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Another low key day as the boys headed to Grandma’s house for the day. They played with toys, ran around outside, ordered McDonald’s for lunch and playing some more.

I made 4 batches of Easter-themed macarons and then ran into my office for a little while. The building was empty (which is typical of Sundays) and it was a little creepy. I locked myself in as soon as I got there (but the building was still silent and empty when I left).

The boys got home and we had dinner and warm chocolate chip cookies for dessert. We’re ready for another busy week of working keeping 2 boys busy. I have 2 themes for the week (a theme for a whole week just seems like too much). Monday-Tuesday we are going to do dinosaur themed activities. Wednesday-Thursday we are actually going to go up to camp. Friday-Sunday will be Easter themed activities (and Easter!).

check out his cookie eating technique

A great day! Nate started the day by making GIANT pancakes!

We zoom chatted with our friends- each of the kiddos showing off something cool that they’ve made. I think the moms enjoyed talking even more than the kids.

Next up, Nate took the boys to the basement to play while I scrubbed the house, top to bottom. I moved furniture, scrubbed every corner, vacuumed, swept, cleaned until our house was shining.

Most days, I follow the same pattern- wake up feeling great, do 200 things without pausing for a break until I am so tired I can’t move, look at the calendar and calculate how far out from surgery I am (“4 weeks out- yep, still within the 6 week recovery period”), vow to take it easy the next day, immediately forget the vow, make a new to-do list, repeat. I literally do not know how to take it easy.

After lunch, Nate took the boys outside so I could rest. And then it was time for family movie afternoon! We loaded up on snacks and watched the brand new movie “Onward”. It was a great movie but is 2 brothers on a bonding journey to bring back their dead father for a short time. By the end of the movie, I was sobbing hysterically and only got ahold of myself because I was afraid I would scare the children. But it was a great movie.

After the movie we went outside again. I told the boys to stay in the yard. As I was chatting with Christine on marco polo, imagine my surprise when I saw two small people behind me.

We went inside at dinner time and had “snack” dinner, which Xander claims is his favorite. That’s only mildly insulting since I cook every meal he eats and most dinners are made from scratch… but fine, snack dinner is the best.

After dinner and bath time, we zoomed with the Whited family. It was a nice day, balanced with activity and relaxing. And our house is SUPER clean, so that’s always a huge win for the day!

Our plans for the week- complete

I think our busy week tired all of us out and so today was a very slow day. We completed our first week home. When life is normal, we always have lots of fun things to do on the weekend, but right now, the weekend will be mostly the same except that Nate is still going into the office during the week, so it will be nice to have him home.

At school, the kids go outside in basically all weather. I thought we would do the same but it turns out I am not nearly as hearty as the teachers and I didn’t want to. It was cold and wet outside, so we decided to stay inside where it was warm and cozy.

I had 2 video calls today. During the 10am call, the boys played nicely and I just had to listen, so I was available if they needed me. During the second one, it was a much smaller group and I had to be attentive the whole time. So I made sure they had lots of snacks and they got to have their ipads. I was able to get through the whole meeting without any interruption and I was grateful for that.

my poor sad baby

Grandma Debbie came over around 1 and we had a late lunch. Right before we sat down to eat, I realized there was blood all over the floor. I had broken a glass while emptying the dishwasher this morning. I thought I’d gotten it all swept up, but apparently Augustus’s bare foot had found a shard. It wasn’t a bad cut (he hadn’t even noticed it was cut until I saw the blood), but when he saw it, he was HYSTERICAL. At one point, I asked, are you hurt or scared and he yelled, “scared!” Poor guy! He was inconsolable for several minutes, and eventually I rocked him to sleep. Naps are rare, so he was definitely upset.

He was still very sad when he woke up, so we ended up having a lot of screen time, a lot of snuggles and a quiet day. I think some days we just need to take it easy and it’s ok to have a balance between full days and lazy days.

