I will be documenting our experiences, during the COVID-19 pandemic, to preserve this time at home together. Although the world is a very scare place at the moment, I want to be intentional about our days at home together and provide my children with the story of what it was we lived through. Day One for us was Monday, March 16th (I’m counting down starting with the first day our regular schedules were disrupted) — the first day the girls didn’t report to school.
I had this idea that I would spend so much of my “free time” during this time of sheltering in place, blogging and returning to the kind of editorial schedule I had before Polly was born. Boy, was I wrong. When I really think about it, I’ve added so many wonderful things to our days, but there are just as many things that I can’t seem to fit in. We renovated almost our entire second floor, but it’s taken me twelve weeks to clean out my closet. I finally decided that Polly can wear cute clothes every single day (otherwise she’s going to outgrow her entire summer wardrobe), but I’ve only worn makeup three times. I can compose blog posts in my head while doing the dishes, but I can’t actually translate that to well-written posts. The best laid plans, right?
Last week was the girls’ final week of school and it feels like everything ended so abruptly. There were no class parties or teacher’s gifts or pajama days, just the last few days of on-line assignments and a report card received in the mail. Ella was able to pick up the contents of her locker last week and some of her favorite teachers were passing out final grades and received long overdue library books — it was both extremely weird and very comforting.
We’ve decided not to take our annual beach camping trip and we’re all pretty bummed about it. I kept holding onto my reservation, hoping for a miracle that never came. We’re very fortunate to have a pool at home and plenty of space for the girls to run and play, but we’ll miss our family bike rides and beach days and ice cream dinners very much. We initially talked about taking a trip out west in the fall, but I think we’ve decided we won’t be traveling at all this year. Instead, we’re going to save our money and hope to upgrade our Disney trip in the spring. Please, Mickey, don’t let me down.
I’m tired of cooking dinner and we opted for a week of Hello Fresh meals, earlier this month. It reminded us all how much we love their combinations and we’ve been working our way back through some old recipes. The big girls bake something new every day and almost always like it. Sophie is our least adventurous eater, so I get tickled when she bakes something extravagant, just to rake it in the trash. Play-doh was a hit, but the two ingredient cake wasn’t her favorite.
Josh and I have been trying to spend plenty of quality time with the girls, even though our time is a little excessive at this point. We picked out some family shows on our streaming services and try to commit to an episode a night. We’re currently watching the first season of LOST and our girls are big fans. Sure, there is some content we try to avoid, but it makes for good conversations and talking points.
Things that were really hard this week: Making a final decision about our beach trip, saying no to the girls over and over (they are so ready to see friends again!), the uncertainty of if/when I’ll return to the office, and persistent internet problems.
Things I’m looking forward to next week: Beautiful weather and more days around the pool, starting a new book (I took a reading break after devouring five books in May), a dermatology appointment for Ella (any excuse to get out of the house, right?), and a new workout routine to replace Orangetheory.
