A Day in the Corn Teen Life

We're now on day 6,397.65 of the Coronapocalyptic Corn Teen. I wanted to share with you - in excruciating detail - how exciting it is here for all of us to be home together every minute of every day*

*Note that on weekends we sleep as long as possible and try to get started with projects by 11. Ish.

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4 am - Dave wakes up for the seventeenth time. There are many reasons for this, ranging from some shooting pain somewhere to the voices in his head getting too loud. But usually it is due to the 18-pound dog flopping down on his stomach with the force of an anvil dropped from 10,000 feet. 

6 am - Dave wakes up again - this time from a whacked-out dream. Today he was being chased through his former elementary school by giraffes because he laughed at a Jumanji/Corona meme the other day. 

7:30 am - We actually get out of bed because at least one of the kids has an 8 am “class” on Zoom, and they still have yet to figure out how to get themselves upright before Noon. And they give us attitude like it was our idea for them to have an 8 am online class... 

8 am - The kids get online, and Jeana and I walk the dogs, which really means taking them out back into the woods and begging them to go to the bathroom so we can go back inside because Jeana is cold/Dave is hot/it's raining/it's hailing/Jeana is cold/a tree is about to fall on us/Dave needs coffee/Jeana is cold/we need to make sure the kids haven’t gone back to bed. 

8:05 am - Dave starts a massive sneezing attack and runs for his Allegra, swearing that he’ll set an alarm for 6 am tomorrow to wake up from whatever dream he's having to take it early so he doesn’t have to go through the 84 minutes of pure allergy Hell before it kicks in. (Note that he never ever set that alarm but is determined to do the same thing every day).

8:30 am - It's Dave remembering once again - like it happened 10 years ago to someone else - that his coffee maker broke two weeks ago. So he contemplates how he will make his coffee today, understanding that he can’t decide because he hasn't made coffee yet and his brain doesn’t work until he has the coffee. 

8:45 am - Dave actually makes the coffee and begins his work day by first reviewing all the new memes from all the Interwebs posted in the past 12 hours and forwarding way too many of them to Jeana. After 30+ years of togetherness, you would think he would know what she thinks is funny. But he still doesn't.

9 am - One of us lets the dogs out on the deck.

9:01 am - One of us drags the dogs back in the house because they are barking their heads off at a leaf that blew by in a suspicious manner.  

9:30 am - Jeana starts her online teaching day, stationed at the kitchen table next to the sliding door to the deck so we can repeat the dogs on the deck escapades all day. She just loves teaching online. It's like experiencing all the challenges of teaching with none of the rewards and triple the work. Fulfillment defined.

10 am - Their morning online "school" sessions completed, the mistreated, overworked, sleep-deprived children are forced to eat something decent for breakfast other than cookies or Goldfish crackers.

10:30 am - We all begin the daily distance learning homework process. This adventure has its own journey that will be detailed soon, although I need to speak to my therapist after I write each paragraph. 

11 am - Someone lets the dogs back out on the deck.

11:01 - Someone drags the barking dogs back in because there's a human (450 feet away) who DARES to walk in the woods adjacent to the house. Red freaking alert.

12:30 pm - We force those same young oppressed child labor victims of our parenting to eat lunch.

1:30 pm - We all get back on the distance learning homework train, which is now even slower and crankier than the morning train because the children are coming down from being force fed a moderately but not really at all nutritious lunch. And they don't want to do any more work because they need sufficient time to whine about being bored and to complain about missing their friends and to argue with us about how this all sucks, which is much better than doing homework. 

3 pm - We (yes, we) finish the distance learning homework (OK - HOME SCHOOLING), then reprise the same argument with the boy from yesterday (and the day before, and the day before) that just because Johnny and Billy get to go to the park and play basketball, you can’t because we love you, and Dad will never ever make it through this virus if he gets it. Have you seen him with a cold?? Seriously. And they may need him around at some point possibly because he may prove useful someday. Maybe. 

3:30 pm - Jeana and Dave again decide what to have for dinner even though we already decided yesterday but we didn’t take something out of the freezer - so it looks like we can have either toast or order 10 pizzas and 75 wings. Since we only order in on Saturdays now so that we can still fit through the door when/if this is all over, it's time for WHATEVER DINNER! Whatever Dinner is usually whatever we can convince the kids to eat without reporting us to Child Protective Services. It ranges from toast (bagels if you're fancy about it), to something lightly completely processed thrown in the oven at 425 degrees for 18-22 minutes, to the kids saying they want to make their own mac and cheese but it really might as well be Dave because they tend to forget things like turning on the stove, adding water to the pasta, paying attention, etc.

