The Judds have continue to come over to our house a couple times a week to help out their mom on bedrest. I died laughing because Anna and her friends have a new game called "junk yard" they play on the side of the house..... where all of the junk from our remodel lies, sprawled all over the place and where the place indeed does look like a junkyard. In their words.... "we pretend we are poor and live in a dump and have to use all the stuff around us to survive." Pretty cute game. Blake traveled to Austin, TX this month for a conference. He had a great time, but missed us.... I could tell by the fact that everything he saw reminded him of us.... he sent me a few texts of statues that could easily be our life story-ha! And speaking of Blake, he was thrilled when his employee, Pam, made these awesome Marston Orthodontics shoes for him and for herself. It was so sweet and so kind of her. He sure loves his employees (one of the many reasons the second half of this month has been so challenging). Dane hung out with the boys in his Deacons quorum more than ever this month! One of his buddies- Jack-- stayed the weekend with us while his parents were out of town. The boys enjoyed watching the San Diego Loyals soccer game!!!
So life was going pretty darn well. We were obviously aware of the coronavirus in China and Italy-- we knew it was happening and had made it's way to certain states in the US-- but we certainly were not dialed in enough to understand how it would change our way of living so significantly! I was volunteering at the middle school book fair at Dane's school when we all received notice that the city of Poway and San Diego at large- were closing down EVERYTHING..... no more after school events, concerts, the plays we had tickets for, lacrosse practice, dance class, soccer, flag football .... everything! It seemed a little drastic, but what did I know. Then the next day, I was subbing at an elementary school in 4S when we were all called to the staff room and told school was shutting down for three weeks! This was on March 13th. It was shocking to say the least! We were told that we would teach our kids from home for these three weeks and hopefully be back in session by April 6th. The kids were ecstatic but also most everyone was a little on edge about the whole thing-- even if they weren't sure how to express it. Seemed strange. Saturday the 14th, we understood we wouldn't be out and about in the community, but we still invited our closest friends over to our house-- all day. We celebrated St Patrick's day by creating a fruit rainbow, we ordered pizza, we played spoons, and went hot tubbing. It was such a fun day. But by Monday the 16th, things got really serious. The governor asked that the whole state stay at home-- forget the small group gatherings of any kind and Blake had to close up his office- which has been the biggest worry for our family as he has 16 employees he needs to take care of! Not to mention loads of overhead outside of payroll! It was a shock for us, to say the least.
This leads me to the second portion of my post... the quarantine. How does that Charles Dickens line go? It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.... haha! That about sums it up. Why the worst of times? Because we are all feeling a layer of anxiety around the health of our parents, the health of our nation and world in general, the health of the economy, our own financial savings and livelihood! The kids' schedules have been completely turned upside down! We went in a matter of two days from busy busy busy every moment of every hour-- to absolutely nothing on the schedule. And though that's pretty cool in and of itself- to have time to be together, it's also just plain weird and unsettling. Especially for a family who is always on the go.
We currently spend a LOT of time together-- a lot of time IN OUR HOUSE and around the block for walks. We can't go to the beach or the state park for a hike. I don't let the kids go into any grocery stores when I grab the groceries- because no way am I putting all this effort into staying home just to blow it by having them touch something and catch the virus. Home schooling is hard. I always knew it would be! Whilst homeschooling Evelyn alone back in middle school, I couldn't grasp how any parent could homeschool all of her children effectively. There is just so much. SO much to teach and SOOOOOOOO many needs every moment! "Mom- I don't get this!" "Mom-- can you help me write this paper?" "Mom- my zoom meeting won't let me log in." Just constant for hours a day with so many questions and concerns. In fact, you'll see a picture with crumpled up papers- ironed out on the counter. That's Anna's daily behavior. She gets so frustrated by her work that she crumples up all of her assignments and throws them on the floor then runs away. But she usually comes around at some point. ha! All this time together- makes for crankiness and a little bit of fighting- ok, a lot of fighting between siblings and between me and the kids. I'm fighting to get them to do their school work and chores! They're fighting for every reason under the sun. There's been a learning curve for sure, and we are doing our best to figure this all out-- how to be together so much with no distractions....and yet still love one another the best we can. In the summertime, the dynamic is so different-- there are no expectations.... we have friends, we have beaches, pools, zoos, visitors, vacations! I've realized this is nothing like summer vacation!
But now for the best of times! This past month-we have tried to look on the bright side! To treasure the extra time we have together and focus on our tremendous blessings in such a crazy time. We live in San Diego, for heaven's sakes! Though it hasn't been the typical gorgeous weather, it's still beautiful every day. We live in such a beautiful home and have a wonderful backyard for the kids to play in. And a wonderful neighborhood to scooter and walk around. Can't imagine if we lived in New York during this pandemic! We love going out back and swinging on the swings, jumping in the hot tub, washing our hair with bubbles, playing soccer, chasing the cats, playing ping pong, corn hole, and pickle ball.... our new favorite game ever. We play for an hour every night-- the whole family, minus Anna- who swings on the swings cheering us on while we play. We have put together school and chore schedules. Every morning I write all of our goals on a white board along with zoom meeting times and lunch/recess times. The kids enjoy looking at the schedule and knowing what is happening for the day. They each have their own clipboard with all of their expectations for the day. Dane is the least busy because his teachers have sent home the least amount of work.... so he has started watching Ted Talks and doing CBT work with me. In fact, all the kids have on their schedule every day-- to work on mindfulness, or CBT, or anger management, or growth mindset and I FINALLY ACTUALLY have the time to do this with them! I love it so much and find that it is for sure the best part of my day to help them learn these skills that I love to teach and want so desperately for them to know. In fact, I've been doing zoom meetings for friends' kids as well teaching them about growth mindset and flexible thinking! It's been really great.
