Quarantine Week 2

Week 2 of the quarantine and we stayed inside.  A lot.  Probably a little too much.  Laziness set in and productivity went down.  At least it felt that way for most of the days.  Maybe that was just my mindset.  Monday started off really well for Caroline.  She finished her first grade math book.  She had a cumulative test and scored a 98%, only missing one problem.  That's my girl!  She usually scores really well in math.  She was pretty proud of herself.  I had her doing worksheets the rest of the week because we somehow ended up with extra worksheets.  Tomorrow she starts second grade math and she's excited.

Since everyone seems to be baking during the quarantine, we raided our pantry for random things I bought during after-Christmas sales.  We had a sugar cookie/Christmas light mix, which Caroline helped make.  She was an equal partner in this and helped during all the steps.  When the cookies were cool, she transitioned to decorator.  Can you guess which one she decorated for herself?


By Tuesday evening both the county Todd works in, and the county we live in, issued Stay At Home orders.  So, he packed up all his work things and set up office at home.  The only quiet place we could give him was Henry's bedroom.  Henry was very accommodating and cleared off his desk and night stand so Todd would have ample work space.  The kids have loved having him home.  They have brought him meals, drinks, and snacks.  Josiah put a sign on his door indicating it was Todd's Office and the rest of us needed to knock to enter.  Todd said he's never had so many visitors during the day.  Also, to Todd's delight, he discovered he can do his entire job at home.  He enjoys both the commute time, the relaxed dress code, and the extra sleep.  We are very grateful he still has a full time job.  With things changing daily and weekly we never know what the future brings.

The kids were really excited to do virtual school with our CC group.  For this week, the tutors had to introduce the new material for 30 minutes and then the kids were able to do their presentations virtually for another 30 minutes.  Caroline's class went the first hour, then Henry's, then Josiah's.  Because they're kids and can learn new technology at the drop of a hat, the boys already learned how to chat with their friends.  Essentially they were passing notes during class.   During Henry's class, he also would not stop walking around the house.  I kept telling him (motioning him with big hand gestures) to sit still!  He didn't listen.  (It did get me cleaning the house, though.)    They also learned how to change their name which appeared on the screen.  Potty humor reigned supreme with that one.  They were able to eat lunch together, too, as the classroom was kept open.  I'm glad they enjoyed it and got to see their friends for a bit.  We also went over virtual classroom etiquette. 

Other days this week, the boys were both able to chat with different friends.  Again, they walked all over the house while doing it.  Henry was giving his friend a tour and walked into my bathroom while I was cleaning it, so now I have to keep our bedroom doors shut during all virtual meetings. No kid needs to see that!

The boys were issued a push-up challenge by one friend.  I'm glad my friends don't challenge me with such things.

We have had many movie nights since this quarantine began.  Last weekend, Todd and I each showed the kids one of our favorite movies from our childhood.  For me, they watched Pollyanna.  Todd showed them Davy Crockett.  A few days later Caroline was pushing to have another movie night.  And I quote, "We already watched movies from your childhood.  Now can we watch a movie from my childhood?"  So we watched Toy Story 4.  From her childhood.  The days have been so long.  We eat dinner earlier since Todd's home, which leaves a ton more time in the evenings.  I think just about every evening, we look at the clock and say, "Ugh, it's only 7:00!"

Henry and I did toss his baseball in the backyard several days.  That kid can throw.  I leave each time with a very sore hand.  (I do have a glove, but he can throw hard.)  I had to have him teach me to throw again because I had no power behind my throws.  I love tossing balls with him, though.  It's relaxing.

We have drawn and colored tons.  Caroline loves her color-by-number book and we've worked on many pages together.  She and Josiah each drew a picture of our family.  Caroline's was sweet and happy.  Josiah's showed two haggered looked parents, a sporty Henry, a princess Caroline, and a very dapper Josiah.

Caroline also drew a sign for her door.  It lets us all know if she's in.  Or not in.


She also drew what I call a "wrap text" picture.  Why separate words by syllables when you don't need to?

Josiah is still very much into the Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems and watches it daily.  

Finally, Josiah has been making my coffee in the mornings.  It's been quite the week for coffee.  In fact this may be the root of my lazy mindset this week - I had no caffeine in me.  He doesn't make it quite as strong as I usually make it.  Then, one morning, he insisted on putting in the creamer.  So, he poured 2/3 cup of weak coffee and 1/3 cup of creamer.  The sugar made up for the lack of caffeine.  Another day he didn't pour a lot of water into the machine, so I had about a mug and a half of coffee total.  He nonchalantly said, "I guess you don't get to drink as much today."  Yeah.   Thanks.  I did tell him that I really appreciated him making the coffee and that he was more than welcome to double/triple the coffee grounds for future days.