In other quarantine news- I recently downloaded the app Marco Polo. Once it hits the middle aged moms, you know it’s past its’ prime, but it’s new to me. Basically it’s video text messaging. My bestie Christine and I text nonstop, but now we also send each other video snippets as well. Today she did an entire cooking show tutorial (in short clips) while she cooked dinner. It was fabulous. Between the two of us, there are always kids jumping in, screaming in the background, and I have yet to figure out an angle that isn’t just a full frame of my chin(s). But it sort of feels like a reality show confessional or like we’re cool instagram vloggers. But it definitely makes it feel like we’re in this insane quarantine together and it’s been one of the highlights of this whole crazy situation. I thought it was kind of a goofy app at first, but now it’s a daily highlight I recommend it if you are feeling sad or lonely.

Another full day! The craziest part of this is that I think we have a pretty good balance between mom-led activities and boys entertain themselves free play. X & A play really well together and also play very well independently. And yet, I am still busy nonstop. Besides all of the activities of our day, I also washed, folded and put away 2 loads of laundry, emptied all the garbage cans, did the dishes multiple times, made breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as a batch of breakfast burritos for later this week. We cleaned up toys several times. And by the end of the day, the house is still messier than I’d like it and there will be a full load of laundry tomorrow. I’m envious of all the people quarantining without children- what are you doing with yourselves?!

We were outside first thing this morning, “adventuring” as we call it. We live in the middle of the city, but there are a lot of cool areas in our neighborhood with trees and large open spaces to run. We’re finding every nook and cranny near our house to explore. We found a really fun area behind our alley. There was a great tree that became our secret lair. Xander was Dash and Augustus was Baby Jack Jack from the Incredibles and we spent about 25 minutes running up and down the hill, battling bad guys.

Before we went inside, the boys jammed out to some music in my van. They love to play in cars and I’m pretty sure within a few years, they will be trying to drive away.

The boys played while I made lunch and then Xander and I made pizzas for dinner. Augustus was tired and not interested, so he read books in his bed while we pretended we were chefs.

Rest time was pretty short today and then we were back outside. We played in the yard for a while and then headed back to the secret lair. They rolled down (and then ran back up) the hill about 10 times. They found good sticks and battled more bad guys.

We came inside and had a snack and then we painted for a short while.

After painting, we baked cookies.

By that time, it was only 3pm and I was EXHAUSTED. So I got out my computer and let them play by themselves. The entertained themselves very well for a full hour.

By 4, I was even more tired, but we went outside AGAIN. They wanted to walk back to the secret lair, but I didn’t have it in me. They played outside for an hour before I convinced them to come in and relax.
Nate got home from work and we ate the pizza we’d made earlier, with cookies for dessert. Bath, play, stories and bed. It’s been a very good, but very busy day.

My mom watches the boys on Wednesdays and we haven’t changed that part of the routine. They love going to Grandma’s house. They played outside, were busy all day and came home tired!

I finally got to sit and work uninterrupted for an extended period of time. I made some macarons. I got things ready for the rest of the week. It was a productive day. I am incredibly grateful for the support- this is not going to be an easy journey. Despite the productivity, I was very anxious all day. I spent most of the day freaking out about one of us getting sick.

A few weeks ago, I had the same anxiety, which ended in a cooking marathon and 15 meals in our freezer in case Nate and I get sick at the same time and have to try to feed all of us while deathly ill. Everything is in disposable foil pans that don’t need to be washed and ready to pop in and bake. Even sick, we should be able to do that and keep our family fed.

Today I spent some time writing an emergency action plan in the event that one of us gets sick. Our spare bedroom is upstairs and doesn’t have access to a bathroom. The basement has a bathroom and while it probably isn’t the first place I’d choose to spend 2 weeks deathly ill, I think we can make it work. Nate and I are going to do some re-arranging and set up this weekend. I wrote out some steps for what happens if we get sick. I am still feeling really anxious about it, but it feels better to have a written plan that Nate and I have discussed. Hopefully tomorrow I will be so busy that I don’t have time to think.

