Self-Isolation Day 5 – The Little Things

I struggled to find anything to write about today. Reflecting on the day, there wasn’t anything big that jumped out as being worthy of telling anyone about. As I sit here, a couple hours after rejecting a number of beginnings to this entry and feeling like I had failed the folks that read the words I write, I realized I don’t need big. As humans what we need right now may be incremental. Small, meaningful things that add up. A snowball effect.

Today while I was on a conference call Olivia exaggeratedly signed, in her made up sign language, “I love you, mom.” That was the first time anyone in my work environment had called me mom, let alone said they loved me. It was nice. To clarify, it was nice that my daughter who I created and has earned the right to call me mom expressed her affection for me. If my colleagues started calling me mom at work I suspect it would be awkward the first couple of times. And then things would normalize.

I first noticed Olivia’s made up sign language, or handsplaining, when we attended an art class. It was a clay class. Olivia isn’t one to sit still for long, so she asked me if it would be ok if she went closer to the teacher’s demonstration station at the front of the class so she could see better.

“Yes, but you need to listen and not be distracting, ok?” I said in a quiet but serious voice, my eyes even more serious than my voice.

“Of course.” She replied. I knew at minimum she would be a little bit distracting but in honesty I didn’t know what she would do. She is unpredictable.

Olivia watched Sally form the clay into a ball, step one. She turned around in front of the other parents and kids and she began to copy her teacher’s instructions using her hands. I was her focus, the rest of the class were simply bystanders. Olivia wanted to make sure I could see each of the steps. She motioned her hands as if she was creating a ball, pretending to pat the clay. She also, said the word “ball” as the key word for me to remember. She made eye contact with me and nodded. The next step was to pinch the clay. Olivia delicately pinched the pretend clay in her hands and then repeated the word, “pinch” again she nodded her head. This went on for the entire demonstration. She reminded me of a sign language interpreter translating Sally’s lesson.

I managed to contain my laughter because I didn’t want her to feel self-conscious. I also didn’t want her to be encouraged by it and be more disruptive.

“Does anyone in your family sign?” Sally asked.

“No, just Olivia.” I replied.

One of the other mothers told me Olivia had made her day. It seemed to be a theme that Saturday.

After swimming class in the morning a mother said to me, “I love watching your daughter swim, she always looks like she is living her best life.” She had a point. Olivia always lives her best life. She has this ability that had been lost on me to find joy in the small things.

In addition to sleeping nearly eight hours a night now, working from home has given me a front row seat to the madness, the chaos and the small things.

Observations Day 5

1.Self-isolation Kate watches pandas on the internet.

I recently discovered the Calgary Zoo’s PandaCam. https://www.calgaryzoo.com/visit/animals/giant-pandas

Between the hours of 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. I can watch Er Shun and Do Mao, or Truman and Waldo as I call them do a variety of three things. They sleep. They eat. They drink. That is all I’ve seen so far. These guys have really adapted to self-isolation.

2. I burnt the toast again. I guess making toast is not like riding a bike. The self-imposed moratorium on certain carbohydrates for the last while has robbed me of my ability to effectively straddle the line between burnt and under toasted toast. They say practice makes perfect, but under the current conditions it would be irresponsible for me to waste our limited supply of bread. I ate the burnt toast.

3. I bought some things on Amazon today. I am stockpiling items for Easter. Small scale stockpiling. Stockpiling is different from hoarding, I think. I view stockpiling as having a plan and purpose for the items I’m buying. We fully plan on eating the chocolate we buy for Easter in a defined period of time. Hoarding is compulsively buying without any plan on how to use the items. For example, purchasing hundreds of rolls of toilet paper. I still haven’t figured out what folks are doing with all of that toilet paper or where they keep it.

4. I am trying to use new emojis, daily. There are a suite of underutilized emojis that deserve a chance. That doesn’t mean I’ll be retiring the shrugging woman emoji, Beth is my favourite. What it does mean is I will be calling up a few emojis from the minor league to see what they can do.

🦵🐒🤡🧶🧤🦧🎋🌬🌽🏸🎯⛽️💿🔧

Stay healthy and at home!

Kate