Day 31: No ordinary Wednesday
Hannah and I have had a Wednesday morning routine for the past – oh, three or four years.
We leave the house a little earlier than usual, and stop at Starbucks for me to pick up a venti jade citrus mint tea (black) to take to the County council meeting in High River, and Hannah gets a cake pop. Then I take her to daycare or, this year, school.
It’s been our weekly treat, and she looks forward to it. By Monday morning she’s asking when it will be Wednesday
The wide grin on her face every single week as I toss her cake pop, in its bag, to the back seat warms my heart. I don’t think those treats last two minutes – my girl has a serious sweet tooth.
Of course, we haven’t done this since March 11. And she misses it – we both do.
Today, I covered the County meeting online for the first time. It was strange yet comforting to have some sense of normalcy to my Wednesday (though I seriously missed the Starbucks tea) as I saw the familiar faces and listened in on the regular business of council.
It’s not every day I get to attend the meeting with the sounds of Masha’s Tales, Beat Bugs, The Last of Us, and GTA streaming from different areas of the house. Council chambers has never been so noisy, but I managed to filter out the sounds of children on Easter break with only a few reminders to be mindful of their volume levels.
“That got too loud again” and “Mom’s working” came out of my mouth a few times today.
When Hannah came to investigate, she asked what I was watching. I told her, and she put on a pouty face. “That means it’s cake pop day.”
Her disappointment was quickly diminished with a reminder there’s Easter chocolate in the kitchen.
Then she sprung back into the room to tell me we need to add cake pops to our jar.
Thanks to a Facebook post I was tagged in by my mom, we’ve started a bucket list of sorts. Whenever anyone – the kids, Kevin or I – wish we could do something or say we miss something, we write it down and put it in the jar. Once our restrictions and social distancing measures are lifted, we’ll tackle everything we’ve added.
I keep a stack of pre-cut construction paper and a Sharpie next on the mantle next to our “bucket” so the kids can add things any time. So far, the wish list I know of includes eating out, going swimming, going to the mall, getting ice cream and taking a road trip to see family in Estevan, Sask.
Once we’re able to get out of the house those little things in life will mean so much.
Maybe we’ll stop taking things for granted, like being able to go for dinner or a movie, hang out with friends and family, or play at a playground.
Or stopping on a Wednesday morning for cake pops and jade citrus mint tea.
Krista Conrad, OkotoksToday.ca
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