SAMANTHA?!?!

Today I thought to myself...I'm going to set Quinn up with a entertaining activity and I'm going to sit next to her and do my own work. That activity was dying Easter eggs. I bought many of Easter egg dye sets because I figured she would like it and we have nothing but time to dye Easter eggs as much as we want this year. Why I thought for 37 seconds she could do this independently is just beyond me. It's liquid. The shells crack. She's four. So we dyed some Easter eggs together instead.

I had a mental health team meeting today with our admin to go over some resources and ideas for our families. Then another meeting with my co-counselor following. Mostly to debrief on what just happened and what we needed to do. Quinn and I also made a video for one of my school's FlipGrid activities. The challenge was Karaoke/Dance Party. We went with Frozen for obvious reasons. You can see the ridiculousness below.

We finished out the day with 2 miles around the neighborhood. Quinn has reached her first 26 mile goal. She thinks she's ordering a bike. I mean she really went for it. Last week she told me she was getting Elsa's real powers, so I consider the bike a downgrade, but still a pretty big ask for walking around the neighborhood when there's really nothing else to do. Stay tuned on how that turns out.

The Porch

Today I got up and went for a walk by myself. It was already a beautiful day. When I got back I lured my child onto the front porch with me to enjoy my coffee. She had hot chocolate...one of the only things she's been asking for on our "Staycation." It was lovely. I love our front porch, but I never really get the time to sit out there during the school year. Then in the summertime it's just too hot to hang out out there, but today was a great day for it. In the afternoon we did some reading and FaceTime on the porch as well. 

The only other main events today included a work meeting, some collaborating with my counseling partner, and a walk around the neighborhood trails with my Pandemic BFF. I did get a super nice email from a student today. It captures a few favorite parts of my job. I do love that I get to see the kids from kindergarten through 5th grade, and one of my favorite things is getting those 5th graders ready for middle school. It's still so weird that things have ended (at least in person) so abruptly this school year, and I feel for kids who are in a transitioning year...like 5th grade, seniors, etc. Hopefully they are using all this time to practice opening a combination lock.

The Weekend

Church on the couch

I would call this weekend productive if nothing else. I feel like it was really no different than most weekends, except there wasn't the pressures of Sunday afternoon and Sunday evening. We don't have to do all that prep work to make the week run as smoothly anymore, which is so nice. And when we spent ALL day Sunday trying to get our landscaping in control I wasn't as mad about it. What I am mad about is the amount of time we spent and our yard still looks like a hot mess. I guess this was the periodic reminder that I need to not upgrade my house or yard.

Yard trash...and it still a mess

Saturday we did a lot of miles. It was great weather for running, which I am trying to do more of with our current situation. Quinn is getting super close to her 26 mile goal. She is also LOVING some card games. We might be taking her to Vegas when this is all over. Current favorites include Go Fish, Old Maid, and War. We have also been enjoying some quiet reading time in Quinn's room. I get to read a little bit while she looks at books in her sleeping bag on the floor. Then we read a book together.

Reading time

Naturally for movie night we watched Frozen II. I've been developing a theory that this movie is actually the predictor of the Pandemic. Also, I'm serious. Think about it...there's people trapped in an enchanted forest, they couldn't go anywhere for 34 years, 5 months, and 23 days. Then there's Olaf singing When I am Older. Just google the lyrics to that...if we haven't all felt that way in the past few weeks, I don't know what to tell ya. Then there's the lyrics to Into the Unknown and The Next Right Thing. Honestly...tell me I'm wrong. Elsa is one powerful queen. And if I remember correctly she really set fire to the winter after the original Frozen was released too. Let's just hope it's not 34+ years until we are released back into the real world.

Fri-YAY?!

I love that mug. One of my work friends gave it to me because when I do the announcements on Friday I always say Fri-YAY! But is there really a difference anymore? It's really the same everyday. Technically, no one has work to do tomorrow, I suppose.

