Clearly, with a title like this, this blog is not going in any sort of chronological order. Instead, I'm going to dive into random days that highlight what life can be like around here. And I thought, what better place to start than when we were all forced to be together around the clock, whether we wanted to or not.
My husband, Patrick, and I had just come back from a trip to Seattle when the first big news of Covid started swirling. Patrick works for a tech company based in Seattle, and his yearly trip there happened to coincide with Valentine's Day. So, he added a couple of days to the beginning of his trip, and we spent the weekend exploring the city.
We came home to news of this pandemic hitting America in, where else, Seattle! Quickly, it was everywhere and I remember sitting at Molly's sixth birthday party talking to other moms. It was the start of spring break, which we were told was going to be extended to two weeks rather than the usual one to allow for this silly virus to run its course. Our governor has just announced gatherings had to be less than 50 people the morning of the party. I had a giant blow-up obstacle course in my front yard, and moms texting me to ask if the party was still on. We figured this may be our last hurrah for a little bit, so we social distanced as much as possible in the front yard and a group of kindergartners played for what would be the last time they'd see each other without masks for a while.
As we were discussing the uncertainty of what was happening, one of the moms lamented that she was fairly certain we wouldn't be going to back to school the rest of the year. She was right!
My husband already worked from home, so nothing much changed for him (although it did lead to our first big pandemic project - converting our shed into a home office so he could avoid the noisiness of three girls trying to homeschool. It turned out beautifully and I learned I'm a pro at laying down bamboo flooring - who knew?). For the girls, though, getting used to school from home was not the easiest transition. There were tears and fights and frustration, but throughout schooling at home, the girls were troopers.
We set up work stations, but then allowed them to work wherever they could concentrate the easiest. I tried to make sure we had activities and fun things to keep us going.
Follow along as I highlight ways we kept sane (at least attempted to, anyway).
Photo 1: Molly diligently doing her kindergarten work. She couldn't wait to get her hands on her schoolwork!
Photo 2: P.E. from home wasn't as easy as Maddy had hoped.
Photo 3: Luckily, we keep an art table fully stocked, so Regina could do art class easily from home.
Photo 4: Molly attempting a Zoom piano lesson.
Photo 5: Maddy didn't let quarantine stop her from her favorite thing - we shifted her voice lessons to Zoom.
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