This is Quarantine: Day 3

I started disinfecting e's playroom today. The last time I took on this treat was about 6 months ago, in the process of a grand reorganization, and let me tell you: It's indescribably easier to take on such a task without children actively playing with the items you are trying to disinfect. In a naive effort to combine cleaning with playtime, everything started off successfully enough. I sat at the play table with Lysol wipes and asked e to bring me items from her play kitchen for a wipe down, and then had her bring them back to her kitchen once cleaned. What a great way to involve her in the process and spend quality time together! For about 2 1/2 minutes, which roughly corresponds to the attention span of an almost-threenager.

Soon I was racing to scoop the not-yet-disinfected items from her grasp before she dropped them into a pile of already-disinfected items. I watched with the defeat that every parent knows as she immediately removed all of the newly cleaned and tidied items from shelves and distributed them far and wide across the playroom. I tried for a few minutes to follow her lead and clean what I could as we went before giving up entirely and redirecting myself to making the very best crocodile house out of Magnatiles that I could before she moved on from that too.

Eventually E joined in and it wasn't long before they were starving, giving me a bit of respite in the kitchen to whip up some breakfast. There was some bargaining about smoothies which involved a race with a jelly bean prize. Now they're upstairs doing their morning routines, although I can't remember at what point I added "scream and yell and stomp and scream some more and maybe slam a door or two for emphasis" to the routine. It's not even noon and J and I are huddled around the kitchen table trying to piece together the shreds of our sanity.

Just another relaxing Saturday morning with the kiddos!

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So how did the afternoon go? I'm glad you asked.

For the second day in a row, hoping desperately once again for an early bedtime, we have forgone naptime, with moderately better results than yesterday. Though that, in part, is thanks to J and I escaping for a spell to take Gryff for a walk while the girls got up to who-knows-what-and-to-be-honest-who-cares at home.

Speaking of Gryff, we spent a good chunk of time today trying to make him into an award-winning scent hound. There were mixed results, but what a great way to all work together on something and  figure out whose dirty clothes are the stinkiest. If you're into that sort of thing.

It was exactly 3:01pm when I first wondered if it was late enough to start drinking. But instead I replanted some aloe plants and went on that aforementioned walk with J and fixed our first drink at approximately 5:01 instead. Very respectable.

We're rounding out the day watching a movie with dinner, and I have to count Day 3 as another success. I can't tell you how wonderful it is to be listening to J giggling away at Brave while the girls sit in rapt attention. He is just so damned delighted by a Disney movie that I swear I would marry him again a hundred times. And these girls are just the best when they're not screaming at the tops of their lungs.