I woke up before everyone in my house today on purpose. Mostly I wanted to be at Target when it opened, but also I just wanted to sit and drink coffee by myself and watch some of the Today show before I left to pick up the things I needed. When I opened the garage door to leave it smelled like it does in the morning as I'm trying to hustle Quinn into her carseat and get to work quickly to meet the kids who help me pack food for the weekends on Friday. The birds sounded the same, extra loud at that time of day. And when I started the car it was about the same time we typically leave to get to work and school on time. It was weird to think how much has changed in two weeks.

The dream.

It was a slightly eventful day here. Quinn has been wanting a scooter for a long time. Last week on one of our walks she was talking about it again and then I remembered that she still has gift cards from Christmas. I let her pick one out online when we got home and it arrived late last night. We took it out twice today - there's Quinn's dream of the scooter vs. Quinn the reality of the scooter. We did have quite an argument over the whole thing this morning in which multiple people were staring at us as we tried to make it back home. Naturally, her helmet has a crown attached.

The reality. Sitting on the corner, refusing to move. The scooter was dirty. 

I had to go to Target today to pick up new EpiPens. While I was there I picked up some new produce. There was no real meat selection and no flour. I still haven't been able to get flour. Not a necessity, but I did want to make some recipes for fun. We also took a ride to deliver food to a friend. We stood six feet apart. Except Quinn, who is attached to my body at all times.

I did try to put a dent in the yard work that really needs to be done for a little bit this afternoon. Quinn was super pumped about helping to pull weeds and dig in dirt. I'm 100% serious about that. Hopefully she's feeling that way again this weekend when I enlist Matt's help as well.

Next week was supposed to be my College and Career week at school. Career Day is one of my favorite things to do. We are still going to do virtual activities, but it's not even close to the same. I am hoping my students send me a few pictures from their celebrations at home. Enjoy your weekend!

Sunshine

Today was the most beautiful day outside. I really can't even remember what went on this morning besides the fact that we must have eaten breakfast and I had a virtual staff meeting. The many pieces of Connect Four were also laying around for most of the day, so we probably did that too. The afternoon was pretty great though. We went for a long walk and then played with sensory bins (rainbow rice and kinetic sand) outside in the driveway. Once Matt was done with work he took over and I went for a solo walk/run, and when I came home Quinn requested reading time in her room (she 'read' to herself while I got to read my book) while Matt made dinner.

Tonight was a bonus movie night. I worked on my work while Quinn was watching the Cat in the Hat. I am able to get a few things done during the day work wise, but I have been doing the bulk of anything I am attempting to do after Quinn goes to bed. I have actually broken down and downloaded some apps for the child. She thinks the apps are super important in her life now. It's pretty funny. Prior to this, I would say technology was almost non existent on a daily basis for Quinn. While I attended my meeting this morning, Matt covered the day's reading and sight word practice upstairs. Thankfully, both of us are working from home so we can tag team when needed.

Just a side note on the distance learning. I think it goes without saying that this is not ideal. Teaching is hard work. And doing it online, on the spur of the moment, with limited resources, and not much technology expertise really complicates the matter. There's also the fact that sometimes we can't even get kids to do their work in school, in our presence. I could go on about all the factors here, but I won't. I do think we need to think about the fact that the parents working from home with multiple children at multiple levels, who are not teachers, are trying their best to do everything. Educators are also trying to figure it all out on the home front and the 'school' front. Everyone is working hard here, and right now it's hard just to go to Target or Wegmans and hope they have what you need/want. It's a stressful time. I hope that everyone is able to find a balance in our current situation.

Today's Major: Arts and Sciences

Cold and rainy = little to no motivation. Really all I wanted to do today was watch TV and lay in bed all day. My social distancing shadow would have been all in, but I'm not ready to let myself cave to that yet. We did a lot of art and science projects today, and continued sight word recognition and reading.

One of our neighbors dropped off the water cycle project in the picture below, and Quinn also learned a song about the water cycle this year at school so it should be fun to watch once the sun comes back. This would also be easy to create on your own with a ziploc and a sharpie. We also did the pepper in water (germs) and dish soap experiment. Super easy and you probably already have the supplies. She liked that one too. We did it a few times.