Day 2. How many days do we get to be on this adventure? Play-dough nearly broke me- there’s gonna have to be some limits. But overall, day 2 was a success.

We stuck to our schedule pretty closely, so that’s been helpful to my sanity. We started the day outside- first with bubble snakes, which is a project I’ve done a few times at camp. You cut the bottom off a plastic bottle and wrap a sock around the opening. I also used a rubber band to keep it in place. Squirt a little bit of dish soap and a bit of water (I didn’t measure, I just did a few squirts of soap and a little bit of water). Dip the sock side into the soap/water and then blow. If you do this activity with 2 year olds, be very clear to blow, instead of suck, because Augustus ended up with a mouth full of bubbles, which I hadn’t seen when we did this with camp kids.

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After bubble snakes, we colored with chalk. I was eager to try the project I’ve seen on facebook, where people use tape to make geometric shapes, and then you remove the tape and it looks awesome. Xander colored for exactly 2 minutes before he was bored and Augustus mostly ran laps up and down the sidewalk, so yes, this is my project. At one point, a truck pulled over and a man yelled, “you should let the kids do that”. Ha. Ha. He was being friendly, so I didn’t throw anything at him. I like the ones people have done on black driveways, because they are a little more dramatic, but ours turned out cool and it’s supposed to rain tomorrow, so I wasn’t going to be too much of a perfectionist.

I have a VERY high tolerance for messy things- paint, glitter, getting dirty outside. I love all of it. But I hate play-dough. I hate when the colors get mixed. I hate that they can’t independently use the toys and they get frustrated. I hate everything about it. But when they asked to do play-dough, I said yes. I was scrolling on my phone while they were play-doughing, and I saw this meme, and thought, “AMEN! YES. ME WITH PLAYDOUGH.”

Luckily, play-dough, like most activities, lasted only about 20 minutes, and then we were on to lunch time.

After lunch it was rest time. I am not sure what kind of magic the teachers at daycare have to keep a bunch of wiggly toddlers on a cot for 1.5 hours, but I don’t have that skill yet. I said they had to stay in their room for a little while. I was sitting on my bed, attempting to do some work, when I heard them both creep out. I could hear them in the living room, Xander saying, “mommy is gone!” But they found me quickly. And then proceeded to come back out of their room 17 more times until the broke my spirit and we ended quiet time. We’re going to have to work on that, because I need more rest than they are giving me (and so do they!).

Next on the schedule was rock salt ice cream. I have done this at camp a few times and I forgot what a terrible activity it is. It’s great on paper. But in reality, to get the cream to solidify, you have to aggressively shake it for 20 minutes. My children shook it for 2 seconds. And then I forgot that the salt and ice get too cold to hold. And then the ice melts and you have salt water everywhere. And in the end, you get soupy ice cream at best. And it actually just tastes like sweetened heavy cream. And the kicker to all of this is that I’ve done it before I knew that’s how it goes! I do not recommend this activity. I should have had some real ice cream hidden in the freezer. The boys covered it in chocolate sauce and sprinkles and they said they liked it, and were excited to tell Nate about the ice cream they made, so maybe it was a success based on that, but I DO NOT recommend.

From ice cream, we went back outside. It’s upper 50s today, so we are taking advantage of as much sun as we can get. We did a scavenger hunt, finding items of each color I imagined it would be things in nature, but instead it was backyard toys. It was another 10 minutes of fun.

Then we hopped in the car and headed to a big tree filled field across from a park. I used to take Olivia here to play with the ball. We ran from tree to tree, swinging sticks, yelling, “there’s a bad guy, HIDE!” over and over. We tip toed from one tree to the next. Then we zig zagged. Then we ran fast. It was kind of like red light green light. It was actually really fun.

