Corona Ball

Today we learned how to play Corona Ball. It’s an invented game that complies with social distancing, without complete social isolation. Our neighbor throws snowballs from across the street, while our kids take turns knocking them out of the air with a shovel. It’s a game that can most certainly only be played in Canada- specifically Alberta with the ever-changing weather.

This week we also learned a lot of other things. Mostly, what we should NOT be doing to make things worse. It’s taking a minute to sink in, but I have as much faith in Canadians to do the right thing, as I did in Sidney Crosby to sink that golden goal.

We also learned that despite always SORT of knowing that every job was important to keep the wheels of our comfortable life in motion, a cashier at your local grocery store is more valuable than you had ever considered until you desperately need toilet paper.

We learned that women don’t just make incredible doctors, but that they make extraordinary Chief Medical Officers. Particularly in Alberta where we have all begun to admire Dr. Hinshaw in the calm way she delivers facts, makes decisions, follows her own recommendations, and rocks the heck out of the periodic table.

But mostly we have learned how to stop being so busy. And that’s so hard. We have learned what a clear schedule and nowhere to go can do for us.

Don’t get me wrong. The stress of cooped up kids, taking the reins of their education, and the process of converting office life to home office life is suffocating. I’m grumpy and short with my kids, and wondering why everyone keeps telling me that building pillow forts and crafting will satisfy them and replace formal education (oh. I have a schedule. It’s nothing special but I am threatening to release a public Tic Tok video for serious violations). But I am learning to tune out social media opinions in regard to anything taking place right now.

We aren’t learning to be moms and dads. We are. We are learning how to pivot and make this new, strange world work for us.

For us, today, it was me in goalie gloves trying to stave off the burn/bruise from my oldest throwing footballs at me, having the time to teach my daughter how to make a recipe my Granny taught me, and to stop taking life so seriously, and to sit and laugh. To really, really laugh when my youngest insists on yanking his shorts to his armpits and taking over the Zoom call with my friends because we all needed to learn how to laugh after a week of high emotions and unmitigated fear.

Just like we figured out the rules of Corona ball while yelling at each other across the street today- we will learn as we go. (Also I may be raising a baby Will Ferrell and that’s something I’ll definitely need to learn how to do.)