Life without school (week two)...

Week two March 21-28

So here’s what happened after the first week of the school closures. We woke up Saturday and I knew we would be out of school for quite a while from all the news reports sharing scenarios. I decided to ask O to give me a hair cut, cause we’ll- salons were shutting down to help stop the spread of the virus COVID 19. O jumped at the chance and started out pretty good. O had been shown how to do this by the owner of our favorite hair salon once but I knew what I was getting into. It wasn’t going to be perfect, I just needed it cut. O got pretty far on the sides and back using the right sized guards on the clipper and then I heard “I’m just gonna try this way to get the frizzy parts”. I was like “wait what?!?”. O had done a small chuck before showing me the clippers... without a guard on it. Eek. I did my best, kept my cool and was like... “hey you did awesome, thank you”. Then did the rest on my own. It’s not great but before than before and it ALWAYS grows back.

Lucius used FaceTime to call his cousin and played a few games of chess while we are stuck at home social distancing.

Later in the evening on Saturday my sister called everyone on FaceTime. I think we had about 9 of us on the call.

On Sunday March 22 I baked some bread, a three cheese loaf. Unfortunately stores have been cleaned out of a lot of baking supplies. Jerimy grabbed me white whole wheat flour to use in place of my all purpose flour. So I used it but the kids did not prefer the textural difference of the bread made with the whole wheat. So we cut the second loaf in half and delivered one half to our neighbors who’ve been quarantined for over a week and the other half who have been self isolating themselves to protect the spread of the virus. O walked with me and FaceTimed a friend the whole time. O is so extroverted that this social distancing stuff is hard for them. (The phto below is the friends house that we walked past. She was in the upper right window in an orange shirt and talked to O from there).

I also started hanging our clothes to dry on our indoor clothes rake. It reminds me of our time in Italy.

Sunday evening we FaceTimed my family again and this time I think we had close to 18 family members from five households on the call.

Monday I had to go in to work. I thought that would be the only day Ikd need to work but there was a lot to do so I worked everyday at school. The kiddos stayed home and worked on their schoolwork. Jerimy was told on Tuesday that he would be allowed to work from home 90% of the time. So thankfully he was home to supervise the kids while attempting to work. Monday I handed out food packs to families who drove through to get food for their kids.


Tuesday I borrowed my bossed new game called Otrio and taught the kiddos how to play it. We’ve played it off and on this week. It’s been fun.

Tuesday was also Mormor’s birthday. We met Auntie Emks family in Mormor’s driveway to sing her a song and read a choice your own adventure story with her. I picked up a bunch of these choose your own adventure books from my school’s library on Monday and we’ve been reading them with the nieces and nephews around bedtime over FaceTime. It’s a fun way to stay connected while also mantaining a little less screaming silliness while video chatting.

Wednesday I reported to work in the afternoon and was told I had a huge job of keeping a co-worker calm. I needed to help our tech person get 60 chrome books rehash to deliver to our 5th and 6th graders by the following week. The district didn’t have enough iPads to cover the sheer number of kids in the district that needed a device to do the distance learning. The governor of MN declared a stay at home order starting on Friday and the schools would move forward with distancing learning through April. Schools would remain closed to students till at least May to help the healthcare workers try to find the necessary  things to help people fight the virus and save lives.

On Thursday I was back to school to help label chrome books and wrap all the power cords to get us organized. O came with me and helped for a bit but the draw of books was too strong and O spent most of the day reading all the library books in the schools media center. I brought O along cause I knew we would be isolated in a space that only we and the tech person would be using.

We also had stopped by both the kids schools on Thursday to pick up their belongings and distance learning packets. After work we sorted through everything and got organized. Our school space in the living room continues to grow.

On Friday O again choose to come with me. O was able to do a bit of school work remotely while I worked on even more chrome books. We found out we needed to have 90 devices ready by next week to start handing out. Thankfully we were all organized and had 90 ready to go by the end of Friday. Hooray!!

Life without school (week one)...

Okay, so I’ve been absent from blogging for a while because of busy life and technical issues. BUT this crazy COVID-19 times call me to record how our first week of no school has been going.

Here’s what happened. Last week Lucius and I were on spring break. O still had school. L & I took a few adventures, relaxed, had a few play dates and helped at a chess tournament. L asked for an overnight at Oma's house during his spring break so on Monday Oma picked him up around 10 am. They hung out and ran errands. At some point he got to go visit Auntie Dana's new baby chicks which he absolutely LOVED. He slept over and then sometime on Tuesday afternoon Oma brought him back home.

