The COVID Diaries, Week 2

Our first week of magical family togetherness was blessed with beautiful weather which allowed us to spend time hiking and biking in the sunshine. I think Washington State knew it was going to be rough week for a lot of us. But week 2 was back to the usual PNW weather.  We had some sun, but it was mixed in with rain and HAIL no less.

Sunday

The last of the fully sunny days. Jason had the boys use our new CORONA lawn aerator to poke hundreds of little holes in the backyard. 

Ben and I planted seeds in our little garden. Kind of wishing I had documented this better, but I *think* we planted peas, carrots, and zucchini.  Guess we'll find out eventually!

We held our second at-home church service with the oldest boys passing the sacrament (a little bit less laughing this time) and we watched a conference talk by Elder Holland ("Are we not all beggars?" I think).  Later we were able to do a zoom video call with Oma and Opa. It was fun to talk with them, but the boys think that their lives are so boring these days that they don't have much to share.

Monday
And the clouds came and it was gloomy in the land. We continued our daily routine and I spent some time cleaning off the top of and organizing the insides of the buffet so I could create the collection of STUFF TO DO (games not included).

Tuesday
We had a chunk of time that was projected to be nice...well, not rainy...so I dragged the grumpalumps to the community garden so we could weed our plots and plant seeds. That sounded like so much fun to Nana that she came along to capitalize on the free, if grumpy, labor. We found a new kind of weed that has a spectacular root system which we would appreciate more if we weren't trying to eradicate them. Our two plots both look roughly like the one below and we planted peas, carrots, cucumbers, and broccoli. Again, I didn't do much documentation so it will be a bit of surprise where they all are.

Wednesday
Again, with a brief break in the weather predicted, we took the opportunity to get out on our bikes again. Ben wasn't super enthusiastic (he was in the middle of building project), but I told him that the way to stop the tushie pain is to keep biking somewhat consistently, otherwise you go back to square one. That was a good motivator. We kept the mileage down to 4 this time and went to visit Nana. She had just returned from her second of three dentist visits for a root canal, so that kind of put our frustrations in perspective. Sure, the boys were stuck with only each other to play with and I won't let them play video games during the week, but no one was drilling in their mouths these days.

I realize he doesn't show up in these posts often, but Jason is always with us these days. Well, in the house even if we only see him periodically. The only desk in the house is in the front room where a lot of the action is these days, so he has set up a make shift office space in our bedroom. Check out his adjustable desk, cushy chair, and spectacular views. Given the layout of our house, you could say he has a corner office.

Thursday

I tried to convince him that all birthdays are cancelled during the stay-at-home restrictions, but he didn't buy it. SO, we had to have a birthday celebration after all. He spent the afternoon with Nana making donuts. They returned to our house with Aunt Rachel so we could eat Indian food and corn dogs, depending on who you are. Dessert and then gifts. In the end he got to turn 11 after all.

My STUFF TO DO collection was a little successful as Ben spent a couple of days and more than a little bit of glue building a trebuchet that ultimately convinced him that it was not the most accurate of weapons. Consequently, he has managed to hit any number of things in the front room he did not mean to hit. Most of them on the opposite side of the room from where he was aiming.

Friday
For fun I traced Isaac on paper and let him decorate himself. It was an...interesting project. He grabbed a handful of markers and used them all together. At the top of his head he colored in his hair chanting, "Infinite power! Infinite POWER!"

And then, he took the markers down south and started chanting, "My multi-color penis!"

Riiiigggghhhhhhtttttt. Hahaha.

Then he had me hang it from the balcony. Much to his brothers' chagrin.

I spent much of Friday afternoon working at the Food Bank. While that sounds rather altruistic of me, the opportunity to get AWAY FROM THE PEOPLE IN MY HOUSE was a huge motivation to go.  I neglected to lift with my legs most of the time I was there, but it did feel great to put together so many boxes of food. It was also sobering to realize that though we filled 7-8 pallets with boxes and boxes of food to be distributed it is still only a small amount of what is handed out these days.

On a positive note, Friday is also the day we found out that Ben got into Aspire!  Hooray! And he was also very excited to find out that his friend C got in as well.

