I am a parent of five, a teacher, a scout leader, and a Sunday school teacher. My world revolves around children, my own and hundreds of others that are a part of my life. For weeks there were rumblings of this virus and the possibility of shut downs. Could it possibly be? I live in a huge city with a huge school district. Closing schools in such a large area would be impossible right? Is it really as bad as some were warning? Well, we were about to find out.

I remember so clearly, we were at a scout leader meeting at a high school. The gentleman running the meeting checked his phone and said, “Please excuse me, the school district is closing down in two days and I have to send out a robocall immediately.” My stomach sank. What could this possibly mean? What about my kids? What about my students? What about the 50 kids in my scout troop? What about the families in our Sunday school? There were no answers to be found, but tons of what ifs were running through my mind.

I went to work the next day, a Thursday, and was told it was our last day with students. On Friday staff would come in without students to grab what we needed and not come back to campus until further notice. It was in the hopes that we could return in two weeks. I taught my classes that day, sort of. I am a science teacher so my students had a lot of questions about viruses, and I let them ask instead of focusing on what our lessons were supposed to be. I left them that day hoping to see them in a few weeks.

The next day I frantically tried to pack up my classroom in one day. I have plants and animals all over my class and needed to make sure I could get them home that day. I emptied all my fish tanks and terrariums. I packed up my bearded dragon and loaded up all the tanks in my car. I grabbed some textbooks and planning materials because I didn’t know when I would be back.

I got home around the same time as my kids. Just like me their world was changing instantly around them. Their school would be closed for 2 weeks to bend the curve. We were told to stay at home as much as possible. Only essential businesses would remain open. The shelves in the grocery stores were empty. Seriously with the toilet paper? I can’t figure that one out. There was fear and unknown and we had no answers. And so we started our pandemic parenting journey.

Do you remember back to March 2020 when it all started to come crashing down?