I did get Quinn all pumped up for some Price is Right, but as fate would have it Maryland's governor decided to have his press conference at the same time. So sad. We only got to see one game and the showcase showdown. Tomorrow I have a virtual meeting at 11:00, so maybe Friday will be my Price is Right time. We did get to do mani-pedis during that time instead. 

The rain finally stopped around 5:00 so we snuck out for a quick walk before dinner and an intense game of Old Maid. It's beginning to feel a little bit like Groundhog Day around here, but everyone is well so that is what matters. 

Late last night we did get an email from the director of Quinn's preschool stating that they will not reopen this school year. It was sad to read, even though it is the best decision for everyone. We love Quinn's teachers and Quinn's school. We miss going in everyday and seeing her school family. I am so glad she still has another year there before she can enter public kindergarten, and we can look forward to seeing everyone again next year. 

Casual Day Every Day

Today my colleague and I set up our Google Classroom. I made two videos to send out to students today about how to use our classroom and to tell them we are still here and we miss them. It's weird. I also have about no idea what I am doing, but we are figuring it out. I now attend work functions in running clothes or pajamas with no make up, but hey school community...you get what you get.

Besides this riveting meeting that took far longer than the 3 minutes it looks like it took, not much went on here today. We did walk a few miles - bonus we saw some of Quinn's friends from school in their cars as we were walking. We read, had a fun delivery to the porch (more on this later), and played some hide and seek.

Tomorrow I have requested to Quinn that we watch The Price is Right because that is what snow days (now pandemic days) are made of in my opinion. She's resisting, but I'm getting my way on this one. She did get that strong willed personality from someone.

Big Day

It's been a big day here in Virginia. I got up super early to get to Wegmans for opening. I turned in the parking lot and immediately saw a line just to get in the door. After parking and gathering my personal Clorox wipes and putting on my winter gloves, I realized it was just because the store hadn't opened yet. They let us all in when the doors opened at 7:00.

The shelves were stocked pretty well. They were limiting high demand items (eggs, milk, meat, etc.), but I was able to get what was needed and pretty much everything I wanted, or some OK substitutes. They didn't have much in the way of the regular meat that we get. Chicken is scarce, friends! I was so excited to get done with shopping and take my stupid gloves off. Once I unloaded all the groceries at home, Matt, Quinn, and I wiped down every container/box/bag with a wipe before putting them away.

In addition to my shopping, I had my first virtual workday. We are currently in the process of figuring out virtual learning and how that will look. We also had a staff meeting with 70 people on Zoom. I miss my coworkers! Following our staff meeting the Governor announced that all Virginia schools will be closed for at least the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year. I have felt since midweek that this would eventually be the outcome, but I didn't think we would get here so fast. It's so weird that I walked out of there last week and had no idea I wouldn't be going back. This experience continues to be completely surreal.

Quinn and I spent the afternoon playing Life (Quinn had 7 children, 6 of which were girls...I can only dream), doing a quick workout video (where my form was corrected at least 8 times), and working on reading. I had to deliver some food to a friend this evening, and then we made food on the grill (I forced Matt to get propane yesterday).

Tonight I am working on making sure all our needed prescriptions will be at Target when I go later this week. I am also starting to set up my google classroom. My mom sent me a few pictures of when she and her sisters went to visit my Grandma at her nursing home yesterday. They said she loved it and laughed the whole time.

Elsa

Elsa goes for a walk.

Check on your friends with strong willed daughters. We are not OK. 

Have you all seen that little meme circulating on Facebook? It's about me. I'm your friend. My daughter is strong willed. It is HARD. She will drag out an argument for hours because she thinks she is right. I have no one to blame but myself for this. She is MY kid. And in the long run I will be glad for this...but OMG, LET IT GO, ELSA.

Elsa goes to church.

Quinn was Elsa all day today. Elsa went to church (nice that everyone "at church" didn't have to witness my parenting of the strong will), did chalk in the driveway, walked a lot, and found various other projects around the house (including cleaning out her closet) to do.

Elsa does chalk

During the evening's last battle with her dad, I found myself hiding in the bathroom because I didn't want to get involved. Wish me luck as I brave the grocery store tomorrow and return to work virtually. Should be interesting with my social distancing shadow.

