Day 47 of quarantine

It has been nearly a month since last post.  Not surprising, since the days blend a little.  I am happy to report that, to date (t’fu – t’fu) all in the family have dodged COVID-19 or anything of that magnitude.

The weekdays involve work for Alla and I and some resemblance of a schedule for the boys.  Morning include yelling about setting the table and getting dressed.  Late afternoons involve yelling about screen time.  In between yelling Alla and I work, with short breaks for food, bathroom, and yelling.  On occasion I manage to teach boys a little math or give them homework on what we have covered.  More rarely I read to them from “The Book of the Future Commander” (in Russian, no longer available in print, but for mere $2.80 a .pdf can be had on Google Books).  The next generation shall not go deprived of “Книга Будущих Командиров”.  I figure, reading about history of warfare will lead to some discussions about history and some development of logic and imagination.  But mostly – I read it, I liked it, and the kids shall too!  On more occasions Alla manages to assign boys work from education books – which they, shockingly, do!  On occasion I manage to work out; even more occasionally one of the boys joins me.  They like it, so long as no one drops a dumbbell on themselves – which happened once so far, to Ben (resin-coated 8 lb weight, glancing blow, resulting in lots of crying and a fat lip for half a day.  Glorious!)  On some days we even manage to take a walk together.

The weekends are more mostly work-free for Alla and I, which frees up a lot more time for yelling about screen time and not wanting to go for walks.

All days include interminable dusting, dish-washing and laundry-folding.  Attempts to get kids to fold laundry, while occasionally successful, have been uniformly Pyrrhic victories (see?  History!) 

We do manage to play some Risk, which all seem to enjoy.  The boys have also built a few robotic creations which, surprisingly, have worked and, more importantly, provided distraction for hours of building process.  The boys have taken a liking to Mythbusters which we watch in the evenings, for nearly an hour of relative calm. 

Last weekend we took a lovely, two-hour walk through the Hoyt Arboretum.  With few other hikers around, distancing was easy and the weather was gorgeous.  In the “minus” column was the sh@tty behavior by the boys (Alla and I chose the wrong day to let the boys skip breakfast).  In the “plus” column was a gorgeous walk, beautiful scenery, perfect weather, fresh air, and even a chance to share some of the walk with an old college friend presently recovering from COVID-19 in NY. 

I shall conclude this post with a haiku I composed today:

Present, I punish,
And yell.  Absent – withhold love.
Parenting failure.

Kids are asleep.  Time for a glass of wine.