*Disclaimer: I’m too tired to proofread this. My brain can’t take any more. Hope it makes sense!
Mason, Rylan, and Elli,
Well, kids, I’m gonna skip to the punchline of this month.
Coronavirus. COVID-19. “Stay at Home” orders. Quarantine. Pandemic.
That’s life right now for the whole world. It happened halfway through March (for us at least), which is the month I’m supposed to be recapping here, but I’m jumping ahead to tell you that part now.
So the month started out normally for us. You had some practices for Sparks-a-Rama on Wednesdays, school was going well, and we were looking forward to finishing out our mild winter and moving into an early spring. By mid-march, the world quickly morphed into something none of us have ever experienced before. Schools, churches, economies, and whole countries shut down. There’s a virus that started in China where lots of people were getting sick; the virus eventually makes it hard for you to breathe, and a lot of people started dying from it, because it is very contagious. It started spreading around the world, leading to all of those closings. It was a crazy time where things were normal one day, then the next day you hear about an event being canceled in a big city, the next day, an event is canceled in your hometown, and the next day schools are being closed for 2 weeks. Then the next week the governor closes school for the rest of the year.
School being closed was the biggest difference for our family, because Daddy is still going to work every day (people still want their packages!) So it feels sort of like summertime does at our house, except the weather isn’t so hot, and we’re adding in homeschooling (….where someone else is picking the curriculum and telling us how much work to do every day.) We made it through those first two weeks of homeschooling in March and we’re still alive, so that’s good. But there was a lot of crying involved. Some days weren’t too bad, and that was nice. Grace’s home-learning method is a Wednesday drop off/pick up time at school for turning in and picking up work. So Wednesdays have been harder than other days typically, since we can’t do much until we get the work from school. Daddy was working nights, so he was home during the day that second week you were off, so that helped school go much smoother that week.
Some events that have been canceled so far for us are Sparks-a-Rama, Daddy Donut Day (that made me cry several times, Ry), Mason’s birthday party, our dentist appointments (not complaining), Aunt Heidi and Uncle Ian coming home, Grand Prix, Grandparents’ Day, Field Day, Park to Park 1/2 Marathon…..and probably so many other things that I don’t want to think about. The first couple weeks I think I went through the typical stages of grief. It’s helped me to cope to use Marco Polo more to talk to friends (mostly Leanne), and to try to get school done by 1:00 every day whenever possible. We still have rest time (I think we all need it) and we have a little more time to read together than we do during school. So far we’ve finished Farmer Boy, Little Town on the Prairie, and a Boxcar Children audiobook, plus many picture books. I’ve also appreciated being able to move bedtime and wake up time up an hour, to where I wish we could always have it. It’s nice not to have to rush supper and bedtime as much as usual.
Now I’ll recap our before-Corona time in March.
Grandma came to visit for a couple hours the first Saturday in March on her way back from staying with her friend for a few days.
Grandma and Pap drove down the next Saturday, and we drove to Highland County, even though the Maple Festival was canceled because of the virus. It seemed like the stores were happy to have customers still buying things on a weekend they would normally be making a lot of money. We stopped in Churchville to eat on the way there (but we ate in the car because inside the restaurant was closed — our first encounter with something being closed like that because of the virus), then we stopped in McDowell, then moved to Monterey, which was easy this year because there wasn’t traffic. We stopped at a sugar camp there before making our way back. Then, we stopped at a pizza place in Churchville before going home (Grandma and Pap left from there) and we were able to eat inside that restaurant. We even got some free donuts from a food truck that was leaving when we were eating supper!
One fun thing about this time is that a LOT of people are giving away things for free. Mo Willems (we’ve always loved his books!) has been doing art lessons, and that has been super fun to do together.
Church has moved to YouTube and Facebook. Y’all love not having to wear church clothes anymore and being able to eat breakfast while “going to church.”
One day you decided to try the famous mattress-on-the-stairs trick. I made sure there were lots of pillows at the bottom, but I still thought someone might end up in the hospital; our steps are really steep and long. It turned out to be fun with no serious injuries!
We had one art day with Nonni, where the boys and I all made cool canvas paintings. The one I made is now hanging in our newly decorated office! Elli took a nap while we made our art.
Rylan, you started getting to see your class and Mrs. McConnell three times a week on video chats! I was the most sad about your school year ending, so this helped my heart feel a little better that you got to see them, even though you hid most of the time for the first couple sessions and kept asking for your mic to be on mute.
Miss Summer and Mr. Jeremy started posting a weekly challenge for the church’s families on Wednesday night that are due on Saturday night. The first one was a scavenger hunt. Since Daddy is still working, we can’t do the challenges until Saturday. We found 8 of the 10 places, but ironically we couldn’t figure out the 2 that were at the church. We didn’t start until an hour and a half before the deadline, though, so we could have been more successful if we’d started earlier in the day. (Rylan, you fell asleep in the van while we did this and only got out for one stop.)
Here’s another Sunday where Elli thought she was at the beach eating ice cream.
Mason, you got to Skype with Bryson one day, and it turned into a group call with Rylan and Elli too. The three of you have been playing together a lot more and getting along surprisingly well. You all three also loved to hear Mrs. Riddle read Mrs. Piggle Wiggle every school day.
Daddy had someone on his route give him a bike for free one day! That made all 3 boys very excited. Mason, you’ve also been playing a lot of basketball on the patio and riding bikes with Rylan a lot. We played kickball with Nonni and Poppy one Sunday, and that was fun— although I heard Nonni pulled or almost pulled a muscle.
Mason, you had a few days of digging a “moat” (giant hole in the middle of the yard) near the swing set.
Ry, you had a fever for 6 days - the same week that we stayed home from school at first. You also had a little cough. Who knows, maybe you had the Coronavirus. But no one else ever got sick, if you did.
Once you were better, Ry, we made a recipe together from a book we’d been reading- Carrot Puddin’. Which I guess is like bread pudding? (I don’t know). But it was fun to cook together, and you were proud of making it.
Here are some quotes from the month:
“What if there was a plane that crashed into everyone in the world except me.....and Micah Erdman?”
“Me make the sun wake up.”
“I done eating my food, and my belly said, “Go poop, Elli. Go poop.””
“Chwokwit mulk”
“Ah Jesus not make me burp!”
“Did you fake a fever only because you wanted Mrs. McConnell to pray for you?”
I love you, Mommy
For the record, Rylan is the one who drew on this wall. Mason was erasing it for him. Also, Mason, you found some Valentine’s Day decoration