And here’s the part where I tell you my big time quarantine goals fell through the cracks pretty quickly. But… but… it’s only been four days!  You know what?  Sometimes I forget who we are dealing with here. Ooooh I am not good at quarantine.

Before he got sick, Stevie was in the middle of an upswing.  Things seemed ever so slightly easier.  But this illness has thrown him for a loop and Stevie is up to some of the usual old behaviors – screaming constantly and testing his boundaries and being insanely demanding. By day 2, I felt like we’d been locked up for months and I was ready to pull my hair out.  On day 3, walking helped us keep it together pretty well. But by day 4 – oooohhoho day 4. My nerves were shot.  It was a cocktail with lunch and shopping to sooth my soul.

My photo/video project quickly fell to the wayside as I basically just wanted to hide under a blanket rather than be yelled at anymore.  Introduction of new activities has been greeted with NO!’s and a fight, fight, fight. I’m seeing that forcing him really gets us nowhere.  And my precious quiet time?  Nothing but a hilarious notion in this house.  He just doesn’t understand the concept at all.

AAAAAND he still tested positive for E. Coli this week.

So here are the things I’m trying to remember as we roll into the weekend:

• He is so much worse for me than anyone else.  Remember this article?  It’s a joke, but it’s so true. Around other people, he is (mostly) charming and wonderful.  I have to remember I’m doing something right somewhere.
• Amazon Prime can always be put to good use.  For him or me.
• The E. Coli test results came back quickly, so even though it can last in the system for a long time, once it is gone, I won’t have to wait an additional 10 days for the results and I can get him back to school and outta my hair ASAP.
• I can ease up on the quarantine strictness a little bit.  I obviously won’t do anything that can endanger anyone else (swimming, daycare, playground) but I can take him sightseeing in other neighborhoods, I can take him to run a couple errands, and most importantly I can drop him off at grandma’s house. WOOHOO!  His poop situation is totally under control, and I’m not as worried about spreading it around.
• He’s a kid.  A real turd of a kid, but a kid nonetheless.  I have to pretend to be the adult around here and manage my frustration the best I can.

We did have a couple of successful new activities though.  One of them was simply throwing socks (thanks for the suggestion Tim!)  I dumped a drawer of socks on his lap and he had to try and toss them into the laundry basket.  He wouldn’t do it unless I was standing there directing him, but at least it killed some time. He also liked when I would bury his cars in kinetic sand and he could dig them out.  Today I’ll do a fort or an obstacle course, although those never keep his interest very long.  It seems I have plenty of activities to try, just not many that he will participate in.  So that’s where it gets tricky.

At the moment, he is entertained with the new cars he got from the Tooth Fairy.  No, kids aren’t supposed to lose their teeth at 4 years old, but again, this is Stevie we’re talking about. Side story:  Back in March, he busted his face on a chair and his tooth has been crooked ever since.  It hasn’t seemed loose at all, in fact it seemed stuck in there pretty good.  However, yesterday it got caught as he was taking off his t-shirt and popped right out of his head!  It flew up in the air and landed in the toilet of all places.  Paul grabbed it and sanitized it and we told Stevie about what happens when you leave a tooth under your pillow.  Let’s hope he doesn’t get any crazy ideas and start intentionally busting teeth to get more surprises from “tooth Gary” as he calls her.  For me, the stupid  tooth is just one more thing I gotta make an appointment for and get taken care of at some point.  I’m in no hurry obviously.  I don’t even know if he can go to the dentist with E. Coli!

These are the 2 lines I debated ending this post with:

Be honest – who actually thought this would go well?

…or…

Yo, spot me a Xanax?