Also, this was the first day of remote Jazz piano lessons. Not ideal, but we are grateful Michael has the opportunity to continue even with the stay-at-home regulations.

Saturday
Another weekend, another 5k walk for our virtual running/walking club.

Two weeks down.

Birthday Boy

In honor of the day and as a (Martyn) family tradition:
  Happy birthday!
  Happy birthday!
  Misery is in the air,
  People dying everywhere,
  But happy birthday!

Spring Celebration

Spring surprised me this year be showing up on March 19th. That and the slow down on Amazon shipping (I really shouldn't plan on that website bailing me out every time I haven't bothered to keep on top of things) meant we didn't celebrate until today.

I also scaled back our celebration to a few games and then on to the part they care about: their loot. 

Also failing in the cutesy department, I used reusable bags because apparently I got rid of the Easter baskets in some bizarre cleaning fit and haven't yet replaced them.

#covid19parentingwins

Closed eyes to up the anticipation.

Let the unpacking begin!

As is normal for our house, the greatest excitement comes in the smallest body.

The traditional peeps were consumed with much gusto.

Michael scored some finger strengtheners that were advertised as helpful for pianists and guitar players. Also maybe doubles as a fidget toy??

Isaac received the watch for which he has been begging. He wants to learn how to tell time, but we set the goal of counting to 100 first.  He does keep forgetting the number 15, but I figure that's close enough.

For our budding scientist and cellist, a geology t-shirt and Yo-Yo Ma CD.

Josh has been begging me to rent the third Maze Runner movie this week, which was awkward because that is was I bought for him. I managed to put him off until today so he was still excited to get it. He put it away before I started taking pictures, but I got a shot of his t-shirt. (Actually, they each got a different shirt, Isaac and Michael just weren't wearing theirs when I was taking pictures.)

And then they had the Trolls Oreos for dessert because those have glitter in them and nothing screams "spring" like glitter in your poop!

Happy Spring!

The COVID Diaries, Week 1

Looking at this calendar, can you guess when school was cancelled and social distancing enacted in our area?

So, I am going to start our first week back a day. While we knew as of Friday that school was closed for 6 weeks, nothing had really changed for Saturday. Future posts will be Sunday to Saturday.

By the way, there really is nothing like getting a text being told all of your children are going to be home for 6 unexpected weeks. I mean, I love them, but we don't homeschool for a reason. Part of the reason is that I am happy to have very qualified professionals educate my kids. And part of the reason is my sanity.

Oh well. Sanity isn't really a necessity like, say, toilet paper, right?

Both of which we may be running low of soon.

Saturday

Saturday was PI DAY! Some years I am not on my game and this most delicious of holidays passes by uncelebrated. Not this year! Especially with the news from Friday, we all needed pie. I ended up making 4 pies because the recipes each made 2 pies. While the ratio of pie to people was a little ridiculous, nobody was complaining.

Sunday
This is when all the changes started to hit our daily life.  Church was canceled with everyone encouraged to have their own church time with their family. Josh and Michael found is rather awkward to be administering the sacrament all by themselves so there was some giggling, but I'm sure that will subside with time.

Probably.

Jason and I made a quick trip to Walmart that evening where I made the amusing discovery that no matter how panicked people are here right now, they are not panicked enough to eat gluten free bread....even when there is no other option.

Monday
We took it easy on our first day of our coronacation. Jason went in to work for the day; his last day for a while. I took some time to sit with each of the boys to figure out what resources their teachers had provided at that time. Also, I signed them up for some Khan Academy classes to fill in any gaps for math and Josh's AP World History class. I got the genius idea that we should also have a book club so I did some research on 7th and 8th grade suggested reading lists for ideas. We started with The Crossover by Kwame Alexander, which I highly recommend.

In addition, I got sucked into playing the world's longest game: Monopoly. And yes, I hear Risk is longer, but to be fair I have never finished a game of Risk so I can't speak to that. The upshot was that Ben creamed us all.

The most difficult aspect of Monday was watching the implications of social distancing slowly sink in for the kids, especially Josh. This *fun* break from school became increasingly less fun as they realized that there would be no school but also no friends, no spring break trip, no swim classes, no soccer, no jazz band class, etc. This is normally a fairly busy time of year for us and almost all of those activities came to a crashing halt. And all of those interactions with friends were immediately cancelled for the foreseeable future.