Elsa's mother hiding

Christmas Cookies

That's where we are at. Christmas cookies. We were deciding what to have for dinner since we are running out of our non shelf stable food, and Matt honestly suggested Christmas cookies. So I said sure, why not. I had a jar of dry ingredients that someone made me for Christmas and we never made them. Turns out they are great in March and with ribs (one of the only cuts of meat I could find at Wegmans last Thursday) and brussel sprouts.

We need a trip to the grocery store soon, but the question in my mind is when is the best time to go so that I can find a decent amount of the things we need (mostly fruits, veggies, eggs, meat would also probably be a good idea). We also need a few things from Target as well as extra prescriptions and EpiPens, the current ones expire at the end of this month, but we also can't get them until the 23rd (insurance rules). It would be great to be able to find everything all at one time.

In other news, we were able to get out for a long walk this morning to see the blue bells on the trail near our house. I made Quinn take a few pics in her Easter dress. Matt and Quinn did a few of the Mo Willems drawing videos after we got back, and of course we really just hung around the house all day. It's movie night and we are naturally watching Frozen II for the 2nd time this week. I'm trying not to eat all the cookies before the end of the weekend.

As predicted...

Thursday I was living the dream, minus the fact that we are in the middle of a pandemic. Friday - not so much the dream, more the reality. We did get out for a lot of fresh air with lots of walking and talking. We walked 4.1 miles! It was 80 degrees and the cherry blossoms in our neighborhood are in full bloom.

It wasn't a very eventful day. We did have people enter our house...the cleaning people. I am not sure if that's within social distancing rules, but I guess cleaning is a good thing. Matt and I also had a long conference call with a financial planner. Super fun mid pandemic. The day involved a lot of arguing over things such as hair getting wet in the bathtub, the amount of cheese on a pizza, and why it's not a good idea to walk so close to the edge of a sidewalk on a busy street.

We also had a good time reminiscing/telling Quinn about "the 1900's" when there was no Disney+, not even Netflix! And how we use to have to go to a store to see if they had the movie we wanted to watch available for rent. We also tried to explain the concept of cassette tapes and CDs and walkmans. Tomorrow will be one week of quarantine/social distancing. It's still so unreal to think this is actually happening.

Like a Stonewall

It was a beautiful day in the commonwealth. The kind of day when you are standing a bus duty and wish you had the day off. All mild winter long my colleagues and I wished for just one snow day. Look what we got instead. A virus. It's kinda fitting for teachers if you think about it.

We are making the best of it here in Virginia, though. Quinn had an A+ day. Only minor issues that she was easily distracted from - first day since the quarantine started. This morning she read her first book ever! So exciting! I made the book on a site called BookBuilder (https://www.bookbuilderonline.com/). This is super awesome. I took the words she knows and picked out books she would be able to read and then put her name in them. She loved it.

After lunch, k'nex, and a quick FaceTime with Grandma and Bo, we headed out to the battlefields. We did the Old Stone Bridge hiking loop! I was super impressed there was no complaining at all about the walking. There was a lot of questions about killing, and war, and death. But ya know par for the course. I also tried to tell her she was a born confederate, but her father and I are northerners. She did not like that one bit. She's a northerner by blood I suppose. She also tried to draw a lot of parallels between Frozen II and the Battle of Manassas aka the Battle of Bull Run. I went with it.

After finishing our hike, Quinn really wanted to see a cannon and I thought she would be pretty impressed by good old Stonewall, so we drove to a different section of the battlefields. As we were walking around that area of the park an older couple was walking toward us. The man was carrying something I swore were bagpipes. Turns out it was, in fact, bagpipes. As we got nearer he played them while walking down the trail. I do enjoy some bagpipes, but this was pretty unexpected.

A near flawless day today can't bode well for tomorrow, BUT it's supposed to be almost 80 again, so I'm keeping my hopes high for now...also can't be good.

In the Time of Coronavirus

Well friends, my last post was approximately 1,226 days ago. A lot has changed. Yet some things are still very much the same. You can thank the global pandemic, COVID-19 aka Coronavirus for this resurrection. Sooo my goal will be a daily or semi daily (I should start with low expectations here, let's be honest it's been thousands of days) post about our journey through this time period. I hope it's less than 1,226 days. Let me begin my story last Thursday...when I knew for sure that it was really about to go down.

