Quarantine Week 6

We had beautiful weather this week and the kids were outside a lot, often for hours at a time.  After bike riding, roller blading, chalk drawing, and tree climbing they'd beg to get the hose out.  One day they pulled out the water guns, filled up a bucket of water, and went to town.  When that got old, they added soap to their water bucket and washed both cars.  Three hours they were out that particular day. Caroline kept popping her head in the house to tell me that she was having so much fun.  Best. Day. Ever.  When it was all done and everyone was inside, I expectantly asked the boys if they had a great time, too.  No.  They said it wasn't fun at all and that Caroline bossed them around.  It was like they were in two different days.

She looked so grown up lying in the grass.  

The kids were also outside a lot because their neighborhood friends moved out this week.  Todd and I sat outside in the evenings while they played and there were lots of moments of kids yelling, "6 Feet!!" the acceptable length for social distancing.  Our kids were sad to see them go.  They were trying to find ways to keep in touch and Henry came up to me with this proposal, "L [friend] said he has 200 friends on Fortnight.  But he said if I played with him, he wouldn't have any other friends." Poor kid.  He didn't know that starting the story with "my friend has 200 random internet friends" wouldn't work in his favor.

Josiah has been making my coffee most days and he's taken my advice to make it stronger.  I discovered that when he said he was using two scoops of coffee, he was using two scoops, but only 1/3 full.  I introduced him the heaping tablespoon.  He's got it now.  One morning I told him the coffee was really great and he said he used four scoops.  Yay!  He was very proud.  I was fully awake. Win-Win.  Once he had his coffee skills down, he opened his own cafe.  One morning we awoke to Josiah's Coffee Cafe.  Before entering the kitchen, we were able to see the shirtless founder.  It was a short menu, but it made for faster service.

That says, "toast."  And we've told him how to spell coffee a bunch of times.  Sigh...

In other food news, we were getting tired of eating repeat meals.  While we've had a lot of variety throughout the quarantine, we have ventured into the repeating zone and dinners were not quite so exciting.  Todd and I went through our massive pile of recipes ripped out from old magazines.  Todd found an old recipe that he was excited to try again.  It was the "Warm Chicken Salad Wreath."  Typically I write notes on recipes if we've tried them.  Usually the date we made it.  Sometimes it's tips for when we'd make it again.  On this particular recipe, that we first made back in April 2010, I simply wrote "Todd liked it.  Too mayonnaisey."  Code: I didn't like it.  A decade later, we made it again.  Todd and Henry loved it.  They ate both wreaths.  Caroline picked at a section of the wreath.  She liked bits of it.  Josiah and I had pb&j.  Todd's looking forward to 2030 when we break out the recipe again.  We'll have to have Henry home from college to help eat it.  Another day we had Egg Roll in a Bowl which was really good.  Variety has been helpful.

We finished up CC this week.  While I did not have the motivation to work on our egg protector, the kids were highly motivated.  Go figure.  We divided up this time - boys worked together and I worked with Caroline.  We watched a few videos about how to make it and then had a go of it.  Caroline and I will wrap up our real egg with coffee filters before putting it in it's little basket area.  The boys tried doing a square model, but ended up doing triangles because they were much easier to build.   Theirs is nearly identical to Caroline's model, though ours has longer sticks hanging off the corners to help absorb some impact.  This week we'll try to drop it from a second story window.

Josiah had his Faces of History presentation.  He had fun dressing up in character and telling his life's tale.  The kids had to guess who he was based on facts that he spoke about himself.  It was pretty much a giveaway when he said he sold Louisiana to Thomas Jefferson and that he lost at Waterloo.

Josiah's classmates dressed up.  We had (in order) Napoleon, Charlemagne, Robert the Bruce, Gutenberg, Joan of Arc, Beethoven, Catherine the Great, and Robin Hood.

The day after CC, Caroline and I went on a road trip to drop off small gifts for the kids in her class.  Just a have-a-good-summer-we-miss-you kind of thing.  We put the gifts on the doorstep and I'd text their moms so that we never had any contact.  We adhered to all social distancing rules.  Five of the seven houses were pretty much "in town," but two were not.  One house was 20 minutes into the country.  Another was 20 minutes beyond that.  It was wayyyyyyy out.  At one point, we were very far out, and the area had a lot of Live Oaks.  Caroline kept pointing out what good climbing trees they were.  Then we passed one that was on the edge of a plowed field.  She remarked, "THAT is a good climbing tree!  It's far out, but we could come back."  We could.  But we won't.  Live Oak:


With CC over, I was on a cleaning kick this weekend, namely getting the school room back in order.  Actually my original plan was to clean the whole downstairs, but I spent most of Saturday in the school room.  It was that bad.  It's a heavily used room since it has all the art and craft supplies.  Later, when the kids wanted to go outside or play video games, I was getting on them to pick up all their things beforehand.  We're going to have a clean house!  The boys claimed cleanliness had been restored to their areas of the house and got themselves set up playing Minecraft.  I walked by Josiah's room and it was most definitely not clean.  I made him go back and try again.  Twenty minutes later, Josiah said his room was clean and that the Legos in the corner were supposed to be there.  "It's my Lego Junkyard.  It's a scene."  He basically took an old karate board and wrote "The Junk Yard" on it in front of a pile of Legos.  Well played, Josiah.  Well played.

Last night, Caroline wanted me to play dolls with her.  We played dolls for a while, then she wanted to play Pictionary on her tiny little Etch a Sketch that makes it impossible to show any sort of detail.  We did simple things at first - girl, cow, ice cream, cake.  But then she wanted to make them more complicated.  She drew a picture.  It looked like a girl holding a doll.  It was not.  I gave many guesses, but finally gave up.  "Cinderella holding laundry."   Ah.  I was almost there.  

It was a good week.  Not too bad for a sixth week in quarantine.
Oh, and Josiah drew me Elf.  I actually asked him if he printed it out and colored it in or drew it.  He drew it.  The kid has skills.

Favorite Meme of the Week:

Quarantine Week 5: It's Getting Rough Over Here

Today's blog is being written with noise cancelling headphones on.  It's been that kind of a weekend.  Quarantine is getting rough.  One child has a pulled-muscle-type-injury but will not listen to our untrained, yet sound, logical, medical advice to rest said injury.  Then said child whines about said injury all weekend long.  Another child currently has a throat clearing tic that is driving me batty.  I know they cannot control it.  I know the advice has always been to ignore it.  It'll go away.  But being together 24/7 for five weeks now, I'm going a little crazy listening to it.  Another child wants to only do things with Todd and I "privately." Meaning they do not want to share space/time/oxygen with their siblings when playing a card game or sitting on the same couch or eating in a certain chair with Todd and I.  It's madness.  My head hurts.  We have a minimum of another two weeks to go.  God help us all.  I've thought about taking a few days off of school because sometimes that helps, but I don't think that's solution when in quarantine.  We don't need more idle hours in our day.

Besides all that fun, CC is finishing up this week.  Josiah will have to do his Faces of History paper.  Last year we scrambled for a last minute costume, so this year we actually bought it months ago.  Yay for that.  He's written his paper, but now has to edit it to be in first person for the presentation.  He speaks in character, without revealing all his life's details, so that the other kids can guess who he is.  Getting into character is pretty much Josiah's favorite thing to do, so he's really looking forward to it.  In science we had to build a catapult.  They had fun with it, but have not tested it out nearly as much as I had expected.  I think we're all in a brain lull at the moment.  This week we're supposed to work on an egg drop using a coffee filter, rubber bands, and popsicle sticks.  I am highly unmotivated to work on this project.  We may put it off for a few weeks til our heads are back in the game.  Plus, ultimately, we're supposed to use a real egg to see if it works and who wants to waste essential food at a time like this?

Henry completed 3rd grade math this week.  The end of book tests are always twice as long as the usual ones.  Henry started off well, but then lost it when he got to subtraction.  I don't know how to do it.  Whine. Whine. Whine. Whine.  Really?  I can show you page after page after page in your math book that you CAN do subtraction.  Quite well actually.  It was a downward spiral from there.  He completed the test and got a 90% which all things considered was fine.  However, he was capable of doing better.  We actually have a sign in our school room with a Lou Holtz quote, "Ability is what you are capable of doing.  Motivation determines what you do.  Attitude determines how well you do it."  When Henry was losing it with his test we sat down and went over that quote.  I told him he was most definitely capable of doing the work.  We both knew he knew how to do it.  He even had the motivation - to finish the test.  But he didn't have the attitude.  That's usually the issue around here.  Attitude.  I'm looking forward to their teenage years.

Since the Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems ended, Josiah has been on the hunt for a new drawing website.  He found one that he really likes and the guy teaches them how to draw superheroes very realistically.  Both boys have been watching him and drawing a lot.  Their outcomes have been impressive.  This has been a helpful activity to pass the time. They can sit there for well over an hour drawing.