Livin' the COVID-19 Quarantined Life - Week 1

This week brought many more closures around town.  All gyms, dojos, hair/nail/piercing/tattoo salons, movie theaters, and many other similar facilities have been ordered closed.  Our library was open til Tuesday.  Then they announced that they would close, but do a curbside pick-up for books that we put on hold.  Unfortunately, after only 24 hours of that, it was discontinued.  Now the libraries are completely shut down.  All restaurants can only do pick-up/drive-thru.  It has been tough for everyone.  I had been in a cooking lull for a few weeks (months..) and most days I didn't care if we ate cereal for dinner.  But now this has required a whole new view of food and being resourceful and creative.  We are making smaller meals, we are using ALL of our leftovers.  We should have been doing it all along, but now we have a whole new view of appreciating the food we do have.  I went to the store this past Saturday morning.  I got there right when they opened and there was a line that wrapped the length of the store and doubled back again.  It took half-hour just to get to the door, which was actually quicker than I thought if you saw the length of the line.  I am not prone to anxiety, but it produced a fair amount of anxiety standing there waiting and wondering what they would have once inside.  I realized as I was shopping that the vast majority of people had lined up to get toilet paper.  Fortunately we didn't need any.  They were out of so many items.  Massive areas of emptiness in the freezer section.  Several refrigerated sections were covered in plastic as they were emptied and not going to be filled.  After walking around for a while, it became humorous to see what foods people left behind.  Protein bars, Vienna Sausages, Organic carton whole milk, Lucky Charms, chicken wings.  At one store, Todd found a huge supply of Spam, which got him excited only to walk over to it and see it was "hot and spicy."  With the toilet paper shortage, it's not surprising "hot and spicy" got left behind.  Despite not getting many of the foods we are used to getting, we do have plenty of food and we're grateful for all we have.  We're trying new foods because that was all the store had left.  If we keep the perspective of having a food adventure, we'll be okay.

This week we did school as usual.  The first few days were a little rough because the neighborhood kids were having their second week of spring break while the school systems figured out what to do.  So the vast majority of our Monday and Tuesday had the kids doing their work with their necks craned to look out the front window.  Grumpily watching their friends roller blade and ride bikes.  That has been a bit of an issue for us - the neighborhood kids have no sense of "social distancing," "6 feet apart," or "quarantining."  It's been frustrating for our kids as they want to be out there in the mix, and it's been frustrating for us trying to keep the quarantine going.  Not only are we trying to stay healthy for the general population, but also for Todd who has asthma and really doesn't need to get this virus.  By Wednesday, the neighborhood kids must have gotten their virtual/online school because it got very quiet outside.


Todd has been able to go into work this week.  We are very grateful that he is still able to work, that he still has a job.  At this point, all of his coworkers are telecommuting, so in the entire second floor of his building, he is the only one there.  He has enjoyed the casual dress code that he has instituted for himself.  I, too, have enjoyed wearing yoga pants every single day.  No fear of anyone knocking on the door or having to go anywhere.  All comfort.  All the time.

Earlier in the week, the International Space Station flew over our house.  The kids stayed up later than usual and we stood outside staring up at the sky at the time it was to pass over.  At first it was really hard to see what was a star and what was an airplane because the clouds kept moving and it was seriously playing tricks on my eyes.  But then there was this really, really bright dot in the sky and it moved in the exact direction the ISS was supposed to travel.  It moved really fast (17,000 mph), but it was a cool sight to see, especially since we just went to NASA.

Bright dot in the middle is the ISS.

We've had some quarantine boredom, some chaos, and some fun.  The kids have watched way too much TV, played way too many video games, but we have also broken out the glitter glue, played Geography Bingo, drawn lots of pictures using Art Hub, played with popsicle sticks and water, tossed the football, tossed the baseball, rode bikes, climbed trees, and walked the neighborhood.  Josiah has really loved watching the Mo Willems Daily Doodles each day at noon.  He has renewed his love of the Mo Willems characters, especially the pigeon.  In fact, he has made many pigeon puppets to help with our CC lesson this week.  We are doing Virtual CC with our group for probably the remainder of the year.  This week we'll do our first "meeting."

Josiah also drew a picture of Babe Ruth.  I thought it was pretty good.  Faces are incredibly difficult.

