Monday
Week 5 started with the day that I have been waiting for all my life....well, waiting for since March 13th - the day school started again! This time online, but still! I was no longer running the educational piece all by myself.
All by myself...don't wanna be all by myself...anymore...
With each email I got from each teacher I felt just a little bit more relief. But it turns out that my relief was roughly inversely proportional to the boys' dread. Even though we had a "school" schedule the last 4 weeks, they weren't really accountable. Here come the deadlines and grades!
With all of the excitement and dread there also came some irritation and fun. Michael was excited to get some new band music as well as "flex" on his friends in a video chat by playing several of his instruments. There were a few hiccups in the online format that increased confusion. All in all, it's a work in progress, but we've got great teachers and administrators and I've got pretty great kids so I think we'll get there.
Tuesday
Washington is blessing us with some more spring sunshine and opportunities to play outside.
The plants we haven't killed yet are flowering.
The boys are getting creative with games to play when I send them outside with a time requirement. On Tuesday they played beach ball baseball. There was quite a bit of heated discussion about what constituted a home run or a foul and the ball had to be knocked out of the tree more than once, but they seemed to have a good time.
Tuesday evening my very creative photographer friend drove around the neighborhood and took "porch portraits" for interested families. A fun socially distant picture to help remind us of this unique time in our life. After some discussion we chose our motto and Jason made a sign.
Good times. Good times.
Wednesday/Thursday/whenever
Through a series of unrelated but unfortunate circumstances, we are in the middle of pandemic while experiencing epic levels of tree pollen. You probably can't tell, but in this picture there is yellow pollen piled on the red border of the trampoline and when the kids get on it and jump you can see the yellow powder fly in the air.
The upshot is that some of us who do not generally have seasonal allergies have been miserable coughing, sneezing, headachy messes until we started taking claritin. While there is only a little bit of overlap of the symptoms of allergies and COVID19, it was just a tiny bit worrisome. Thankfully, allergy meds, a shower, and closing the windows cured what ails us so I think we're good.
After using up Mom's fancy flower fabric, I moved on to na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na BATMAN! I made kid-sized ones this time and Ben at least is a fan.
Early on I tried to institute a brief dance party after an hour of school time just to break things up and get bodies moving. It was incredibly unpopular from the beginning. BUT Josh borrowed this bar from Aunt Rachel and now the boys like to take break and compare their arm strength prowess. Apparently that is a lot more fun than getting their dance moves on.
The last day of the school week has sort of become an unofficial art day. On the kids' school schedule it is technically a catch-up day open for tutoring, group meetings, or finishing late work. Since Ben is either completely done with his work or avoiding a persuasive essay by Friday, he likes to join us. This week made window clings we saw from a Canadian kid art show. Probably the fact that is Canadian doesn't really matter, but every time the host talks I can hear his accent.
With glue, dish soap, food dye, page protectors, and paintbrushes we ready to go.
Some of us were clearly more ready than others.
One of Isaac's creations was a "bloody" rainbow. His words, not mine.
Ben worked on some abstract art.
A while later we had some very colorful, very wet gluey creations.
I was rather concerned that this was going to be an art fail, but they turned out really well and (thankfully) came off the plastic and clung to the window.
It worked out so well that I think we will repeat this project again later and maybe we can convince the rest of the crew to join us.
Friday afternoon I took all of the boys on an ill-fated bike ride.
It was in the 70s and sunny. Our destination was 5 miles south.
None of the boys would bring water. I did forbid Ben from wearing long johns, but he did wear jeans and a jacket. And he tried to keep up with Josh.
At about 3.5 miles Michael felt ill. I had him take a break and told him to wait for us on boulders while I went ahead to meet up with Josh and Ben.
When I got to the 5 mile point, I made Ben take off his jacket as soon as I saw the bright, bright color of his face. I shared my water with him and then sent Josh back to Michael with the water. I figured that Ben and I (with Isaac in tow) could just slowly bike back to Michael. I figured wrong. Ben was shaking and all the blood drained out of his face and lips.
So that's not great.
After I had him sit on the ground and put his head between his knees, I started making some calls to get him a ride home. Jason was in meetings and Mom was painting, but Rachel saved the day and took Ben and his bike back to the house (after Google Maps pin drama and despite the risk of Ben possibly puking). Ben got to ride in the front seat of her car, so I think he probably thinks the whole experience was worth it.
New rules: everyone MUST bring water and Ben MUST wear shorts and no jacket.
Saturday
More virtual walking time. Couldn't get Michael out on the trail with the memory of Friday so freshly in his mind, but Rachel, Ben and I got a 4.4 mile walk in. We walked from our house to hers and tried to convince Mom to join us for the walk. We were unsuccessful on that point, but Ben did get to eat a fair amount of chocolate so he likely calls that a win.
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