The kids still have their fort outside.  They have added seven bed sheets to the mix and created lots of "rooms."  They really enjoyed playing in it.  This weekend it rained, however, so a fort popped up in the dining room.  I understand the desire to get in a small quiet space with one's self.

It's been good to have the rain because Todd ordered grass plugs for our lawn.  The HOA only allows a certain type of grass to be planted.  Ironically the grass does not come in seed form, only sod form.  Todd found these sod "plugs" which he planted around the bare patches in the yard.  It's a very hair-plug-for-men looking project, but we've had good results with them.  We had some beautiful weather earlier in the week - cool and breezy and we took advantage by playing outside a lot.  All three amaryllis bloomed this past week as well, but I only got a picture of the last remaining bloom.

Today our church service was about loving our neighbor.  Our literal neighbor, not just the generic neighbor as in anyone we meet.  Our pastor challenged us to make a concerted effort to contact at least one neighbor and try to get to know them.  In his cul-de-sac, his wife sent all the neighbors notes that they should exchange phone numbers in case anyone needed anything during this time of quarantine.  Then one evening they all got lawn chairs and sat outside for hours chatting (at an appropriate, approved distance).  I appreciate the challenge.  My current comfort zone is anywhere devoid of sound, so we'll see how this plays out.

Josiah's rendition of "love thy neighbor."

Caroline, Josiah, and I worked on notes for all the kids in Caroline's CC class today.  Just little notes hoping they have a good summer since we haven't (and won't) see them for quite some time.  Both Josiah and Caroline had lots of ideas for the artwork.  Josiah drew the top row of cards, Caroline the bottom.  Caroline and I are going to deliver them this week - a doorstep drop-and-run type thing.  It should be fun.  It'll get us out in the car and away from the house for a while.
Here's to finishing well this week!  We're going to need lots of prayer.

My favorite meme of the week.

Quarantine Week 4: Easter Week

4 weeks in quarantine.  That is hard to believe!  I think the quarantine has been wearing on us more this week.  There seemed to be more boredom, more bickering, more weariness.  Truth be told, the kids have done incredibly well through it all.  As much as they miss playing with their friends and seeing their CC peeps, they have adapted well.  No doubt it has been hard and the constant contact with their siblings (and parents) can drive them crazy.  But in between the annoyances, they have also gotten along really well and played together a lot.  We are very grateful that they have each other to play with.  Besides school, they have played outside a ton this week.  Josiah and Caroline are always riding bikes and roller blading.  Henry is far stricter with himself and only plays outside if no other kids are present.  The backyard is his oasis.  They built a fort in the back that they have played in for several days now.  Todd had trimmed a few branches off the trees and since we didn't break them down right away, the kids claimed them.

Henry gave us a scare Monday morning.  He wasn't feeling well and kept dry heaving all morning.  Nothing ever came of it, and he was fine by the next day, however we certainly did not want any reason to have to go to the doctor's at this point.  Caroline had sympathy sickness by Friday morning.  She was sick enough to sit on the sofa all morning, watching Netflix.  She was not sick enough to ask to play outside by the afternoon.  At this point I think we all just need mental health break days every so often.

Our science project for CC this week was to build a straw tower.  We had straws, tape, and clay.  I thought this would be an easy one, but it proved much harder than expected.  Our original idea proved to be a very unstable structure, so we had to reinforce the sides.  Essentially we used 26 straws and massive amounts of tape.  Massive amounts.  But it worked.  We got it to 44" in height.  The kids were proud of the height they reached....until we did our virtual CC classes and another family got theirs to 48".

When we did our virtual CC classes, Caroline was adamant that she did not want the boys interrupting her while in class by listening and watching from the sidelines. The past two weeks they have been hanging out in her class (and really helped in many ways, but she no longer wanted them there).  Henry has been the same way - he always takes the iPad and goes behind closed doors for his class.  But when it came time for Josiah's afternoon class (grammar and writing) both of the younger ones sat in on it.  The kids still have to do presentations for their class, but since we are home it has allowed them to present on things that they could never have done at CC.  This week Caroline spoke about her big horse trailer, all its accessories, the horse, and the doll that goes with it.  There was no way we would ever have brought that into her actual class, so the quarantine has had some advantages.

Caroline listening to a classmate's presentation.

Enjoying Josiah's grammar lessons

We made miniature paintings in history this week.  Miniature Ottoman paintings were all the rage in the 16th century.  We gave it a try.  I gave the kids small pieces of paper, allowed them to sketch their artwork out with a pencil, then had them paint with toothpicks.  They had fun with it.


