Learning Together with a Four-year-old

I’ve not been bored during the stay-at-home period. The reason: my wife and I take care of our four-year-old grandson every weekday while his parents work. His preschool got cancelled in March, but he now meets with his teacher on Zoom three mornings a week for an hour or so to practice reading, writing, arithmetic and geography. What I have particularly enjoyed is his insatiable curiosity and the fascinating questions he asks. One major area of his interest lately has been large sea creatures. One topic has been whales with a focus on blue whales since they are the largest. He also heard about the megaladon, an ancient large shark. Together we do research on the Internet to answer his questions. I may not have all the answers, but I can find them. At the beach last week, he found a whale-shaped rock. This is now a prominent part of his rock collection.  

Reactions to Health Directives

Once again, our country seems locked into polarized reactions to something that should not be controversial. In this case, it’s health directives. Suddenly, wearing a face mask or not becomes a political statement.

One side says wearing a mask is important for protecting the health of everyone, and the other side says it’s not needed and don’t want to be told to do it.

I’ve heard the statement to act like we have the virus (wear a face mask to protect others) and act like we don’t have the virus (social distance, wash hands, etc.) to protect ourselves. This is what I’m trying to do

Author Events

Needless to say, it’s challenging to have author events currently. My last event was one day of the Left Coast Crime Conference in March. Since then, all events I was scheduled to participate in through May have been cancelled. I have one presentation still on my calendar for June, but doubt that it will take place. I enjoy the opportunity to meet with readers, give presentations and mingle with other writers. Unfortunately, this doesn’t appear to be possible for the near term. I have spoken with book groups on conference and Skype calls and may do more of these in the future. We’ll see how things unfold.

What I’ve Learned During the Coronavirus Pandemic

This has been a tough time for all of us. As someone in the at-risk age group, I’ve stayed at home except to go to the food store and take occasional walks. Along the way I’ve learned a number of lessons:

1.      It’s hard to give up old habits. Just before the stay-at-home began, I was doing a speaking event at a library. I had promised myself I would not shake hands with anyone. When I arrived and the librarian greeted me, my first reaction was to stick out my hand. Then I said whoops and pulled it back. After attending one day of the Left Coast Crime Conference before it was cancelled, I had adapted to not shaking hands. It is now a permanent part of my behavior.

2.      Boredom is a challenge to many people stuck at home but it can be dealt with. I thought I would be bored but fortunately it has been the opposite. My wife and I take care of our 4-yeart-old grandson on weekdays while his parents work. This is a full time job and has kept me hopping with Zoom preschool calls for him, playing and inventing new games, reading, doing puzzles, building block creations, using sidewalk chalk. By the end of the day when his parents pick him up, I am tired and have had lots of exercise. We have a break on weekends, and I recharge with reading, walking and napping. During this stay-at-home time, I also wrote and self-published a story titled, Coronavirus Daze about a boy keeping a journal during the pandemic and making an amazing discovery. I have not been bored after the first few days of having to give up pickleball and other activities.

3.      People have different reactions to the pandemic. My son who works in a hospital instilled in me early-on the necessity to stay at home for our protection but also to help flatten the curve because he knew hospitals could be overwhelmed if we allowed the cases to rise too quickly. Other people have the reaction that it’s not going to happen to them and even if they get sick it won’t be very serious.

4.      The pandemic has led to a debate of health versus the economy. Both are important. We need to protect our citizens and have sensible policies and over time we need to take intelligent and planned steps to restart the economy.

5.      We’re all in this together. The pandemic has reinforced the interconnectivity of the world, our local communities and our families. At all levels it provides challenges that we need to think through and address.

Stay healthy.