Tuesday
We got a good start on our new schedule. The boys wake up or are woken up by Isaac at 8am. School time starts at 9am and goes until 11am. Stuff from teachers, practicing instruments, Khan academy, and reading our book of the week all count. Then lunch and outdoor time and another 1.5 hours of school stuff. For our outdoor adventure, we drove over to the least popular trail I could think of, Mima Mounds. I was hoping the wildflowers would be out (they were not) and that we'd be alone (we were not). The boys had such a good time that they begged to go biking the next day rather than hiking again.

Tuesday also marked the first day of Jason's telecommuting adventure. Fortunately, he has a work laptop and headsets for his video conference calls. However, his work space is in our bedroom which is not ideal, but at least puts a door between him and the chaos of the rest of the house.

Wednesday
More school work and then out to the garage to pump up all the bike tires and convince Ben that he really did want to want to learn how to ride a bike. Sigh. Yeah, the fact that Ben can't ride a bike is totally on his parents who just never seem to get around to it in any sort of consistent fashion. And now he is old enough to have all sorts fears, real and imagined, about cracking his head open after falling off of his bike.

But once he got past that, it took a surprisingly short amount of time before he was riding his bike. To celebrate him learning how to ride his bike, we had him bike to go visit Nana - a 4 mile round trip inaugural bike ride.

Thursday
School again. Then to mix it all up, Jason had the boys do some work on the lawn (Little did they know this was just the beginning! Bwah ha ha ha!). We also experimented with Zoom video chats so Michael and Ben each got to hang out with a friend on the computer.

Isaac has also been very interested in doing school work. Luckily, I did get some K workbooks a while back and still have some of the supplies from our brief foray into online public school. I've been flying by the seat of my pants and may be teaching him things out of order, but he's happy for the attention and to be a big boy like his brothers.

Friday
School again. Then we tested out Ben's biking skills and the tolerance of his tushie by going on a 9 mile bike ride. His tushie was not happy, but he did a great job. As part of our afternoon school we talked about our bookclub book which was different than what they normally read. To keep some parts of our lives normal, we continued with our tradition of Friday pizza and movie night.

Saturday

Our running/walking club has gone virtual as we all move to social distancing. Rachel, Ben and I got our 5k in this morning and then posted on FB where we could also see pictures others posted from their morning runs/walks.

Earlier in the week, Jason and I had ventured over to Lowe's. Lowe's, by the way is a great store for social distancing - huge aisles that are rarely crowded and the garden center is even outdoors. Jason has some plans for the yard....something about getting rid of the weeds and growing actual grass. I don't know, it seemed kind of complicated. My plans include, well my plan (singular) is a garden. We're getting a couple of garden beds at the community garden this summer, but this extra time at home has inspired me to start our home garden as well.

Which meant doing some digging Saturday afternoon.

Because misery loves company, I mean joy should always be shared, I had some helpers come outside. Josh lucked out with the job of putting the raised bed together: a good lesson in reading directions and measuring twice, drilling a hole once.

Isaac was quite disturbed that he didn't get to work too, so he took on the job of spreading some of the extra dirt I dug up on the dead spot in the backyard (we may or may not have left the trampoline in one spot for a while this winter).

Michael utilized his muscles to load up and haul away the chunks of dirt and weeds, er grass I had dug up.

With the help of Josh and Michael's strong and uninjured backs, we filled it in with soil. And the finished product is now ready for seeds, sun, and water.

And where was Ben this whole time? Well, our little procrastinator was still deeply involved with his indoor chores. Because everything in the universe must be fair, he was tasked with spreading weed killer and doing some weeding in the front yard. He can almost see his excitement radiating from his body, no?

There you have it, one week down, who knows how many to go.

My personal philosophy is that we need to do some school stuff every day to prevent coronacation loss in math and ELA (also instruments for those who play) and keep some structure in our lives. Also, I refuse to argue about screen time all day long or listen to nonstop bickering so having expectations about how our days will go (school, lunch, outdoor/exercise, free time, school) keeps me sane. At the same time, I am trying to make sure that we pace ourselves. We've had some fun this week, but we've got spread it out. This is not a sprint or even marathon. It's an Ironman race. We've got pace ourselves for the long haul.

