Dispatches from a witch in Italy

I'm an American living in Italy. I've been here since 2003, in northern Italy since 2008 when I moved there to live with my partner. We've got a 6 year old son who's in his first year of school. We live in Veneto, which is where the second batch of community outbreaks happened.

So here's how my last couple weeks have gone:

Saturday, Feb. 22: My 6 year old son and middle school teacher partner are off from school until Wednesday, Feb. 26 for Carnevale.

Sometimes we go on a short trip when we have these 5 day weekends, but this year we have no plans. One of our friends got put under quarantine yesterday because he lives in the small village where the local outbreak happened (Vo). He was supposed to go out for dinner with my partner tonight, but obviously has to cancel. The mom of our son's best friend asks if we want to go to a Carnevale celebration near our home, but we find out it's been cancelled due to the virus. We're kind of unsure about whether all the measures they're taking are necessary, but are glad to see the government taking concrete action.

Sunday, Feb. 24: Schools in our region (more or less equivalent to a US state) are now closed through to next Sunday, Mar. 1

Our basic reaction is that it's not such a big deal for us personally. I work from home as a translator and my partner's a teacher at a middle school, so whatever. We were already thinking that it would probably end up being longer, though, because there is literally no point of doing a quarantine for only 10 days, given the incubation time on the virus. Our son is pretty happy that he gets a few days at home to veg about and have more time than usual to play Minecraft.

Sunday, Mar. 1: Schools throughout Italy now closed through to next Sunday, Mar. 8.

I mean, we can still personally handle it, but it's getting slightly more complicated because now my partner has to figure out how to create online lessons and our son is getting a little stir crazy. At least we're able to set up a few playdates with one of his friends from school. His teachers have sent some PDFs to do for homework through WhatsApp, which 80% of the parents are super happy about. The other 20% are like, “It's not my job to teach my kids and I have to work.” (these kids are in their first year of elementary school, so literally still learning basic addition/subtraction and the sounds associated with letters).

Thursday, Mar. 5: Schools throughout Italy now closed through to Sunday, Mar. 15.

I'm not a super introvert but do like to have a few hours to myself every now and then, so I've started taking a very very very long time to fold laundry. My son is going a little nuts and spends lots of time running around, jumping on things, talking loudly, and making strange noises. If you are thinking that is normal 6 year old stuff, imagine that but like 250% more. Life is pretty much normal, but when we do our shopping trip we buy a couple extra bags of pasta and rice, along with things like tuna and tomato sauce.