The COVID Diaries, Week 6

Well, I've officially started losing days.

Sunday
Maybe I went on a bike ride? I know we started our church later than usual because of a high stakes Catan game that got started late. We watched a Holland talk and then....ate dinner or something?

Monday
Second week of continuing learning was less stressful as everyone knew mostly how the routine was going to go.  I think this was the day the contractor came to have us pick out floor samples for the bathroom. Maybe?

Tuesday
Unsure. Seems like we biked to the garden at some point early in the week.

Wednesday
First day of the bathroom demo before the bathroom reno. And why are we doing such a ridiculous project in the middle of a pandemic? Behold, the effects of a slowly leaking toilet. Don't worry, there's more hiding under the tub and the walls.

Isaac keeps finding random beads around the house so I finally brought out my beading gear and tools. I haven't used this stuff for a few years so I let him use whatever struck his fancy. 

A lot struck his fancy.

Ben is often easily distracted from his school work these days and joined in the jewelry-making fun.

Yeah, this was definitely Isaac's idea of a good time.

I think we may have used up all of my fun ideas on Wednesday because in the afternoon we did some chalk art.

As you can tell, Ben wasn't the most productive with his school work on Wednesday, but Isaac got a really neat chalk balloon out of it.

Thursday
Michael has been hired to do some yard work at Rachel's house. Sometimes it involves me hauling the mower over there in the back of the van and sometimes he bikes over to chop down unsuspecting bushes and dig out enormous roots.  I don't know the particulars but they've arranged some sort of payment system that may or may not involve a bass guitar. I've decided to stay out of it.

We heard quite a bit of banging throughout the day and at the end of it the bathroom looked like this:

Like our new window view of the garage?  Our contractor assures us it's temporary, which is exactly what you want to hear from your contractor!

Friday
All the work Rachel, Mom and Michael have been putting into destroying things in Rachel's backyard created a far amount of waste that needed to be hauled to the dump. While I was bagging up a bit of it I found a little friend. I invited her in the house, but she seemed more interested in the hole in the paver stones in the yard.

Interestingly enough, when you've spent the better part of 6 weeks not going anywhere, going to the dump can seem like an exotic adventure. We even drove on the highway!

Saturday
There was rain, there was sunshine, there was chocolate - another Saturday morning 5k on the books.

The COVID Diaries, Week 5

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.

Friday
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.

Another week on the books.

The COVID Diaries, Week 4

Welcome to week 4. I've gotten to the point where I will probably need to work on this post every day because the days are just blurring together. 

Sunday

One of our new coronacation traditions is cinnamon roll crescent rolls for Sunday breakfast. Dairy free, sugar full, and brings a smile to all the boys' faces (okay, not a full on smile from Josh, but he doesn't seem quite so upset to be awake).

This Sunday was Day 2 of General Conference. We decided Saturday was optional for the boys and that was fine by them. For Sunday I tried a simple but effective strategy to keep the boys listening: I put a plate of chocolate chips on the floor and they each picked a word to listen for. Each time they heard their word, they got to each a chocolate chip. Josh chose wisely with "Joseph" and Isaac made the obvious but brilliant choice of "Jesus".  Michael and Ben chose "faith" and "Mormon", respectively and were not partakers of the chocolate. We let the middles change their words part way through for a more even distribution of sugar.

By the end of it, the boys were all fairly sugared up and Isaac was a meltdown ready to happen.  But he made it to end of the afternoon session for the closing prayer...on Jason's head.

Monday
More biking. Less examining the map in advance. Jason and I figured it was probably only 2 miles to the garden from our house. Which made it the longest 2 miles ever since it was closer to 5 miles.  Oops! We eventually made it there to soak our itty, bitty pea plants and the rest of the seeds in some water - a necessity since we've had a break from our regularly scheduled rainy weather.

During our unexpectedly long bike ride, the governor made the announcement that we knew was coming: no going to school for the rest of this school year. Online education until the middle of June it is!