Saturday, a man from the neighborhood dressed up as the Easter Bunny and drove around for all the kids to see.  It was a really nice gesture and it brought smiles to the kids' faces.    Even Henry, who usually is not a fan of fake things, enjoyed it.  Anything to help you forget about being quarantined is great.

This was probably the weirdest Easter we ever experienced.  We watched church online as we have been doing.  Caroline is really not a fan of online church.  She misses her class a lot, but what she does look forward to is seeing her artwork online.  Each week, the kids are told to draw pictures about the sermon and then the following week, the church will show the artwork before the service begins.  Caroline and Josiah have had their artwork shown for two weeks now and they got busy drawing as soon as service began this morning. Their artwork "on the internet" as they call it.

This week's art. (Josiah drew the second picture, Henry illustrated it.  Henry's adamant that that is known.)

We saw lots of families dressed up on Facebook.  We didn't follow suit.  Our Easter looked like this:

2015 was a much, much, much cuter Easter.

We still did our Easter egg hunt around the house.  We made them sit on the stairs (with eyes shut so they didn't spy any eggs) while we told them the rules (how many eggs they were allowed to find).  They had fun and were glad we had the foresight to buy Easter candy 4 weeks ago!


We also made our Resurrection rolls this afternoon. 

The meme of the week.  (And so begins another one.)

Quarantine Week 3: The Week With April Fool's

We had lasagna one night this week, and though a loaf of crusty French bread sounded great, I didn't want to make any unnecessary trips to the grocery store.  Instead, I looked up a recipe for no-yeast dinner rolls.  The only recipe that had higher than a three star rating belonged to The Feast and Farm blog.  It required four ingredients and had four simple instructions.  Doable.  But the absolute best part was what the blogger wrote next to "1/2 cup self-rising flour."  Written in all caps was: "SEE VERY IMPORTANT NOTE BELOW."  This was her note:

"NOTE: If your self rising flour is old, the baking powder in it will be as well and your rolls will not rise. This is not my fault, and I'd love it if people would stop yelling at me about it. Leavening agents are good for about 6 months and even if you just bought that bag of flour, you don't know how long it sat there. If you are in doubt, add a 1/2 teaspoon of extra baking powder to the recipe. I will no longer be responding to comments about how hard, flat or miserable your rolls are."   

If someone was willing to put that NOTE out there, there was no question that I wanted to try these rolls.  They ended up being horrible.  They took twice as long to cook and even then didn't brown on the top.  They were a pasty white, dense, gummy, and totally tasteless.  But they were also made with bread flour that expired in 2018 and old baking powder as well.  They were so, so bad.  The worst part was that Henry and Josiah loved them.  And part of what they liked was the lack of taste.  I don't know what is wrong with those boys.  Henry asked me to buy flour now so that I could make them for his birthday in two years.  I would like to try them again with fresh ingredients.

Josiah has been wanting to make us breakfast every morning and continue with making my coffee.  We woke up on April 1st to Josiah's Cafe.  I was leary since it was April Fool's Day and he had put mayo on my toast instead of butter in the past.  But he had Todd and I sit down.  He made us toast with a massive dollop of butter each.  He prepared my coffee and then while we ate, he danced around the kitchen.  Arms and legs flying every which way.  His payment was four hugs.  Then he gave us a customer card to fill out about our experience.  Todd gave it four out of five stars.  Always good to keep aspiring to higher levels.  We complimented him on his entertainment though.


And speaking of April 1st, we wanted to get the kids for April Fool's this year, but didn't want to use food as a means to get them.  I wanted to tell them that the COVID-19 virus could live on their hair so we would have to shave everyone's heads.  (It was hair cutting night, so it would have played into it nicely.)  Todd wanted to tell them that the virus lived on stuffed animals and dolls so they would all have to be thrown away.  Todd wrote a Trump meme that was really good.  He texted it to me and I showed it to Josiah who immediately and completely melted down.  Tears were flowing.  Henry was crying too.  Caroline didn't see the big deal, but I don't think she fully understood she would have to throw away all her dolls.  Even Ja-Neesa.  Even her Barbies.  We let them cry it out for about five minutes before saying April Fool's.  It came back to bite us, because Josiah couldn't sleep that night because he was scared his stuffed animals would be taken away.  I assured him that the virus died from soap/washing and all we'd have to do is wash his things just like when he had pink eye and we had to wash everything.  Next year we need more joke, less tears. 

In school news this week, Caroline started her 2nd Grade math book.  She was pretty happy with herself.