Wednesday March 11 we went with a friend to the MN Zoo. Coronavirus COVID-19 was a topic of conversation but not much concern yet. (I remember the week before kids were talking about it more as the new way to insult someone: like someone coughs and people comment “ew, you’ve got Coronavirus”.)

Thursday March 12th L was going to have a play date with two buddies but one mom was high risk so she cancelled the play date and L just went to the other friends house. Before we went to the friends house we stopped at Costco quick to pick up snacks for the tournament the next day. Almost ALL the carts were missing in the front entrance and when we walked in the lines were already half way to the back of the store. I’ve never shopped at Costco except Saturdays but even Saturdays have never been as busy as this. I jumped into line and Lucius ran around the store to grab the things we needed. Thankfully that didn’t take too long. It was really weird because it didn’t really seem like people were panick buying as their carts only had a few things in them, but it was weird all the same. News was talking more about the virus. When I picked up O from school O said twice during the day they made the class go to the bathrooms and wash their hands and then also use hand sanitizer afterwards.

Friday we went to the school I work at to help another staff member with a chess tournament. L helped check for checkmates and played kids in between chess rounds. The adults talked about many things including what will happen with schools and when will they announce what’s going on. We were told to expect an announcement Friday afternoon.

When I picked O up from school Friday afternoon O said “anytime we coughed, sniffed, touched our face, blow our nose and anything of that stuff- they made us wash our hands and use hand sanitizer”.

By Friday evening March 13th our district schools had closed Monday and Tuesday. We watched the changing events and news coverage through the weekend and by Sunday nigh the Governor of MN closed schools from wed March 18th through March 27th to give teachers time to learn how to do distance learning. School district officials and principals all met on Monday the 16th to figure out what was going to happen and all other school staff, including me were to report to school on Tuesday. O’s school said they would be holding school on that mon & Tuesday but I opted to keep O home. We hadn’t left the house from Friday afternoon till Tuesday. Jerimy still had to work as usual and he had gone to the store a few times to get things.

Tuesday I was told that I didn’t really need to come in as there wasn’t much to do but I went in for part of the afternoon for a meeting with the principal. We all sat spread out more than 6 feet at our own tables in the school media center to hear how things were going so far.

Wednesday the 18th I showed up for work and found nothing much to do again till around 10:30 when we got word to start packing up students belonging in the classrooms and hanging them on their coat hooks in the hallways to allow families to come pick stuff up. We were told to pack like it was really the end of the school year. It was kind of sad and I think the officials all know this school shut down will last longer but are not telling families just yet. Packing belongings took us most of the day.

Thursday March 19th we show up early to prepare the last of the classrooms for families to pick up belongings. The five paraprofessional and I were ready for families around 8:30. Maybe 20 families came throughout the morning to collect things. We really didn’t have much to do. The district had already started letting teachers work remotely at home, but we were required to be at our building because there was little for us to do at home. Then the principal let us go home at 12:30 and we would then be on call for Friday and next week.

Meanwhile the kiddos were trapped at home all week. People online had started creating schedules for kids while home without school, so I adapted them and created their own personalized COVID-19 no school journals to keep them on task.

Monday O slept from 8am to noon (we find out later in the week O has been sneaking the iPod at night and watching YouTube videos for several hours instead of sleeping). So Monday morning it was just L and I. We mixed up some bread dough and made baked oatmeal for lunch. It was a pleasant morning. Lucius got a bunch of things done including practicing his trumpet around noon to help wake up O.

On Tuesday we did a little yoga in the morning and then went for a walk outside.
By Wednesday our supply of academic school stuff was taking over a make shift school staging area in our living room, but I was glad that I stock piled all these things to keep the kids busy. I still hadn’t heard too much complaining or begging for screen time because they were told to stick to the schedule.

On Thursday I discovered that the kiddos spent 7 hours on Wednesday watching YouTube videos on O’s ipod- which is also how we found out they have been sneaking the iPod at night when they”couldn’t” sleep to watch YouTube. Needless to say we had a talk about screens. The kids had been left home while I had to work and I would come home at lunch to check on them. Apparently they both decided to lie about their progress. I just thought we were rockin’ this whole no school for the time being thing. On Friday I was able to stay home and keep the kiddos more on task. After academic time they had creative time where they FaceTimed with a friend while coloring a yard sign to encourage our neighbors.

This is how a lot of our family lunches and a few of our dinners have become lately. Little readers with their noses always stuck in a book. They didn't even know I took this photo.

Little Free Library hunt...

While Lucius was off to Oma's house for a sleep over on Monday, I decided to do a little fun surprise adventure for O after I picked them up from school. I first stopped at a friends house, who also loves books, so we could have company on our Little Free Library hunt.