Sigh.

Ironically, this week was "spring break" - rather anticlimactic when every day is a staycation.

Tuesday
Seriously, who knows? I mean, Ben had a cello lesson but I don't remember the rest.  Oh, wait, this was the day the contractor came by to tear open a part of the ceiling in the garage to check on what damage the every-so-slowly leaking upstairs toilet has done and give us a quote for that and some other work on the outside of the house. Owning a home just became so much fun!!!

Wednesday
I made the laughable decision to have Michael try to help Ben tune his cello. If it hadn't been so noisy (cello, piano, electronic tuner, Michael humming, and Isaac turning up the sound on his Kindle), it would have been hysterical. Michael was accusing Ben of not knowing which note he was playing (he did know). Ben was accusing the piano of being flat (it's electronic). Michael accused Ben of making up words (resin is a real word).

Once again it became an argument of BAND vs ORCHESTRA and it ended as a draw. Also, I texted Ben's cello teacher and she sent me a link to an app to tune cellos so we may never do that again.

Thursday
Several days this week I decided to go to battle with the sewing machine. Mom bought some fancy fabric 10 or so years ago and I decided that it was (finally) time to put it to good use and make masks.  There may have been some tears and some swearing (both from me) and it was a learning process, but I made some masks.

I spent another afternoon at the food bank. This time I scheduled to volunteer at the same time as a friend of mine so we could hang out. This time the task was to unpack, sort and repack donations from Trader Joe's - which was awesome though it definitely made my shopping list for TJ's a bit longer than it already was. Nicely played, Trader Joe's nicely played.

Friday
The kids are tired of the school stuff I have them do, I am tired of finding school stuff for them to do, and I was tired of sewing so I brought out the water colors. There wasn't much interest at first (Isaac even played a 2-4 person player game by himself to protest the paint project), but I got Isaac and Ben in the end.

I found a painting in an art book to recreate. I have to say, water colors are more finicky than I thought, but it was fun to play around with them.

I vaguely recalled that if you sprinkle salt on wet water color paints it creates cool effects so thought we should try it. Isaac took this idea all the way and I think I've seen fast food french fries with less salt than his art. He loved it, but we had to move his papers very carefully and give them A LOT of shaking over the trashcan after they dried.

Ben went geometric, less salt, and layers with white crayon under the paint.

Saturday
We decided to get our Saturday morning 5k in as a 5 mile rollerblading adventure. Except for Ben. Ben refuses to see the beauty and fun of rollerblades and ran/walked/jogged/felt a little resentful when the rest of us just rolled effortlessly on the downhill section while he ran. He did great, but was threatening to ride his bike next time so we would have to work to keep up with him.

It's crazy to think that in 2 days it will be one month since the schools closed. I am so relieved that I will be able to hand the kids' learning (mostly) over to the teachers on Monday.  Hopefully the teachers will also find ways for the kids to get more interaction with their classmates. And pretty much anything the band teacher does will make life better because Michael has really struggled with not having new music or instruction on his instruments.  I've heard that the curve is likely flattening in our state (hooray!). It's helpful to hear that the stressful changes in our lives are helping.

The COVID Diaries, Week 3

Monday

With cloudy weather back on the agenda and no YMCA available, we have to get a little bit creative with our exercise for the littlest minion. I searched for zumba kid videos and found a few that he likes. I think he may be destined to be as uncoordinated as I am at dancing, but he enjoys it and I love watching him.

Practicing instruments has become a bit of a chore for Michael, sadly.  We're into our third week with no band choirs, band classes, and new band music. Luckily, Ben has been taking private cello lessons a couple times a month so he is getting more guidance and continue to make progress.

If nothing else, I am increasingly sure that I would never been a good kindergarten teacher. How do they do it? About every 5 minutes he is bored out of his mind with whatever I come up with for him to do.

