America is at home.  Our streets and monuments and downtown shops are empty.  Our schools and universities and libraries are deserted.  Sure it's all happening online- and behind those cameras (always focused on the prettiest wall in the house) people are getting a little crazy.  I saw one lady this week do a fashion show with her cat.  I saw a sportscaster do a play by play of his dogs sharing a beloved toy.  Jimmy Fallon is letting his kids write his jokes. How long can we go on like this?

Our backyard is like Lord of the Flies.  I pushed the kids out and shut the door the other day, letting them run wild with tarps and hoses and recyclables and whatever else they could find.  I went out there to check on them hours later and they had set up a post-apocalyptic trading post where one kid with a suspicious eye patch was trading cups full of dirt for empty cereal boxes with the other kid who was sitting, with the dog, in a wading pool full of water.  Peering into the "trading tent" I found a tray of my poor plant starts and was able to rescue them from certain death. There was a lot of mud.  Did I mention these girls are 13 and 9?  Seriously.  Unfortunately they've now figured out if they stay off screens and play nice I won't ask them to do any chores or extra schoolwork.

The flurry of well-meaning home-based activities is dying down.  The storm of cute chalk pictures and window paintings has waned.  I think the next phase will be much less outwardly demonstrative.  I suppose the children will figure out, like mine, that it's kind of ok to be bored in the backyard and parents will learn that it's ok to not talk to another adult for a whole day and that somehow we're all going to make it.  Yes, I'm checking on my extroverted friends to make sure they're ok.  Yes we're getting out for walks and sunshine.  Yes we're going to be ok.  As long as that pirate in the yard doesn't try to sell any more of my plants.  We might need to eat those in a few months.