Corona Virus Day #29: April 16, 2020: Dancing to Disney

Tonight my guest writer is the incredibly sweet, creative and kind hearted 9-year-old Cooper Claerhout Dorsey.

Yesterday I lost a tooth so when I woke up today I had $5 and three suckers under my pillow.  Peach mango, pineapple and blu-raspberry.  It was awesome.  Today we started the day with school.  The school day was fun doing it at our house instead of regular school.  We did a lot of math in school today.  I do miss going to school at Sacred Heart, I especially miss seeing my friends.  I took the dog out a lot. It was fun, we played fetch a lot.  She likes it.  We play with a stick or a shoe.  Sometimes she brings it back and other times I have to chase her.  I like doing this with her.

Then we had exercise class, my favorite exercise was everything.  I like to exercise with mom because I get stronger and it’s good for me.  Then we had snack and I took the dog out again.  After that we finished our school day with reading, more math, writing our short stories and religion.

When we were done with school we went to the barn.  I was practicing on my right hand shots.  I got 100 makes, I am getting better. Then I went to see what Fletcher and Fiona were doing on the playground.  They were playing a sea game.  We had fish on our boat and there were zombies, skeletons and sharks who could eat our fish.  We could transfer to different worlds.  The worlds were the dark sea and the worst sea. In the dark sea there was a curse that could kill everything.  We had to swing on the swings to get the engine started to pump gas and to fill up the water to make the fish survive.  Someone had to steer the wheel so we can run over the skeletons and Fletcher had to fight the bad guys in the water and kill them with his sword.  It was a super cool game to play.  Fiona and Fletcher made this stuff up and Ellen and I joined in and went with it.  I was the gas guy!

It was for sure raining and Gi Gi somehow made it up the the tower in the play set…but whatever this game was I could hear the laughter in the house while cleaning up lunch.

Then we went back to the barn and we played pickle ball and did Ellen’s obstacle courses that were really fun and cool.  Then I helped Ellen make another obstacle course for Finley and Fletcher to do, it was probably better than our first one.  Fletcher liked it a lot.  Then we played a big match of kick ball.  The first teams were the Red Devils vs. the Piggy Butts.  I hit a home run and got a lot of people out.  I even caught a ball against the wall.  The Red Devils won the game…my team.  Then we switched up the teams to me, Fiona and Logan vs. Hunter, Finley and Ellen.  It was a fantastic game.

Then we had dinner, it was so good.  Mom made chicken fajitas, they were my favorite, maybe my new favorite, they were really, really good.  Then I played cards with my Gaga.  Then it was time to finish the Greatest Showman from mommy’s birthday.  I really like that movie, it’s a good movie with really good songs.  My favorite song in it is “The Greatest Show” or “the Other Side”.

Before we went to bed we watched the Disney sing along.  They were pretty good and funny.  But some of the songs weren’t my favorite, but I liked it.  The corona virus is good because we get to spend so much time with our family.  We can play at the barn more and learn different things because we have our mom as a teacher and she’s the best teacher in the world.  The corona virus is bad because we can’t go to school and see our friends or teachers or go to the store, because that’s my favorite, I like going to see Steven.  We can’t go to restaurants either.  Also, it hurts people.  Today I am thankful for my family, my friends, my teachers about everything in the world except the corona virus and sicknesses.

Love, Cooper!

Mommy’s thoughts:

First can I say that I swear to you, the kids write the above…I just type because if I had to wait for them to type it we’d have to start at 5pm.  So I thought I should make that disclaimer given some of the things Cooper had to say.  He’s a sweet, sweet soul that one.

At one point today I was trying to help one child with their reading homework, another came in to let me know our 14-year-old dog had pooped on the floor and moments later another came in to let me know that the toilet was clogged and they reaalllllyyyy needed to pee (you know using one of the other bathrooms in our house was just too much)…just a few seconds later another kid came in near tears because they couldn’t get the IPad to load the video they had to watch for school (all of this in about a 90 second time span).  You guys…you can’t make this stuff up.  At this point all you can do is laugh.  It’s done being stressful (most of the time) and now it’s just funny.  If nothing else, the kids are learning coping skills.  Help is not immediately provided in the real world, sometimes we have to figure stuff out on our own…corona virus quarantine is equipping them with these life skills.

Some of the school work today!  Fiona’s animal habitat and reading homework!

On another note, Corona virus quarantine has really made the concept of cloning myself seem like a great idea.  If there were simply more of me…I could do all four of these things at the same time and that would be awesome.

While the weather was rainy and dreary our moods didn’t reflect that thankfully.  We spent about 5 hours in the barn today.  Playing pickle ball, basketball, volleyball and later kick ball. In full disclosure…I wasn’t in on this kick ball game as I was cooking dinner…but I was in on everything else.   The game that was being played on the play set, for awhile in the rain provided a solid hour of entertainment and laughter.  I let it go on once it started raining because they were so happy.  So happy that I’m pretty sure they didn’t even notice the rain.  A child’s imagination is truly a beautiful thing.  If we could someone harness that confidence to dream big dream like littles do so that when they were teenagers they had that same comfort with thinking outside the box…something I will work on figuring out how to do….

Ellen very proudly set up obstacle course after obstacle course, and her creativity was so amazing. It was impressive.  Also Finley trying to shimmy under the tennis racket on top of cones was incredible to watch. 

After dinner we thought it was time to finish my birthday movie of “the Greatest Show”.  I love this movie so much. The music in it just speaks to my soul.  If you can listen to “This is Me” and not want to go play sports or kick some booty…you aren’t my people.  Holy cow this song fires me up!

Then as if this night could get any better Disney decided to have a sing along on TV.  If you did not watch this…find a way to download it or watch in on replay because it was epic.  I laughed, sang, danced and of course cried.  If you could watch the Donnie Osmond “Make a Man Out of You” video with his grandkids and not have all the feels…I’m pretty sure you lack an actual soul…so you may want to look into that.

When I turned 15 my parents took me and two friends to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat in downtown Chicago.  Donnie Osmond was Joseph.  You guys, he was amazing.  When he went up into the air with his amazing coat and sang, I swear he looked at me.  Myself and two of my friends talked about it the whole way home.  He was dreamy.  That was a long time ago…and man he could sing.  So impressive.  I’m pretty sure I could still sing every word to every song in that play.  Tonight brought me back to that incredibly happy moment. Music is magical.

Disney sing along…good times!

I know I’ve said this already like a dozen times but music is my medicine.  It immediately changes my mood, pumps me up, makes me cry and gives me all the feels.  So I urge you…if you are a fan of Disney and even remotely like music…watch this. They even do a montage thanking all essential workers…that pushed me right over the damn edge.  Ellen turned around and said “oh my goodness mom, why are you crying?”  Someday she will understand.

Watching the boys take the dog out together is too much for me.  Fletcher was the school time entertainment today riding his big wheel around the basement. 

Stay well my friends, stay well.

#celebr8awesome

#dorseyshenanigans