence in the living room for nearly an hour. The house is clean. The kids were more restless than yesterday and even our little introvert blurted out this evening “there’s nothing to do!”

We turned visitors away today. Twice. It is permitted to leave our homes for essential daily consumables which are identified as food, water, and medicine. Some of the boy’s friends had run to the store for their mother and found their way to our gate. We didn’t allow them in, or our kids out. On one hand it’s probably not that big of a deal… on the other; Two of us are still coughing and I still have a headache and a low-grade fever… and it’s probably nothing, but I’d hate to pass around a small cold that could lower someone’s immunity who then comes into contact with COVID-19. Also, there are otherwise healthy people carrying the virus showing zero to minimal signs, but passing it to others (let us not fall into that category either). Plus, we’re foreigners; People are watching us. They’re either making judgments or following our lead, and in either case, what we choose to do is crucial to our reputation. The all around risks far outweigh the discomfort or inconvenience of a one-week lockdown.

5 more days to go.