I just wanted to post a photo of my favorite little nurse.  I knew she would be a nurse since she was two years old.  She loved it when we would get sick or hurt, so she could take care of us, even if it meant she only put on a bandaid.  Taking care of people and her baby dolls was he favorite thing to do.  It still is, only now she has traded in her baby dolls for her real live babies.  I thought it was the perfect job for her.  Until now.  I don’t like that she is constantly in contact with people who might give the virus to her and then possibly be spread to my grandkids.  I never thought of a nurse being in danger until now.  Sending love to my favorite nurse!

                                              

This is my oldest grandson Joshua. 

This is his senior this year.   It is pretty certain that there won’t be a ceremony for his class.  At least not the sort of ceremony we have all been looking forward to. He missed his senior prom. He finished his classes in January and is all signed up to begin the police cadet program, but that had to be put on hold for right now because of the virus.  He has a part time job at a local grocery store and has been putting in a lot of hours during all of this.  Pretty amazing that a high school kid is considered an ‘essential’ employee, but we are so grateful to him and the others out there doing their work!!!

Two more of my ‘essential’ favorites! This is my oldest grand-daughter, Emily and her husband Matthew.  They are in their junior year of college working on education degrees.  Both of them have part time jobs working in a local grocery store.  Yes, food is essential, and we are thankful to them for helping take care of our needs!!!  Last week, she received a really nice card from one of the customers thanking her for being there!

This is my favorite doctor.  He is a Doctor of Psychology.  He helps manage a nationwide company named CARD (Center for Autism and Related Disorders) that does research and therapy with autism.  When this whole COVID-19 began to reach the US, he and his staff were already on it, preparing to go online with therapy so that their clients would still be able to receive therapy and the staff of his organization would not all have to be laid off.  He has worked endlessly to keep the company going and his staff employed.

Here are my very favorite teachers.  He is the teacher we all loved to have when we were in school.  He loves his work and it shows!  His students love him and some of them keep in touch with him for years after they have left high school.  He took it hard when the biggest event of the year was cancelled because of this virus and it pains him daily that they are not in class right now.  She puts all she has into her classes and making sure that each of the students is engaged and finds creative ways to help them learn.  The first thing she thought of when schools began shutting down was how to help the students and families who depended on school lunches.  Both are now trying to figure out how to teach online from home and are also using texts and emails to reach their students.

This is my favorite doctor’s wife.  She used to work as a historian, in the same organization as he did, but two years ago decided to put that aside and be a stay at home Mom.  Of course that really isn’t staying at home.  Her days are filled with volunteering at the school and preparing to teach the kids’ class at church and all the amazing things a stay at home Mom gets to do, which is everything put punching in a timeclock.  Just after the stay at home order happened, she got really sick, it lasted for days, and her doctor assured them that it was not COVID-19.  As she was improving, my grandson got it, it really messed up his birthday, and before he was over it, Dennis got it, so before she was all well, she was helping them recover.  She has been such a great support for my favorite doctor in this extra stressful time of him working from home.

This is my favorite nurse’s husband.  He has been working hard in materials distribution at the hospitals during all of this.  Extra work right now, with all the extra patients and preparations for COVID-19.  He has lost an Uncle in NY and an Aunt in the Dominican Republic to COVID-19.  It is really tough for him to be so far from his Dominican family at this time.  Both he and Jessi worry about bringing the virus home to their kids.  They remove their clothing at the door and go straight to the shower before they touch the kids. With him in this photo is his Mother from the Dominican Republic when she was here for a visit last summer. 

Such a strange time for everyone, but I would like to know what the younger ones are thinking. They don’t realize just how strange what they are going through is. They were surprised to hear that this is going to be in history books one day. They understand that school is out earlier than usual, but that they still have to do homework. They know they can’t eat in restaurants, but can have take-out food. That they can’t go to their usual places to play or even play with the neighbor kids. That there is a virus going around that is really bad. They know about the 6ft. rule. But I don’t think they REALLY know that this is just so weird, even for us grown-ups, that this has not happened before, even in Grandma’s lifetime (because I am really old, right?) That this is a first for all of us. At first, we thought that it would be OK to go on hikes together, since we were outside, but then we realized that was not how we were supposed to be doing it if we were under stay at home orders, so then we went the other way and we didn’t see them at all. We didn’t really know what it meant, how it was supposed to work. But we are figuring it out. On sunny days now, sometimes the local grandkids come over and play outside, but not go in the house and we can see each other from a distance, but just not hug or touch or get really close when we talk. They can play and then everything that they touched, their Mom puts away and it doesn’t get touched again until the next time they come to play. Those are their Mom’s rules. Little by little we are finding ways to make it work until it is all over. Which better not be much longer, right???!!!