Feeding the kids has been a full time job. Before the stay at home order-- everyone went out and grabbed staples like flour, rice and toilet paper. Me, on the other hand- I grabbed diet dr. pepper and whoppers--two foods I knew I needed in order to survive this. Ha! No.... but really, we have spent SO much time baking and cooking around here because we have time to do so! And it's fun! We have a menu every night and enjoy figuring out what to make. The kids have made brownies, caramel popcorn, chocolate dipped strawberries, oreo balls, blueberry muffins, crepes is a big favorite! And the grocery stores have definitely been low in stock, but not scary low-- we've found everything we need. I always have a snack tray out during the day with snacks the kids can have in between meals-- to keep them from grabbing foods from the pantry. Some of our best dinners have been roasted hot dogs out back--with s'mores for dessert, hawaiian haystacks, bbq chicken, and steak with sweet potatoes. Of course at any given time, half the kids actively despise the dinner I've made and half of them love it. I'm used to this.
A short report on what has kept the kids' busy.... Evelyn has been busy with daily seminary on line- which counts towards graduation. She is diligent in accomplishing this every day. She took her online driver's ed course and final and passed! So she is good to go for her permit-- if the DMV ever opens again. Evelyn has been playing the piano-- she has mastered a few new pieces, which brings me so much happiness. She started drawing and is very very good at it. She spends a lot of time FaceTiming her friends and cuddling the cats. She loves to be with Anna and the two of them work on tik tok dances and just dance video gaming. They record songs and watch "The Parent Trap" together in bed. Anna moved into Evelyn's bed to sleep last week. They are very cute together.
Anna has spent her time swinging on the swings, lamenting what will become of her birthday plans- April 20th, playing dolls in her room, crumpling school work papers, zooming with her friends and teacher, decorating her bike helmet, water color painting, painting kindness rocks with me and Evelyn, coloring, watching "Good luck Charlie", dying her hair pink, chasing the cats, putting together countless puzzles-- she's SUPER GOOD at this and she and I absolutely adore doing this, and making up dance routines in her spare time. She is an easy kid to be stuck at home with. She makes it all so fun and aside from hating the school work, and missing her friends, she does very well in the absence of school and activities.
Grant has kept busy reading biographies with me, getting in his soccer touches, practicing piano and STILL having his lessons- only virtually now, dying his hair blue, soccer training with his coach in our backyard, making brownies, listening on FaceTime to his teacher who reads to him daily, finishing his anger management program with me, setting up his new chromebook for distance learning, writing, doing math like a champ, playing video games, and scootering around the neighborhood. He is the most excited for movie nights and loves when we are all there to watch. He is the most prone to boredom of all my kids so he struggles a little with this situation. Which is ironic considering how much he really hated school last year and continues to dislike it- but not to the same extent- this year. His teacher this year is really special and he misses her, which is a heartbreak. He told me that he wishes he had one week off a month to homeschool, but kind of wishes he were back at school. I could barely believe it.
Dane is pretty easy going about all of this. As previously mentioned, he doesn't have a lot of school work so he does some on line training. He learned how to keyboard/type- by taking a tutorial since I noticed he didn't know the correct way of typing and forced him to do so with his spare time- ha! He is loving the ted talks we listen to and he is reading. He gets his soccer touches in and always goes on a walk with me whenever I throw that out there. He zooms with his classmates and the deacons quorum. And with cousins Adam and Katie. So cute to listen to their zoom meetings.
We enjoy so much having the extra time to make Come Follow Me special and partake of the sacrament twice a month. We loved welcoming missionaries home via a car parade! Chandler just arrived home this week and we loved driving to the Jones to welcome them home. It was weird not being able to give a hug- but we loved sitting in our car and talking to them and seeing Chandler. April Fool's Day was not up to par this year. I didn't have it in me as much as I would in a typical year. But I did get them pretty good by using an app to send 10 random cat facts texts to Black, Ev and Dane. They didn't put two and two together that I had been behind the strange texts. Hah! I also dumped a bottle of mayo out and replaced it with vanilla pudding. Then slyly started eating the "mayo" with a spoon!!!!! Got everyone pretty good. Of course I drew mustaches on the kids while they slept and scared them with my gorilla mask when they woke up. I sent Dane and Evelyn a text with a snapshot that said all kids would be repeating the year of schooling next year and they were really freaked out. I put up pics of a YouTube star that Evelyn finds particularly annoying all over the house. I wrapped their phones in saran wrap. it was a good day! Ha!
So you can see it truly has been the best and worst of times. What matters most in times like these is people. Especially family. I am so grateful that Grandma and Grandpa and Grammy and Papa are safe. I'm so grateful for the extra time I have with my kids to do things I wouldn't normally dream of doing! I'm grateful for teachers who are helping get us through this. For friends who send funny memes. For my sister who calls me almost every day. Grateful for our home and for our wonderful country - doing the best we can to fight this pandemic. Grateful for my testimony of God and the faith that He will always be there for us-- especially in trying times.