Hot Chocolate Run

I have great ideas! Wonderful, terrific, AH-MAZ-ING ideas. 

Ok, no, I have crazy ideas that I manage to sell to unsuspecting people (and Rachel, but she enjoys pain). 

Most people in my family have learned their lesson and stay far, far away. But, now that we have moved to a new state there is fresh meat are new friends who don't know about my past. Oh, and the kids have been exempt up to now, but all that changed at the HOT CHOCOLATE 15K RUN!

Many, many months ago I got Rachel and Becky excited about doing a race that involved chocolate. Who cares about the 9.3 miles of Seattle hills to be conquered? There was going to be chocolate!  Unbeknownst to me, Ben had been paying attention to what I was saying (it happens sometimes) and he was also excited about the chocolate.  Oh, and the bragging rights. Then a little while ago, I met someone at a local running group who had registered but couldn't go and voila! Josh was sucked in as well.

Becky was so excited about the race that she forgot the exact date and registered to do a relay race (8 miles) the day before.

Let us all take a moment of silence for Becky's awesomeness.

Race day we all piled into the van with our incredibly helpful driver, Jason, and drove to Seattle. As we pulled up to the Space Needle to get dropped off, I realized that I had been reading the race start time incorrectly the whole time and the race was starting right then! 

Cue panic. And incredibly apologetic Irene.

Luckily, the race had 12 waves so we easily got in line then got out of line to use the bathroom and then got back in line again and still had to wait a while before they released our wave (the very, very, very last one). Did I mention we were in the last wave? As in, the 15 minute mile pacer (the slowest pace allowed technically) and the race SWEEPER (not just a little ominous sounding name) were right behind us.

Our chocolate crew. And that is Josh's normal face in the morning and had nothing to do with the fact that he was running and would not be able to partake of any of the chocolate.  (Never fear, I had a box of thin mints - they're vegan! - in the car waiting for him.)

I may have some issues. My body does not appear to be very fond of running. I killed a bone dead trying to train for a half-marathon. I seriously sprained an ankle at a half-marathon (the infamous potty dance). I wrenched a knee at a half-marathon. You think I'd take the hint, but no. I hadn't ever really properly trained for those races, so I was determined to do it right this time. Starting in September I worked out 4-5 days a week for 1-1.5 hours. Which somehow lead to me injuring myself before the race.  I spent a month and a half trying to carefully manage my issues while still getting a good cardio workout consistently.  

That worked out ooooookkkkaaaaaayyyyyyy. Rachel and I ran the downhill parts and walked the uphill parts. The pain was a little crazy when I was running, but I was super motivated to stay as far away from the SWEEPER as I could.  I couldn't stay very far away, but it did keep me moving.

But I wasn't moving as quickly as Ben! In a surprise upset, he beat Josh to the finish line. Technically, Ben was supposed to be running with an adult because he was under 12, but we all knew that wasn't going to happen. We gave him a cover story (I lost my mom, but I know where our meet up spot is after the race) and Rachel gave him her phone and we set him loose. Jason said he was so intent on looking for Josh first at the finish line that he almost didn't see Ben cross. 

Josh (running as a male between 50-54 years old) developed a side stitch early on that slowed him down to a walking pace for a mile or so.  But he rallied and finished just 31 SECONDS after Ben. I have to say that I appreciate that he is representing for CU Boulder!

Rachel was kind enough to hang out with me during the race. She chatted while I huffed and puffed. Always good to have company to distract you from what you are actually doing. Especially in a town as hilly as Seattle.

Josh was waiting for us at the end of the race and we snagged one of the professional photographers for a picture.  Please note Josh's resting teenager face.

Afterwards we all grabbed our hot chocolate and biodegradable mug with fondue stuff. Honestly, the chocolate was a bit of a disappointment and I wished they gave us a real mug with a couple of bars of chocolate to take home - my stomach wasn't really ready for rich food after 15k. 

