The Real World

Now that we’ve returned to the muggle world, here a sum up of some of the non-magical occurrences in the past week. 

Daniel is gainfully employed. He will be working at the Amazon warehouse. He starts in a couple of weeks and is glad to have a source of income so he will have some money in the bank when he gets started at USU in the fall. He had his onboarding earlier this week and will be able to start once his background check is completed. He has decided to double major in mechanical engineering and music and spent this week brushing up on several of his solos from last year so he could submit an audition video to the music department. Once he did, he was conditionally accepted into the music program, pending the passing of his first jury, which is normal. Next week he has a virtual meeting with the academic advisor so he can start planning out his schedule. He also got into on campus housing this week in one of his top choices in terms of which hall. For the first time since he came home, he is actually excited about school in the fall. That is a definitely a tender mercy.

Nathan has also gotten a job. He is working at Harmons as a bagger until he turns seventeen in two weeks, and then he may move to a cashier position. He had his onboarding orientation yesterday. He had a four-hour training scheduled for today, but when he completed it in only two hours, they put him to work right away. He is very excited to have a source of income because he would really like to go on two school tours next year…assuming the world has returned to a more normal state by then. It also gives him a productive way to spend all the extra hours that he currently has. And once his AP tests are over, he will have even more free time. 

With the state of economy being what it is right now and unemployment being so high, I feel like it is a huge blessing that both Daniel and Nathan have been able to find work so easily. It gives them a way to fill the many empty hours, a change of scenery, and a way to prepare for the more normal future we are all looking forward to. 

Matthew did another at home food challenge this morning and unfortunately, it did not go as we had hoped. It was eggs in cupcakes, and he had a reaction after his first bite. He was incredibly disappointed. As we’ve worked through egg waffles, egg muffins, egg cornbread and other egg quick breads, he has become increasingly more excited about adding additional foods to his diet. He has been so courageous with this whole process and today was quite a blow. But he’s not done trying. We’ve spent some time pondering the differences between the foods he is tolerating well and the cupcakes, and we have a couple of thoughts. First of all, waffles and muffins cook at higher temperatures than cupcakes, at least 50 degrees hotter. Muffins also bake a bit longer. Cornbread and quick breads bake longer than cupcakes, at least 15 minutes longer and in the case of banana bread, a full 45 minutes longer. That leads us to believe that perhaps he needs things that cook either hotter or longer in order to break the egg proteins down a sufficient amount. Our next step is to try a full-sized cake since that will bake 10-15 minutes longer than a cupcake. We are also going to increase the frequency of his safe egg consumption to see if that will be beneficial. At that point, we’ll have a conversation with his doctor to reassess the plan. As of right now, it looks like eggs in cookies is not going to be within his reach, but we’ll see how things progress in the future. He is not giving up. 

We received Malia’s track assignment and unexpectedly, she will be on A track next year. That was actually very unexpected because B is always our first choice and since A track is always in such great demand and B is not, we’ve never gotten anything other than B. Nevertheless, somehow Malia ended up on A track and she’s terribly disappointed. Not only will she not be in the same class as all the other B track enthusiasts that she’s been with since kindergarten, but she will not have the teacher she was expecting. Our 4^th grade B track teacher is amazing, and we’re both bummed that we won’t get to work with her. And to be completely honest, I’m also disappointed that Malia won’t be home with me for the month of December. I really enjoy having that time to spend doing crafts and activities. On the flip side, having her on A track makes scheduling a family vacation for next summer easier. She will finish school a week after Nathan and Matthew and will have six weeks before the start of the next school year. Although we don’t have any definite plans as of yet, we are tossing around the idea of going to Oregon next year. It would give Daniel a chance to see more of the state than he did, give us a chance to see the area and meet the people he served with, and provide us one last family adventure before Nathan leaves home for whatever is next. And ever since our trip to Seattle a few years back, we’ve all had a desire to head back to the Pacific northwest. So there are pros and cons to the track assignment. I’m hoping that there are at least a couple kids Malia knows on track with her, and I know she is hoping for the same thing. We’ll have to wait and see. 

Overall, it feels like we’ve hit a new normal around here. Everyone is pretty settled in their routines and I don’t wake up each morning feeling like nothing is as it should be. As a few businesses start to reopen and guidelines about social interactions relax a bit, I think we’re all glad and ready to be able to have a bit more freedom. On the other hand, I still feel a need to be incredibly cautious. I think that will be with me for quite a while. I’m already a bit of a clean freak and a germaphobe (Ok, maybe more than a little. I can be honest here.) and I find myself obsessing a bit about making sure everything is clean and everyone is careful. Being out in public still puts me on edge. But having some semblance of a normal life back would be positive for all of us. In the meantime, we continue to make things work at home and try to add some good to the world every day.