Hot & Humid in Houston: 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!