When we picked up O from the bus stop I had a map of all the Little Free Libraries between the bus stop and our house. I also had two rather full boxes of books we had been given as donations for our own LFL in the car. Since I didn't want to store all those books in our house, we thought we'd spread them around town. My two fellow adventures were more than up for the challenge and it was fun to drive them around to find all the LFL's in the area.

This one we went to Saturday before this LFL adventure because it was a miniture Notre Dame LFL.

Our last adventure before the pandemic hit...

Turns out this fun filled day was the last adventure we had outside the house before the COVID 19 pandemic kept us staying at home.

It was a Saturday and I wanted to go do something fun. Lucius had been asking when we were going to go on a adventure for a while and we always had something else going on or were too mentally worn down to go anywhere on the weekends. SO instead of being bums at home we got in the car and drove over to North east Mpls to taste some tiny donuts.

We went to Sleepy V's Donut shop over by Jerimy and I's old work office. We ordered a dozen tiny donuts to sample and ate a few yummy treats. We walked around the area and visited a few shops including a board game shop and a used book store. Of course O found books to read and made themself quite comfy in a reading chair while the rest of us browsed.

We then drove around the neighborhood, stopping at a few Little Free Libraries that we saw. Then we went home. Little did we know then that it was a good thing we went before the pandemic because Sleepy V's is now closed for good.

Painting an accent wall...

Wrapping up the last of our painting this weekend. It's been a HUGE project to paint every single wall/ surface in the upstairs of our new house. One of the last walls I needed to do was over the staircase and I was not looking forward to climbing the ladder to reach it. I also was trying to decide if I wanted to do a painted word or something there to add interest, verses a blank wall.

Finally I found an idea for a word and decided to just go for it! I'm glad I did, I really like how it turned out.

TA DA!! Valkommen- is Swedish for Welcome!

February in one blog post...

Apparently February came and went without a moments hesitation.

On the first day of February Auntie Mick came over to hang a bunch of picture frames that had been in storage for 6 long years or more. I gathered it all and put it into piles and stressed about where to hang it all. In a few short hours Auntie Mick had a vast majority of it hung on all the newly painted walls. AND it turned out FABULOUS! I mean- she transformed the house into an actual home with the way she hung all the photos. Our hallway she turned into a magical family gallery space! I love walking down this hallway and seeing the years of family photos now.

We had our traditional yearly visit to our friends house down in Apple Valley to watch the superbowl. Always tons to eat and a great time had by all.

We had a few family dinner with Mormor and Morfar. Sometimes at our house and sometimes at theirs.  We miss eating big dinners with them. After dinner we would try to play a game or two so that we could have a little extra bonding time.

On Feb 7th we went to the school I work at for a district wide chess tournament. Lucius played with a bunch of his school buddies and of course walked away with yet another trophy.

Of course, an hour into the tournament I recieved a call from O's school telling me that O fell on the playground at recess and hit their head. I had to leave Luicus at the tournament and spent two hours at urgent care for kiddo number one. Mild concussion and a bit of a strained neck from falling over a railing at school recess. Hit the back of their head on the metal railing, a wood beam under the railing and the thick ice that covered the ground. Uffda. No reading, or screens for the weekend. No running or contact sports for the next week. O was not too thrilled to be BORED because O couldn't read or watch screens.

We got a new rug that I ordered online to bring all the new furniture together to make us a fancy livingroom space finally. Super exciting to see the house start it's final transformation after all this time working on it.

Throughout the winter I tried taking the kiddos to the Shoreview Community Pool for evening swim times. They both really love the water and since O didn't really want to continue with the ninja warrior course, I thought it was a good alternative.

As the weather started being slowly less cold (though I still thought they should have been in coats, but what do I know), they kids had fun with hockey sticks and a tennis ball in the driveway.

It had been a while (almost a month) since our last Library visit to borrow books. So when we finally got new books all our meals started looking like this... and our house like this...

Lucius continues to practice his new Trumpet...

And O officially came out to his best friend from the old school about the new name O prefers using at the new school.

Quotable: Alicorns...

Conversation with my oldest after school today.
Me: “hey- guess what a unicorn with wings is called?! I just learned this today when I looked it up cause a little girl had winged unicorns on her pants and I argued that unicorns don’t have wings so it must have a different name.”
O: “Um yeah- I know this... let me think”
Me: “you don’t really...”
O:”Its an Alicorn!”
Me: *jaw drop* “What?!?! How did you know that? What mythical creature book did you read it in?”
O:”I know it from My Little Pony”
Me: ...