We are having to do our CC science experiments at home now.  This past week's experiment was to make a straw bridge.  The objective was strength, so we built with that in mind.  Now, if we were at CC, the three kids would be in different classes and they would only be paired up with another child close to their own age.  At home  it was a little different.  In the beginning, I asked them to each share their ideas.  They did.  And they all had very different opinions about how to make the bridge.  Henry wanted more of a rectangular prism shape with the straws.  Fat and strong.  Caroline was concerned about color coordination and wanted a pretty rainbow bridge.  Josiah wanted triangles because he knew that shape was strongest.  Though triangles are great for bridges, making triangles was not exactly feasible with the slim materials we had.  We had 30 paper straws (which were fairly strong), lots of rubber bands (fairly useless), clay, and masking tape.  We ended up doing three rows of ten straws.  Each set of ten was taped tightly together, then we had clay between each layer and finally tape to hold all three layers together.  It ended up being a strong bridge, but the process was a bit tedious.  A case of too many cooks in the kitchen.  Everyone wanted to be the person to do every step.  We had to fall back on our rotation schedule which we sort of live by around here.  We tested the final product with our dumbbells.  Individually, it held the 3 lb., 5 lb., 8 lb., and 10 lb. easily.  A few days later, when Henry was doing his CC class virtually, he wanted to show off and managed to balance all 26 lbs of weights on top of the bridge.  It held firm.  We accomplished the strength portion.  As for CC, the kids are really liking their virtual classes.  I'm glad for that.  We have three more weeks to go.

10 lb dumbbell

We had a yearbook committee that is now working virtually as well.  We had to get our yearbook pictures in this week, so we stood outside by the tree in the backyard where we take every formal picture.  Caroline even wore the same shirt that she did last year.

We are trying to make sure that the kids get outside every day to get some exercise and fresh air.  Henry is a very strict quarantiner.  He will not play out front if any of the neighborhood kids are out (because he knows that the other kids are not very good at maintaining social distancing).  Sometimes he'll just stand out in the driveway and then report back to me that either Josiah or Caroline is not maintaining 6 feet of social distancing.  "Mom.  He was like 3 feet away from [neighbor kid]."  "Mom.  Josiah says he doesn't know what 6 feet is."  "Mom.  Josiah went by the neighbors on roller blades and he was closer than 6 feet."  It is frustrating because the neighbors really do not follow the quarantine well.  They know that our kids will not play til this thing is over, but they are not well-versed in the six feet distancing rule.  Today, to get the kids exercise, but also not play with friends, Todd took each of them on a walk individually.  Todd got over 8000 steps in.  One of the cool things is how many people are outside walking around, riding bikes, doing roller blades and scooters.  There is so much more activity outside, which is a good thing.

To give the kids some fun and normal time, we let them play in the sprinkler while we were watering the lawn to help fertilize it.  They had a lot of fun, though it isn't quite warm enough to play in it for too long.  The 70s/low 80s gets chilly when you're soaked.

Things here are getting more strict.  All grocery stores are starting to limit the number of customers in the store at one time.  Many want just one family member to come in, while all others stay home.  They've advised us to always wear a face mask when going out.  We do one grocery run a week.  This week we went to Sam's.  I got geared up in the only face mask we had - a very old one that Todd used to mow the lawn.  It had the lovely odor of sweat and grass, but hopefully it kept me safe.  I wore gloves as well and long sleeves.  Then when we get home, we wipe down every thing we buy, wash all the clothes I was wearing and I take a shower.  It is just a whole different way of doing things.  They have said that the Houston area will not peak until the first week of May.  That is an incredibly long way off.  Like everyone else, we just take it one day, one week at a time.

Several weeks back we had the sex talk with Henry.  Well, the majority of nights Henry has asked to have a private conversation with Todd and I.  He has had a continual flow of questions about it.  We have moved on from the physical act of love to how a baby develops in utero.  He had a lot of questions about cell division and umbilical cords and how the baby "breathed."  One night, without me present, he asked Todd about the use of breasts.  Todd told them they made milk to feed the baby.  Then about a week later, with both of us present, Henry had this question, "I know what a woman's [feels his own chest] are for, to make milk for the baby.  What does a man's make?  Cheese?"  Oh, child.  BUT we are glad he is comfortable enough to ask questions.  We know eventually he'll probably be too embarrassed to ask. 

These are my favorite memes of the week.  I swear the memes have made this quarantine so much easier.  Humor goes a long way.


And so another week in quarantine begins.