Corona Virus Quarantine Day #21: April 7, 2020

My guest writer today is Ellen Anne.  Our book loving, volleyball playing beauty.

Today we did our school work.  Mommy had to work today so we did it in sessions between when she was in class and not.  My favorite part was our specialty, because I like learning about Arizona.  One day we will hopefully go there as a family when this is all over.  After that we did our sidewalk chalk mosaic.  It’s a cross with a heart around it, it looks really pretty.  I really enjoyed doing that, we had a huge chalk kit and used almost all of it to complete it.

Then mommy finished work and we took Gi Gi on a long walk.  We ended up on our trail in the woods.  It was fun.  After that we did the go cart in the front yard until it started leaking gas then Daddy made us get off.  That was awesome.  I drive really slow. Cooper drives like a crazy person.

After that we moved to the back yard and our kayak.  Fiona and I splashed each other.  She splashed me first so we kept splashing each other back and forth.  The worst part about that was we had to take a shower.  We saw a snake in the pond today.  That was creepy.

We ate dinner outside because it’s so nice outside.  After that we had a dance party on the back deck.  We played with the dog too.  We enjoyed every second of this nice weather!  Overall I think the corona virus is okay because I like that I get to spend more time with my family and I don’t like it because I don’t get to see my friends anymore.  I also miss playing sports!  Today I am thankful for the nice weather, Gi Gi, Zoey, my family, this house, the barn, healthy food and water to drink.

Love, Ellen

Mommy’s notes on the day:

I have to applaud myself because today was the first time I worked and homeschooled at the same time and I didn’t cry.  I am thinking that is largely because of the weather but either way…I’m chalking it up as a win!

What a beautiful day.  It was 80 degrees and a little breezy.  When I wasn’t teaching online I was outside.  For my final meeting of online school I did sit on my back deck while the kids colored their beautiful mosaic.  It was glorious.

We had an enormous chalk package and used about every single one.  This was a labor of love for sure!

GOD bless Daddy for helping to tape it out.  He is the master engineer!

These three did the bulk of the work…GiGi did not help…at all!

I wanted to soak up every single second of the nice weather before it gets cold again this weekend.  We went for a long walk with Gi Gi which was incredible, you can see my walk buddies below.

Daddy, Finley and Fiona stayed back and worked on the go cart.  When we got back we found those two driving around the front.  The other kids were in a mad dash to be the next on the go cart as soon as they saw that.

For a beautiful 15 minutes I was able to sit in a comfortable outdoor chair and watch the kids enjoy each other and this gorgeous day.  Did I mention I was sitting down?  That. Was. The. Best. Part.

After the go cart started leaking oil…we decide to move to the backyard and kayak. The kids took turns and played so nicely out there.  When the weather is nice I feel like everyone gets along better.  There is no fighting because it feels wrong to squabble when the weather is just perfection.

The pond was a big hit today…even Gi Gi decided to take a swim in it…she was a big fan so I see a lot of baths in our future.

After all this outside play the kids were starved and we ate outside because as Gary Lezak would say the eat outside index was an 11 today!  Then instead of going inside and watching a movie we stayed outside ran with the dog and had a dance party.  It was my idea of a perfect night!  I love me some dance parties. Fletcher and I did the most dancing. He was our ongoing entertainment most of the night.  We were outside together, running with the puppy and enjoying some of our favorite songs while laughing together…my idea of a perfect evening.

This was one of his signature move…the other one can’t be displayed here…he’s got some inappropriate moves in his blood.  He did however dance or about 90 straight minutes…it’s moments like these where I can’t deny he’s related to me.

If only everyday could be this good!  I think that’s the idea though.  During this quarantine pandemic there are good days, there are terrible days and there are days like today…perfect ones.  We’ve had plenty of the other kind of days during this so I’m not trying to paint a picture like it’s all sunshine and rainbows up in here…cause it’s not, but today was divine and in the spirit of celebr8awesome…it is something to be celebrated.

I will try to call up this day when the next day is not so awesome.  I will try to remember this day when life returns to normal and we don’t have this sacred time that many of us (including me) at times are wishing away.

These are unprecedented times.  I pray we never see anything like this ever again.  I am hopeful that we will not.  However, what I have learned here is that I like things at a slower pace. I don’t miss packing lunches and racing from one place to the next and all the crazy that comes with our normal.  I do miss watching them compete and I know they miss it too.  I love the sibling bonding that is going on in my house during this time.  It’s different every single day.  Sometimes is the boys vs. the girls.  Other times its Finley and Fiona and Ellen and Cooper.  Fletcher is our free bird…always.  I love that we can let them stay up a little later on a school night if we are outside and it’s 75 degrees because why not?  We have nowhere else to go.

But…I do miss human interaction.  I do sometimes want to crawl out of my skin because there is never a single solitary second I am not being called “mom” or have someone breathing, quite literally, down my neck (why must they stand so close to me all the time?).  But in those moments I retreat back to days like today and remind myself that one day they won’t want to stand so close to me and I will hear “mom” a lot less.  They will need me less and less as they grow up so I’m trying to soak these moments up now.

I pray your day was as beautiful as mine.  I pray that tomorrow is an even better day for you.  I pray for an end to this horrible virus and I pray for all the people in our government who have to make the hard choices that many are so quick to criticize (I wouldn’t want their jobs).  I pray for all our first responders and health care professionals and all the people that are deemed essential that go out everyday to keep our citizens and our country safe.  I pray for all my teacher friends.  I know the struggle of what you are doing everyday…I feel your pain. For all my teacher friends with small kids at home…I say an extra prayer.

Thank you for coming on this journey with me, those of you that read faithfully.  This is such a great release for me and it helps me to decompress my stress and anxiety about this whole situation…but most importantly it forces me to focus on what really matters and all the beautiful moments I get to have with my favorite people because of this mandated slow down.

I hope you are able to have moments like that too during this time where we can all see while this is inconvenient and scary, it is also beautiful and eye opening.

Stay safe my friends.

A few other beautiful moments from our day!  

And that final picture is how my day ended…

 

You can’t make this stuff up…thank GOD we don’t live in a neighborhood. This kid loves peeing outside.  I guess all that dancing required him to strip down naked and pee off our front porch.

#celer8awesome

#dorseyshenangians