THURSDAY: 

• Worked a full day, end of the day announcement that we would have school Friday, but workdays on Monday and Tuesday.
• Scrambled to pick up Quinn to try to get a few things at Costco. Got a few things, but not really everything I wanted...mainly no pasta. 
• Matt got home, we ate a quick dinner then I went to Wegmans were everything was over picked or gone (still no pasta...everyone is eating carbs, even though I thought everyone was on Keto), but I did get a good amount of stuff. 

FRIDAY:

• Worked one of the weirdest days of school. Just an eerie feeling all day. About 45 minutes before the end of they day they announced that no one would return until April 14th. All day was a mad dash for me to divvy out food to kids, try to unload refurbished computers, do the daily tasks, etc. Now we had little notice to basically gather stuff ASAP, clean, and leave. 
• Picked up Quinn and went to Target. Here is a picture of the last people we saw up close.

• At Target we gathered the last of the groceries we could find, and picked up a crystal growing kit as well as a rock painting activity for Quinn. Also new sidewalk chalk! Target still had no pasta, but Matt found some at a corner store in DC that day. 
• Matt was also given permission to work from home through March. Quinn's school sends notice they are closed and will reopen March 31. 
• Started the mass amount of laundry. This was mostly school bags, coats, lunchboxes.

SATURDAY: 

• Quarantine, day 1. Sort of. I did go drop off food at a friend's house, but with good reason.
• Continued massive laundry.
• Sidewalk chalk
• Surface cleaned the house. 
• Family walk.
• Movie night: Live Action Aladdin on Disney Plus

SUNDAY:

• Did some online churching.
• Started the crystal growing kit.
• We did cheat a little on this day too...we went and bought new running shoes. Our discount card was going to expire and now there's more exercise time :) 
• Quinn had her first Coronavirus meltdown and refused to get back in the car.

• Took a family walk.
• Ordered books on Amazon.

MONDAY:

• Sight words
• Daily chore...changing all the beds. 
• Playground time and a walk.
• Had a little read in.

• Did miles for the first time in a long time. Never a good time. 

TUESDAY:

• FYI...I typed this out to a friend, so it's the only day that's 100% accurate. I'm struggling to remember Saturday to Monday...
• 745: wake up 8:15: make breakfast, eat breakfast, watch Doc McStuffins 9:30: sight word practice, flahcards and shaving cream, clean up 10:30: puzzles, marble run 11:15: teach Quinn how to play war to work on numbers 12:00 lunch and clean up, some coloring 1:00: play outside 2:00 wash the car inside and outside 3:00 FaceTime with Grandma and Bo and snack 4:00 laundry and tell Dad to stop working 415: the mother went on a walk 5:15 bath 6:00 number zingo 6:30 frozen pizza and Frozen 2 8:30 bed for Quinn

WEDNESDAY:

• Sight words with marker boards and hangman...Quinn is currently obsessed with playing hangman (I guess she learned it a school) I'm so glad she now is learning more words than Quinn, love, mom, dad, cat.
• Daily chore was cleaning out and organizing the playroom.
• Walked 1.7 miles with Quinn (I told her she's doing a marathon and when she accrues 26 miles with me she can order something on Amazon.).
• Got gas in the car...Matt found out today that he's now working 8 weeks at home, so he has to go in to his office to pick up things. I filled up the car at Costco...there is an attendant that cleans the pump after each person. I also brought my own Clorox wipes and coated my hands with them while using the pump.
• Played Sorry
• Revived the Blog. 

Well writing this confirmed my memory is not what it use to be. I also take a lot more videos than pictures. I have gone walking and/or running everyday, so that's a plus. I'm also happy to get more time with Quinn than I typically would. This week my direction from my job was to take a week to address the needs of our family and ourselves. Next week we will begin working virtually, but we do not have exact guidelines yet. They will be provided later this week. I think that will also continue to evolve over time, but only time will tell. Stay tuned.