BUT the medal is very cool (please forgive my blurry pic) and the jackets are a huge improvement over the t-shirt you get at some races. I think Ben has been wearing his since we got it at the expo the day before. Like, I said, he was very interested in the bragging rights.

Our race results are below. Where you see SCOTT, read JOSH.

Afterwards, we were all sore and tired, but muscles are recovering and I have an appointment with a physical therapist next week. Hopefully she/he won't give me the stink eye when I tell her/him what I've been up to.

Do You Even Leap, Bro?

This year came with an extra day and it was packed. We definitely got our days worth on this one.

The day started with a divide and conquer - Jason took Michael to honor band practice and I took Isaac to pick up Josh's race bib and Nana and then go to Kindergarten Registration.

Yes, it is finally happening. Littlest minion is going to kindergarten. Can I get a hallelujah?

In an interesting twist, the entire district did kindergarten registration at a high school at the same time. Does that sound like a perfect recipe for long lines? Because it was a great recipe for long lines. To be fair, they did try to make things more exciting for the kids with activity tables and a balloon guy, but still.

I was thrilled to finish the process and hand over all the paperwork because we had more to do.

After dropping off Mom, we returned home to pick up Jason, Josh and Ben to head to a baptism. The two boys who live behind us were getting baptized and we were glad to squeeze the happy event into our busy day. An hour later, we dropped Josh at a friend's house and headed to Seattle. Mom was kind enough to pick up Michael and take him home to get some rest before his concert.

What on earth would possess us to do a there and back to Seattle in one afternoon? Saving money. At least, that was the idea several months ago when I figured we'd save money by picking up our race packets rather than having them mailed to us. However, by the end of February, it felt like it would have been worth it to splurge and save ourselves the trip.

Oh well.

We picked up our bibs, tried on our jackets, tasted some chocolate (of course!), bought some Girl Scout cookies, and took some pictures by the inflatable chocolate bar. Then loaded back in the car to go home.

Why so soon? Well, we had to pick up Josh at 5pm and Michael had an Honor Band concert at 7pm...oh and the people who live in our house felt entitled to eat a meal every evening. 

Then we all went to bed since four of us had to rise early in the morn to head back to Seattle for the Hot Chocolate Run.

Valentine's Day, Belated

It was later than most people traditionally celebrate it (thanks a lot, norovirus!), but we did finally have our Valentine's party.

Mom and Rachel came over to enjoy the dinner Michael made (stuffed shells - they looked/smelled amazing) and then play games.

Michael: I made this!

Games:
"I love to see you smile": minute to win it game where you have 60 seconds to get people to smile, 1 point per person. Interestingly enough, Jason was horrible at keeping a straight face, but he was also the only person who made everyone smile. Jason, Michael, and Ben (and Isaac) were pretty much a given every round.

"Heart Zap": we covered the front door with paper hearts with various point values on them and a few that said ZAP which made you lose all your points from that round. Everyone got 5 tries each round to bounce a tennis ball on the ground and then hit the paper hearts for points. Jason won, but Nana made a very respectable showing. Ben was the only one to hit ZAP and was canvassing for golf scoring.

"Marshmallow Build": teams of two had 3 minutes to build a structure from marshmallows and tooth picks. Rachel and Ben rocked this one while Mom and Josh's couldn't stand long enough to be measured. Isaac kept sneaking marshmallows.

"Kiss the Frog": similar to pin the tail on the donkey, but we pinned lips on the frog prince/princess (we've learned from Jurassic Park that some frogs can change gender as needed, so that was the kind of frog we had). Rachel decided to go all in. And Isaac kept sneaking marshmallows.

"Cupid's Arrow": Isaac and I colored sets of 15 swabs with markers to make 8 different sets so we could use straws to shoot them into a bowl and get an accurate count per person. I got paper straws which caused some technical difficulties, but it was still fun though some of us got a little lightheaded with all of the blowing.

And then dessert. I try to make it a tradition to have special Valentine's floats with red soda with red vine straws for the kids (most adults don't seem to find them very appealing). Ben decided to go with a deconstructed float this year (ok, it was just soda in the cup and ice cream in a bowl), but I did get my pictures.

Another sugar-filled holiday on the books.