Another Week of the Same

Did you have a good year? Since last Sunday? Was your year ok? Our year was ok.

April is going to feel like ten years.

It's fine. We're fine.

But mostly I feel so weird as we push pause (long pause) when we were already gearing up for a big life transition. I wish so much this could have happened when we were getting settled in a new place, with unpacking and projects to occupy our time. But I'm trying to focus on the positive. Life is known here. We don't have stresses to figure out on this side of our change. We are just taking our days slow, sticking to our quarantine routine, and praying for positivity and good news.

It's hard to mentally revisit my week when days are all the same. Our highlights were making a fire and s'mores early in the week, having a pizza and movie night this weekend, lots of walks together, Michael getting out and playing socially distanced tennis with some residency friends, reconnecting and staying connected with friends on Marco Polo, baking some new recipes, and just trying to hold on to what normalcy we can.

Michael and I watched Tiger King and reminisced about when he sat next to that crazy guy on a flight. We started Dirty John and Michael keeps falling asleep in the episodes, so I end up reading all about the real life story online. People have such crazy lives! Crazy, crazy lives.

The craziest thing I did all week was make lemon sweet rolls instead of regular cinnamon rolls. Felt like a total risk. But they were delicious.

The craziest thing Michael did all week was bring a grocery bag on our walk and fill it with maybe a hundred acorns and throw them all over our backyard so we can keep being super entertained by our squirrel friend.

The craziest thing Westin did was try fasting for the first time even though he's just a little 5-year-old cutie. He made it to about 10am and said a prayer in my closet before coming and telling me he'd like to eat breakfast now. Sweet boy.

The craziest thing Bennett did was jump from our big couch to our little couch with surprising force onto Michael before any of us knew that was about to happen.

The craziest thing Camden did was wake up every three hours one night. I much prefer his one-wake-up nights.

So, not as crazy as tiger zookeepers or SoCal con-men, but I'd much prefer our lives to those. I cannot wrap my mind around an entire April of this. Followed by a May/June of moving prep and heading out. The world has shifted. We still don't know the extent of it. I'm grateful we are in a good situation to weather this storm. The memes are keeping me alive.

Hot Dogs and S'mores and salad to add some variety to life.
Boys were thrilled. Westin asks so often, "Is it a good day for a fire?"

This is their homemade fire pit and fire the next day, next to their homemade fort.

Westin loves his homework, but he never wants to stop doing it.
So then I feel like we always end on a negative note, because he does too much and then gets grumpy,
but if I try to end him before that happens he's grumpy because he wants to do more.
So, the beginning and the middle are going pretty well. The end, always a miss.

I highly suggest being in isolation with an 8-month-old angel.
I highly suggest you skip the laundry part.

Last week I found a Chef of the Week idea on Pinterest for Westin.
He was so happy we'd keep doing that on Wednesdays like he does at school.
This week I told him he was Chef of the Week again, but he also got to imagine what the snack would be.
So I asked him what he needed,
and he said they each needed a banana, a string cheese, and apple slice or a cheeto, two oreos, some peanut butter, and something square.
Then he made this racecar, complete with an apple slice spoiler. The chex mix is the window. He loved it.

We have an eccentric squirrel that lives in our backyard.
Tons of flips and tree jumping and frantic acorn burying.
We watch him a lot.
We are home a lot.

"Send a picture to my teacher of me doing my work, mama"

First chat with his best friend, Weston!
They were so cute!

The next day his entire class did a chat on Zoom.
His poor teacher -- so many kindergarteners SO excited to talk to her.
She's an angel.

Kitty is starting to trust Westy boy more and more.
She still steers clear of Bennett :)

Bike rides and campus explorations. 

Who wants to get out of bed when you've got this cutie to snuggle with.

We've been planning (ok I've been planning) on making cinnamon rolls for conference weekend.
And that weekend somehow just keeps feeling farther and farther away.
March keeps on going.
So today I decided, I can make cinnamon rolls whenever I want. Maybe I'll want them again next week, maybe not. Both are fine.
And our sweet friends left a bunch of lemons on their porch from their tree and texted us to come get them,
so lemon rolls happened instead! We all really liked them. I really liked baking these today. I never like baking.
But it felt like a tangible, relaxing, slow, measurable, comforting thing to do and it was the main event of my day.