Every five minutes.

But he isn't the only one who is struggling these days. I pulled the boys off of their computer school work for an art project. They don't take art in school, but I didn't let that stop me.

Tuesday
A day when Washington messed with my head and I got soaked.  I decided to ignore the fact that 20% chance of rain in Washington means 100%.

D'oh!

Don't tell anyone, but we went for a bike ride and the older three boys got off the trail and went to Nana's house to play Dungeons and Dragons. (I know, I know) Isaac and I kept going a bit further on the trail. It was partly sunny when we left the house.  I turned around when the sky was cloudy but not rainy. Then it started to mist. And then when I passed the turn off for Rachel's house it started HAILING.

FOR THE LOVE, WASHINGTON!

Sure, I figured at some point I would get caught in the rain on a bike.  Didn't see the whole hail thing.

Luckily, Isaac stayed warm and (mostly) dry in the trailer. Meanwhile, my pants were completely soaked and started leaching the heat from my body and the hail melted in my helmet and started leaking down my face.

Fun times.

Then as I got a half a mile from the house, the heavens cleared up and the bright sun shone down on us. Perfect biking weather! Except for that icy cold feeling on my skin.  So we skedaddled home so I could change my clothes and climb under a blanket.

Because I am a caring mother who doesn't want her children to suffer like she did, I drove over to pick up the boys later that afternoon so they wouldn't also get caught in capricious weather. After they got home, Ben got on the computer to play chess over video chat with his friend. I am always impressed when the boys remember to call the pieces by their actual names and not their Simpsons character names.  I would definitely be taking your Maggie with my Krusty if I was playing.

After dinner, Jason and his little helper started a project that Jason has been looking forward to for a while.

Wednesday
Yep, it's the end of an era. This is a desk that deserves a serious face.

I spent the morning...in line. Apparently this is now bizarro world because I stood in line for 20 minutes to get into Costco, but did not have to stand in any lines to get out of Costco.  Still no toilet paper and definitely no free samples, but otherwise an easy trip. Then I stood in line again this time to get into Trader Joe's and no lines to get out.

Side note: If the stores are trying to help people get out quickly to limit the number of people in the store at one time, they need to STOP changing the location of items in the store.  I'm looking at you TJ's! I never did find the GF Joe-Joe's today.

Everyone was going stir crazy and the weather was more accommodating so the boys (even the ones not seen here) spent some of the afternoon on the trampoline.

When the playing devolved into bickering and screaming (Isaac), I tried to interest them in a fun art project I saw on FB. Even with no Wi-Fi, I couldn't convince the older two, but Ben was a good sport and ended up enjoying it.

The colors are a little washed out by the sun in this picture, but I think the final product looked pretty cool.

Thursday
Biking in the hail became my thing this week. There was a short window of time that I could get out on my bike and it just happened to coincide with hail. I, however, wasn't aware of that until we (Ben, Michael, Isaac, and I) were being pelted about 3.5 miles from the house. Fun times! The boys may have trust issues with me in the future when I want to take them biking.

The window was short because I was scheduled to go to the food bank in the afternoon. I brought Josh with me for his muscles and his borderline sullen attitude. He brought his headphones and worked the whole time, but I don't think it was his ideal way to spend an afternoon.

Friday
I decided to take a break from school for the day and loosen the Wii restrictions.  The boys got to sleep in and play our active Wii games. It backfired a bit and we ended up with grumpy kids - the opposite of what I was hoping for. Lesson learned.

Saturday
The weather has been shockingly cooperative for our Saturday morning walks. All three of us decided to represent with our Hot Chocolate jackets.

Because I must hate myself, I decided to try my hand at making masks. Don't believe what the tutorials tell you. It takes MUCH longer than 10 minutes to take one of these suckers. Reason enough to stay home in my book.

My foray into fabric and frustration occupied half the table so the boys had a picnic on the floor.

And we wrapped up another week.