To combat the chaos and noise volume and constant asking "Can I do media?," I think we're going to have a more strict schedule of when we do things this week.  That way everything has a time and they don't have to ask me a million times if they can do something (namely, media).  While we're used to homeschooling and being at home together in general, we do usually have quite a few activities that break up the days/time.  Without them it's just us, together, all the time, with no breaks.
This is an odd time.  We don't want it to be a miserable time for our kids.  We want them to come away from this with a healthy way to deal with tough situations.  We all have to be flexible as things change daily, yet firm in following the guidelines of social distancing and hand washing.  We need to relax and enjoy time with our family, but also keep a schedule and stay on task so we don't go crazy in the chaos of always being around each other.  We want them to know that through it all, God is bigger than all of this.  It's tough, but we can get through it.  It's frustrating and annoying and disruptive, but it's also only temporary.  And maybe when it's all finished we'll appreciate so many more things that we did before.
Josiah's pigeon puppets for our Virtual CC lesson. He wants to take over as host and he has a pigeon for every expression.

End of Innocence

It was Spring Break for all the school systems around here this past week.  Because of that all our activities were cancelled, which proved to be a good thing with the coronavirus going around.  Half the people said not to freak out and carry on as usual.  We had mainly been in that camp.  The problem has been that the people in the freak-out camp were buying up everything.  At the beginning of the week, all the stores were emptied of toilet paper, paper towels, soap, and hand sanitizer.  But as the week progressed, people were buying up all the meats and milk, eggs and produce.  Even the laundry detergent and dishwasher detergents were gone.

Friday morning I went to the grocery store.  I arrived at 5:55 a.m. hoping to avoid the craziness.  I stood outside with 25 other people waiting to get in at 6:00.  In those five minutes, car after car was parking in the parking lot.  It was NUTS.  There were no apples/bananas/carrots/meat/eggs/paper products of any kind/bleach/laundry detergent/liquid soap.  Fortunately people had not bought up the frozen vegetables, so I got all our favorites.  Todd was able to find some produce at a different store Friday evening.  Since we were only getting piecemeal at each establishment, on Saturday morning Todd got up early to go to a different grocery store.  He got there at 6:00 a.m.  (when they're usually open).  He said there was a line the entire length of the entrance with a sign on the door stating they wouldn't open til 8:00.  So he left.  All he was looking for was milk and eggs.

The grocery stores have gotten wise to the hoarders and this afternoon we checked out one last grocery store in search of eggs.  They had them.  Everywhere there were signs limiting each household to 1 or 2 of each item.  When I got in line to check out, I was third in line.  The first guy who was checking out tried to buy 8 things of fresh meat.  They wouldn't let him.  He only could get two.  Then the guy directly in front of me had a whole case of black beans.  They let him buy three cans.  Same with rice.  He was able to buy up to $10 worth of rice.  No more.  The cashier's computers wouldn't let them even scan any more.  So, we are very grateful for the restrictions for the time being which allow everyone to get some food.  We are pretty much stocked with our normal groceries at this point.  But it took 4 shopping trips to find it all.  Plus, I was able to find some toilet paper online.  Thank you, Office Depot.  We'll have a case of rough office-issued toilet tissue delivered next week.

Caroline found the time to decorate her matryoshka dolls that she got from Aunt Claire.  She loves these dolls and really enjoyed deciding upon their different styles.  Often, she plays with the ones we brought back from Russia, so I'm glad she has her own set now.

Since it was Spring Break, the neighbor kids were around a lot more.  One day, all three kids were playing with one of the neighbor boys, who we'll call Dan (who is 9 or 10).  Dan was chatting with our boys and Caroline felt that what he was saying was inappropriate.  She even brought in a piece of paper because she thought he was saying curse words and she wanted me to see it.  On the paper was the word, "sex."  Great.  Now we had to talk to the boys about it to make sure they had the correct information and not just Dan's interpretation.  Todd had already had talked to Josiah about it, but he still talked to him again just to reiterate correct information and doing things God's way.  Josiah kept his eyes firmly pointed down, completely embarrassed, during their short talk.  Then came Henry.  We hadn't talked to Henry about anything because he's nine and we shouldn't have had to yet!  We asked Henry if he knew what the word meant and he said he thought it meant wearing a lot of make-up.  Maybe in certain situations... Todd proceeded to tell him about the birds and the bees.  He told him about how the baby is made with parts from the man and the woman.  Henry was not embarrassed.  He was full of questions.  He kept saying, "So let me get this straight."  Then he'd proceed to explain it all with zero words and lots of hand motions.  Some of which made sense and some which made no sense at all.  Here were some of his best questions:
"So when it happened with me, did Josiah watch?"
"So how do they get there (sperm)?  Do they float through the air?"
"Where do you find the time to do that?"
"So, do you wear shirts?"

