My kid brother turns 38 today. We sent him a video of Alex and I singing Happy Birthday (while Grayson made faces). We’ve never done that before.

We’ve Skyped with my dad three times in the past week. That’s a new routine…not unlike what I wanted to do from when he became a grandpa, before life took over.

My cell battery now has WhatsApp and Marco Polo to contend with, as well as TikTok, when I don’t force-stop it. At first, I hated Marco Polo, but Alex does seem to like seeing his little friends’ videos since they can’t be at school, and it gives us another “Hey, let’s do this thing with technology INSTEAD OF JUST STARING AT A SCREEN” option.

There’s a lot more online communication now. On the one hand, yay! This is what it’s for! On the other, it’s like extroverts found our hiding spot.

It’s me, not them. I’m a writer and a storyteller, but “over-communicate” is development guidance I’ve gotten for years and years. I dearly love and need that online connection, but I find that a lot of folks are blurring lines we’re worked for years to draw; with everyone at home working around life stuff and school closures, there are more “hey, are you still on?” pings than before.

For what it’s worth, COVID-19 is the only thing that rises to the level of “emergency” for me. I love my work and my teams, but as my boss said, the world is on fire and our internal deadlines are…well. We’ll do the best we can, under the circumstances.

We have run out of blueberries, though, which my 3yo definitely considers and “emergency.”