They were exhausted when we got home, so I broke my rule (I think it’s a rule I’m going to break a lot) and they got 30 minutes of ipad time.

Then we went back outside for the part of the afternoon where I sat on a chair and they played.

Thankfully Nate got home after we’d been outside for a while and he took them inside to play and give me a break. I am 3.5 weeks post surgery and still supposed to be resting. Thankfully I haven’t needed the full 6 weeks of recovery- I feel pretty good and almost normal. I definitely notice that I get tired more quickly though, so that’s kind of a challenge in all of this.

Dinner- ribs, mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables.

Bring on bath and bedtime!

It was our first Monday at home and it was a great day. I made a schedule for us and the boys checked it several times throughout the day to see where we were and what was next. Xander is pretty “type A” so he liked having a structure to the day. And we stuck to it all day.

The weather was awesome and we were outside right away, and spent a full hour riding bikes, throwing rocks, and running around fighting bad guys.

After playing outside, we went back inside the house and the boys played while I had a facetime interview with a potential summer staff. The boys were very cooperative and didn’t interrupt.

For lunch, we had a picnic in our front yard. We live on a pretty busy street, so there was a lot going on for us to watch. We saw about 10 people out for walks, 5 or 6 dogs for walks, a garbage truck drove by, lots of good cars- the boys waved to every person, animal and vehicle.

After lunch is was time for rest time. Overall they did pretty well, although we added some rules as we went- no arguing and no coming out of their room. 

When quiet time was over, we worked on a few different projects- we practiced writing ‘A’s, painted letters for their wall, and played.

Then we headed back outside for the rest of the afternoon. They took turns driving the jeep up and down the alley. For the first few laps, Augustus chose to run after it instead of riding or driving. I was also running along, and after the 15th time up the alley, I thought maybe there’s hope that I won’t gain 100 pounds during this quarantine. Not pictured, Xander changing into shorts, then taking off his shirt. He is VERY ready for the summer.

Xander helping Augustus steer

It was a busy day and I think I am more exhausted than either of them. I’m going to have to build my stamina for our daily adventures.

One of the challenging things about this whole experience has been that usually on the weekends, we have a lot of fun things to do. There are play-places, the Children’s Museum, the zoo, playdates, Xander’s dance class and so many other things we like to do. And they are all closed. Even the playground is supposedly off limits because the virus can live on surfaces.

In the early years of camp, our budget was limited to basically zero, so creating programming out of nothing is something I have a lot of experience doing. Although the boys have been going to school these last few weeks, I have been preparing for having them home. I have long lists of activities, divided into different categories. I have been shopping for basic supplies. I re-configured their room, clearing out their closet to create a “cozy corner” and organized all the art supplies into one area. I sorted books into categories so that I can change the display books to match the theme of our week. And I’ve been mentally preparing to try to work full time and keep them on a good schedule.

We tried on lots of different costumes, but ultimately went with Buzz and Woody. On Saturday, we had a zoom call with the pre-K kids. All of the kids came in costume and got to show off their look. Afterwards, Nate and I stationed ourselves at the front and back doors and the boys got to go back and forth to trick or treat.

https://www.kare11.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/day-one-of-mns-stay-at-home-order/89-d74da012-4dc3-491f-988d-19f8311b3009?fbclid=IwAR1X7DBxnAR4mP6W5Jwx0WZt95QEleHn–74HvyYwyR5KWwkVpmuffsLy6A


Halloween fun ended after lunch and then we switched to non-theme activities. We baked banana bread.

And then we did a scavenger hunt that I found online. I hid the clues all over the house and the boys were pretty good at figuring them out. The prize at the end was 2 little painting kits, so that was our next activity.

We played outside. We played in the basement. We read some books.

By the end of the day, I think I was more exhausted than either of the boys. I have a lot of free play time built into the regular schedule- I am not going to camp-direct all day every day. They play pretty nicely on their own, so hopefully we’ll find a good balance that works for everyone.