I did have the chance to talk to the neighbor kid.  I showed him the piece of paper on which he had written the taboo word, told him it was totally inappropriate and if he did it again I'd talk to his father.  Please, God, let that be the end of it.  Not cool that Caroline even knows that word yet.

Right now we're just laying low and staying home.  We live streamed our church service this morning, which was nice.  Our CC group has cancelled meeting for the next two weeks.  We are going to try to do it through video apps, though we'll see how that works.  Locally, all the school systems have shut down for at least another week.  Our kids are overjoyed that they are homeschoolers and life will remain much the same.  Yay school.  I think one of the funniest satires I saw was an article entitled:  Homeschoolers to Continue Quarantining Themselves From Everything Like Always.  Really, though, we are going to miss seeing all our CC friends.  To keep from going stir crazy we'll have to start walking the neighborhood and going on bike rides.  Stick to the open air places, lay low, get our schoolwork done, avoid neighbor kids.

San Antonio

We drove to San Antonio on a Saturday afternoon.  On the way there we told the kids they could each get one souvenir so that we could cut down on the asking for everything.  We arrived in the late afternoon and quickly set out to the River Walk to look for a place to eat.  The kids knew that the Alamo was in San Antonio, but we hadn't talked about anything else that was there.  So, as we were walking that first night, we passed over a bridge, Caroline looks over and says, "Oh!  There's a river!"  Oh yeah.  And a River Walk.   We chose Tex Mex for the first meal.  As we were waiting for our food, a man came to our table to take our complimentary picture.  (As the days went on, we realized all River Walk restaurants did the same thing.)  Twenty minutes later he came back with our pictures.  First the free one, but then others that we could purchase.  Now we are not the type of people to purchase these things, but the picture he took of Todd and I was probably the best picture we've had in a very long time.  So we bought it.  Todd said that was my souvenir.

The next morning was Sunday.  All of us woke up at 4:30 a.m.  All of us.  We had a tour scheduled at the Alamo at 10:00 a.m.  We had a lot of time to kill.  For breakfast the kids had really fresh French pasteries at a little coffee shop.  Then we hung out at the playground across the street from our hotel.  It was a very cool playground with a big rope climbing structure.  They had flat saucer swings and spinny things that Caroline loved.  We spent time at this playground every day.  On we went to the Alamo for our tour.  We were at the Alamo on March 1st, which was in the midst of the actual Alamo battle nearly 200 years ago.  They had reenactors there, and they allowed the kids to clean and "shoot" the cannon.  We covered our ears for the loud "Boom" spoken by the tour guide.  It was an interesting tour, but 2 out of 3 kids were fussy and exhausted (due to the early morning I'm sure).

We took this picture the next day when there were less crowds.

For lunch, Todd wanted some fish and chips.  After walking the River Walk, we found a British establishment that had scantily clad waitresses and signs that said, "No one under the age of 21 allowed after 8:00 p.m."  But they had some good fish and chips.  And we got another complimentary picture.  Josiah saw pictures of the Beatles on the wall, so he was happy (and distracted from the ladies).

That afternoon we decided to check out the Tower of the Americas.  It was a 750 ft tower that was built for the 1968 World's Fair.  The ticket included not just the elevator ride up, but a 4-D show about Texas.  It sounded great.  So, up we went.  At the top of the observation area, you could walk the circle inside or you could walk "outside" where they had tall glass walls, but open air after that.  Open air seemed like the logical choice to me, so out we walked.  Josiah immediately said he didn't like it, he didn't feel safe.  Henry tried to go back inside every time we walked by a door.  I made them walk the five minutes around the whole tower.  Face your fears children.  We didn't spend nearly as much time observing the cityscape as I had expected.  Back downstairs we got in line for the 4-D movie.  It was titled Skies Over Texas and I was envisioning some sort of Disney Soarin' counterpart.  But the Tower of the Americas did not have a Disney budget.  It looked like an early 90's TV show with the clarity of the picture.  Despite that, Caroline freaked out when they showed a snake jumping at us.  She was already on my lap when they showed the alligators in the bayous.  So that whole experience was a bust, but now we can cross it off our San Antonio list.