4 pm - It's workout time! Jeana? She spends three minutes deciding what type of workout she will do today, then loads a video workout produced by her second home (Lifetime Fitness) and gets to work. Dave, however, starts the 45 minute process of getting ready to work out, thinking about working out, thinking about why he can't work out, getting cranky about working out, deciding which shoes to wear, and then finally starting the workout, usually right around when Jeana is finishing up her workout.

5 pm - The dinner process begins. As you know from the 4 pm entry, Dave is still in the middle of his workout. Jeana is hungry and lets Dave know it. Dave finishes but he's really sweaty (because Dave sweats just thinking about working out) and whines about needing a shower. Jeana has little patience for that. So one of 5,374 things happen, but it's usually either Dave cooking something and complaining about being hot, or Jeana cooking AGAIN and sending Dave upstairs for a quick shower that actually lasts 42 minutes and makes her even more, um, in love...

6:30 pm - Dinner is done, dishes are done (after a 20 minute argument about whose turn it is to do the dishes even though we write it down but we sometimes forget to write it down so the kid whose turn it is always argues that he/she did it last but someone didn't write it down). The children then disperse - the boy makes a beeline to the basement for the PS4 and the alternative universe that awaits him. The daughter will vary her activities: painting something in the basement; watching her show on her iPad in her room with snacks even though we just ate dinner; creating a craft on the floor somewhere. Whatever it is, it always creates a huge mess that she forgets to clean up. It makes everyone (Jeana) ever so happy.

7 pm - Quiet(er) time? Maybe? Jeana watches TV, usually while folding clothes. The dogs are either sleeping or running through the house at top speed. Dave gathers the laundry (over the next two hours because he's slow at everything, but sometimes getting the kids to shower and change is like getting toothpaste back into the tube). Eventually the laundry is started and Dave can start posting 438 things on Facebook.

10 pm - Family TV time! Since we blew through seven seasons of "Brooklyn 99" in what seems like 12 days, we now spend more time negotiating what we might watch together than actually watching it. Jeana puts her "I have a doctorate in English" skills to practical use by researching sit-coms suitable for families that have four COMPLETELY different preferences. Somehow "Brooklyn 99" worked for all of us but I think we're in trouble now...stay tuned on that one as well...

10:02 pm - This is also evening snack time, which is the time that the zero-percent-fat-on-his-body boy fills his arms with every kind of snack we have in the pantry, waddles over to the couch, and commences to consume 79% of his daily food intake in snack form. Not to be outdone, his sister will do her best to finish whatever her brother doesn't grab and then some. Dave tries to sneak stuff but gets caught EVERY. TIME. and receives an informative lecture on how whatever he is eating is very bad for him - and that the snacks are for the kids. Jeana brushed her teeth at 7 so she's not eating - unless we're watching something about food or we see commercials with food. Then all bets are off.

11 pm - We start the bedtime process. This is when EVERYTHING IN THE HOUSE is 427% more interesting than ever before: how the puppy walks; the fact that we have stainless steel appliances; how Canada (a federation) consists of ten provinces and three territories. These facts are in no way an attempt to stall bedtime. Heavens no! After Dave threatens the heathens with the loss of their phones for four years if they don't brush their teeth, the nomadic phase begins. Wandering becomes an art. We find the kids everywhere - sometimes even in the garage. And the dogs? If either of them have any herding capabilities, they aren't showing them because they are tearing through the house like its a fox hunt. I mean, it's bedtime, and that's what they do when it's bedtime.

12:17 - Everyone is in bed. For a little while, anyway. Over the course of the night we will receive cherished visits from the children; kicks in the face and/or stomach (or worse) from a dog dreaming about chasing rabbits; or Dave will hear a strange noise from somewhere in the house and pray that Jeana didn't hear it because he needs to go to sleep to wake up in 45 minutes for some unknown reason. It will probably be a dream about being back in Jamestown with Captain America and Ben Folds because someone robbed the Thom McAn shoe store in the Chautauqua Mall and we need to solve the crime so we can make it to band practice.

"It ain't the heat, it's the humility."

-Yogi Berra