L returns to in-person school...

It's been almost a whole year since Lucius walked the hallways of his elementary school building. He was last there on March 5, 2020 just before spring break. At the end of spring break, the panic of Covid was just beginning and we started hearing about it everywhere. The governor shut done schools the Sunday before he was scheduled to come back from spring break. The rest of the past year has slowly gone by. Lucius has been a real trooper. He does all his assignments and is getting great grades. His teacher is never without a LOT of compliments and praise of Lucius' positive attitude on zooms and his work effort. 

 

It'll be quite a change to be back in person and he is rather more nervous than actually excited. He roles with the punches and is pretty easy going most of the time.

He was only at school for half the day on that first day of school on Feb 22nd because I had to pick him up for a dentist appointment. He had been a few weeks ago and they found three cavities to fill. When we showed up they were only going to fill one, but I asked why we couldn't just get them all filled. The dentist didn't want to numb kids on both sides of their mouth for fear for them biting their tongues and cheeks. But L was such a trooper that the dentist filled two cavities and put the third one (which he said wasn't really a cavity) on his watch list. Lucius said one one side of his mouth was affected by the Novocaine shot so it all worked out in the end. 

On a side note: Lucius has been attending Soccer practices socially distant and masked. One evening Jerimy told him to get his things together for a Saturday morning game and when I put Lucius to bed I found he had laid his things out like this! 

Covid 19 days...

All kinds of changes have happened this year with Covid-19. We haven't really gone anywhere or done much to be safe. All the holidays we spent with just the four of us and we only saw family over zoom calls. It was weird. 

We have spent a LOT of time keeping O on top of their schoolwork and making sure things are getting done AND turned in. It's a LOT of extra stress, frustrations and even tears to manage it. 

Sometimes we just need to laugh so then we call cousins and it's always fun to be completely silly with them!! 

During all this at home time the kids have gotten even better at making their own meals. Lucius loves making pasta roni. He can do it mostly by himself now, but I won't let him drain the water yet. My sister was severely burned when we were kids doing that herself, so I'm waiting to let him do it. 

 

I've been going into work this whole time but mostly been working with the kids in emergency childcare. When we switched to in person I was still with the child care for two weeks and then moved back to the school to do recess duty for the K-4th graders. I where all kinds of Covid protection, which is interesting, but not as horrible as you might imagine. 

We've played a LOT more screen time on tablets and on the nintendo switch. The kids even play online with friends on the switch while having their friends on facetime or just a phone call to chat with them as they play. 

 

School from home has looked a lot like this most days:
 

 

A lot of Lucius' school work has Covid-19 themes running through them. I found these two pieces on his bedroom floor when I put him to bed. His handwritting has improved greatly and I was really impressed with how neat it was now. It was surprising because I haven't seen him write much this past year because everything was done mostly online.

Lucius is now playing Barritone on top of Trumpet. Since all his band instruction so far has been over zoom his teacher isn't sure if there's something wrong with Lucius' Trumpet or if its just Lucius not being able to play the higher octives on the trumpet. So now he has two instruments he only plays once a week during his zoom band lesson. 

We've made lots of yummy bread. our new favorite is the overnight focaccia bread.

And because we're home a lot I occasionally find time to deep clean. I found these shirts in a bag of saved hand-me downs. They are by far the oldest pieces of clothing I own. Both are approximately 23 years old and have spent much of those years moving from one storage bin to another (same old story: I always thought I’d wear them again and never did). I’ve finally let them go and they have new owners who think they’re pretty great shirts.

It’s not hordeing if it can be used again at some future time, right?!

Life without school (week 8)...

Goodness... Who even knows what day this is or what week anymore. We've made it eight weeks without school.

Lucius teacher stopped by our house one morning this week to drop off a book for us. Since we kind of figured we were not going to be back in school the rest of the year, we took Lucius' "last day of school" photo with his teacher. It's totally a year to remember... face masks and physically distant teacher photo.

While talking with his teacher Lucius happened to see this cute family of geese in our yard. We watched them for a while, making sure they did not try to go in our backyard where we were sure the dog would have tried to eat a baby goose had she been outside.

On Tuesday, after I was finished with work the kiddos and I rode our bikes over to the library to pick up our new books we had on hold. We pick them up curb side, which means we don't get to go into the library. New books means we have to sit and read the RIGHT AWAY. So we took a short break to read in front of the library. Then we rode the 3 miles back home. It was a good 6 mile round trip and thankfully everyone loved the outing.

 

Once home the kiddos curbed up on the couch and read most of the afternoon!

Lucius has been enjoying some outdoor time with Daddy. They play tennis together on the driveway. They can't wait for the tennis courts to be open again for public use!

The kiddos have been LOVING biking this spring and a friend told us about a short dirt path in the woods near our house. I told the kids about it and they TOTALLY wanted to see it. They of course told the neighbors about it and invited them along. It's been really nice to have neighbors who we can talk too through the stay at home order. I ended up taking all four kids with on the exploration of the dirt path. It really wasn't very long but the kids had a blast riding on the dirt through the woods.

This week we also realize that Lucius needed a new bike. The old one was getting small, his knees were bent all the time and the seat couldn't go any higher. Its a 20' inch bike so I started looking for 24" bikes. I found a few but they all sold before I could even contact the seller. Uncle Hung is really good at finding things, so he offered to take over the search! He found Lucius a new bike. When he brought it over, it was practically the same size as the old bike, till I realized the new one we could raise the seat and it had gears. Hooray!!

On Friday's we've been joining the neighbors down the block for the MPR neighborhood sing at 5:55pm. This week is was "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong. I had both boys happy to join me in singing with our friends. 

I also made progress this week on my cross stitch... slow and steady it's getting closer. 

Life without School (week 7)...

This was my "on call" week at work, which meant I checked my email twice a day but ended up not having anything to go in for or to work on. So I enjoyed making sure the kiddos stayed on task and got a bit more done on my rock project, cross stitch and weeding the gardens.

It was getting warmer still and the kiddos decided it was time for water wars. I still thought it was a little windy/ chilly for ice cold water fights, but they had a few days of these battles. They enjoyed it immensely. 

Mormor was asking about the magnolia tree for a few weeks and finally it started to bloom. So I asked O to take a photo to send to Mormor so she could enjoy and this was the selfie she got.

My cross stitch in progress is coming along. I few mistakes and knots that I had to hide in the back but nothing is ever perfect and I'm okay with that.

On Tuesday on week 7 we had a virtual game night with a few of my co-workers and their families. It was a fun way to pass an evening. We played a game called Listology. It was a lot of fun for all the ages we had playing along.
 

A few of the garden beds that I was able to weed this week. I ended up burning all the dried weeds that were in this one planter, which was fun. I still have several garden boxes left to weed since I completely ignored them last year. 

The neighbors have been getting together on Friday evening to join in a neighborhood sing- a- long. This week is was the Beatles "here comes the sun". It was my first night joining. The kiddos stayed home to play video games. Maybe they'll join us next week?

Saturday was another round of "bring your own Umbrella party". They all ate lunch outside together with lunch trays I happen to still have from their younger years.

I decided it was a great time to just chop all my hair off. The kiddos thought I was going to go bald, but I was not quite ready to go that short. So here I am and loving that it's super easy to get ready every morning!