The purpose of this blog is to remember. Remember the good. Remember the bad. Remember the beautiful, challenging, scary parts of life as we raise children. I know for a fact that this time will become blurry in time. The challenging will become less "hard" in my mind. The good will take precedence.
Its hard to get into any "normal" routine with things changing constantly. Wear a mask, stay home, don't go out unless necessary, snowy days, school days... constant change and uncertainty. While I cannot, with confidence, say we have a routine, we have some predictable things (at least now). Saturday and Monday mornings, a friend of a friend teaches HIIT classes on zoom that are excruciatingly hard and yet a part of this quarantine life for us. Saturday is at 10, easy. All the boys are up, and typically have had breakfast. Its a no school day and therefore a jammy and extra screen day. Monday, the class is at 7:30. More challenging. I have to set up activities (self directed, easy to follow, fun, engaging activities) for B to do while we work out. Next to the activities is an easy to eat breakfast. He's not predictable with his wake up time and the older kids are never awake by 7:30. With a reminder the night before, he has been pretty good about getting up and starting his day while we workout. He has woken up at 8 each Monday, leaving only 20-25 minutes to entertain himself and eat. Its a lot of work for Brian and I, but well worth a good workout and time for ourselves.
Bs amazing teacher, Alicia, provides a pretty structured 50 minute google video Monday-Friday. One kid gets to share each day, she reads stories and they play a game together. Some days are better than others.
Everyone under the moon is providing online options. From the zoo, to museums to Michelle Obama. Its overwhelmingly perfect in so many ways. One option is watching the head of Stanley read a book.
Legos... what our lives would be like without these. I could take a few less strewed around the house, but its worth the creative and endless discoveries and inventing.
Brian can attest to my constant search for fun things we can do as a family, at home. A friend of Brian's suggested "Hunt a Killer" a monthly subscription that comes in a box full of forensic clues. Each month gives a challenge you need to uncover, revealing your answer to someone through email who then verifies whether your "work" has been done. LT took a forensics class last fall and I was jealous. There are many things I considered doing, one of which was a detective (others included a jail guard, sumo wrestler, farmer, dietician etc). I am not sure any of those would have been perfect careers for me, but I sure do love true crime podcasts and investigating. This kit, however, was pretty challenging. More than we anticipated. I thought the older kids and I could do it on Friday afternoons together, pretty quickly. We realized we needed to rope Brian (not happily) into this investigating.
B loves science. Several times a day he asks for a science experiment. On a snowy day this week, we watched a few scholastic videos about germs (and a story bots a few days before that). We did a fun experiment learning about the importance of using soap. In the middle of it he announced that he was going to "marry you mom (unless you die), and become a scientist".
Geronimo Stilton. So many memories with LT! B recently discovered these books and we plowed through the ones we had. I mentioned it to a friend who then dropped off a bag of them! B searched them and picked the one up in his hand and said, "how did she ever know this was my favorite and I want it so bad!?"
SNOW! Love/hate relationship. Endless cold. More inside time. More mess. More gear. Endless fun.
They began with a race course around the front yard and then proceeded to make an actual track.
Before long, they announced that it was the windows 10 symbol and B was the manager sitting in his office.
I have brought back my knowledge of preschool and the importance of writing from different angles. Above, sticker match connection.
Daily drawing still.
And a few pictures to remind myself of how much cleaning up is required when your 3 children are home all day everyday.
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