We went to bed that night quite exhausted.  I thought for sure we'd all sleep til 7 at least.  Nope.  Wrong.  4:41 a.m.  Josiah is awake and he's super congested and breathing crazy loud, so he woke me up.  I pleaded with him to breath through his mouth, but he insisted he couldn't.  "I'm not a mouth breather." he told me.  So we were both up from that point.  Todd joined us for breakfast at a German establishment that hails to be the oldest restaurant in San Antonio.  The kids all ordered pancakes and they were good!  With full bellies we said goodbye to Todd who had to go to his conference.  The kids and I headed to the playground to work off said pancakes.  After a few hours of playing we walked to Legoland.  We didn't know they had a Legoland in San Antonio, so we were actually really happy we found it.  We had planned on going to the one in Ft. Worth at the end of April, so now we saved that trip!  Legoland was only one floor of the building, but the kids made the most of their time.  They did a builder workshop where they made a koi fish.  They had a play area and two rides.  The first ride, you had to pedal to get your "car" in the air.  The other ride was a laser shooting ride, and we did that six times in a row.  By the end Caroline had trigger finger and couldn't use her hands.  Legoland also had three 4-D movies.  I didn't tell Caroline they were 4-D.  We just went for it and hoped it went better than the Tower of the America's movie.  This time, she loved it.  It rained on us, there was wind, she got to wear 3-D glasses.  She loved it.  She saw all three movies that they offered.  I was personally freezing at the end because it would rain on us four to five times each movie.  Not just a mist, but actual rain.  Even Josiah skipped one of the movies because he wasn't keen on the rain.

Caroline wanted a picture with ALL the Lego Friends.

After spending hours at Legoland, we took the elevator down to leave.  It, of course, lets you out at the Lego Store.  So we were there for another hour.  Saying "no" to the $70 and $140 Lego kits left and right.  If it has the security wires around the kit, that's not one we're going to buy!  They did get to pick out a Lego key chain because they like to hang key chains from their back packs.  They also got to make their own Lego figures to keep.  Josiah built his figure to look like Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter.

We were exhausted again and that night we all slept past the 4:00 a.m. hour.  The kids did have it rough though.  The hotel room had two double beds.  When Todd registered for the conference he requested a rollaway bed.  The first night we were there, the front desk said they are usually all used up, but they would check and give him a call.  They never called, so Todd checked with them again the next day and that desk clerk said they didn't even have rollaway beds.  So our kids had to sleep three of them to a double bed.  It was tight.  It didn't help that Caroline was in the middle and she's the most hot-blooded child ever so she didn't want covers on her, but the boys on the ends did.  By the fourth night, Caroline slept at the end of the bed horizontally to the boy's vertical sleeping and that worked.  Purchasing a cot is in our near future.

Tuesday, we had another big pancake breakfast before heading out to the DoSeum - a museum for children.  We arrived at 10:00 a.m. when they opened.  We didn't leave until 3:45 p.m.  And the kids would have stayed longer.  They had a cool outdoor playground.  Inside their special feature was a sound and sight area.  They had one huge room where you could play instruments.  And our kids did.  Since it was encouraged by the staff in the room, our kids played and drummed on everything.  It was so, so loud, but they had a great time.  They kept a good beat together, too.  Josiah's favorite part was a spy area.  It gave you missions and had lots of rooms with clues and hidden things.  Josiah found a fellow like-minded kid who was equally dressed up as a spy.  This kid called Josiah by his spy name, Fallen Fox.  Josiah, in turn, called him Jupiter Ninja.  They had a really, really good time.  The best part was that we had no time constraints.  It was great to just let them play for as long as they wanted.

Hand puppets on the screen.

Josiah loved the building area that had an actual saw and an hand drill.  

Caroline loved that she could make the robot do what she was doing:

This was a very cool room.  The kids shot the blasters to hit the targets up above which were drums, cymbals, and wind chimes.  Caroline waited under the bucket for a good ten minutes waiting for it to fill up and dump all over her.

The music room.  So, so loud, but they LOVED it.

Wednesday morning the kids played at the park til Todd was done with his conference.  On the drive back to Houston, Josiah kept asking for us to stop at Buc-ee's.  He wanted as his souvenir the Buc-ee's beaver stuffed animal.  The stuffed animal that has nothing to do with San Antonio.  But Josiah was a happy camper.
And this was the park that we went to every day.  It was a very cool park.  Caroline wanted to move there, but she doesn't understand that if we lived there we wouldn't eat out every meal and spend hours of time at the playground every day.

Hard to see, but Henry is hanging from the top.

Henry jumping.

The one thing Caroline didn't get to do.  She said next time she would bring her Cinderella dress so she could ride in this.  She loved it.