As I mentioned earlier our quarantined time happened gradually as we started to understand the severity of the outbreak. During spring break and the week before "stay-at-home" we were still doing things with a few friends on the street.
One day we rode bikes to 7-11 to get slurpees - but the machine was out of service becasue of the out break (?) so the girls bought some snacks. This was even pre-mask world.
We had Finn and Zoe sleep over one night. This was probably the last day we saw friends for 2 months. I think the next day was the stay at home order.
We have played A LOT of family games. Which has been great. I taught everyone to play 5 Crowns (my favorite) and it really aught on and we play it a lot. Brock is amazing at it and wins almost every time.
On the last day the library was opened we went and checked out everything we could. We ended up with about 75 books - which lasted us only about 3 weeks. I LOVE that my kids are readers. They definitely take after their dad in that department. I ended up borrowing a bunch of books from people in our ward. Brock ended up reading the whole Harry Potter series and Megan read all 14 books of Rangers Apprentice. It was all a little crazy!
I handled the emotions of it all pretty well, eventually. At first I felt saddened at the things my kids were missing. Had I known then HOW MUCH they would miss over the next few months (and I still don't know for how long things will be different... maybe forever) I would have probably been more sad. But at first it was just the little things, Brock's basketball tournament, Madison's gymnastics classes, Noah's play I started feeling sad for them. I wondered how it would affect them and their "mental health" and wondered how I could substitute those things in their lives. One day, during all of these feelings, I was listening to a conference talk and someone said something like "children should feel the most happy when they are at home" - and just like that I caught the vision. This is it! This would be a blessing. We were going to be happy at home. Not that we weren't happy at home - but you know.... we were going to be happier at home. We were going to build a more sure foundation of family relationships and happiness at home. All of my sadness melted away. A second breakdown came one day at the grocery store. I went one morning to get some groceries and found a long line. This was the first time I had ever seen a line into the grocery store (this was before it opened, not because of store capacity). This was early on - like March, so still no masks or even sanitizing of the carts. I started to feel a little anxious. Then I went into the store and saw all the empty shelves, it felt like a tsunami. I worried. I started to cry. I needed to leave. I left, with out my eggs, milk, or bread. The only things I needed, they were all out. I cried in the car for a while, wondering what this all meant and how long this would last. I understood the problem was the shoppers, but still... it was something I couldn't control.
Once we were in full on stay-at-home with no friends or anything we started to come up with ways to keep ourselves busy. Of course we had school, and I was determined to not let our memories of this time be filled with screen time. As mentioned earlier we had a family chess tournament.
I got out new toys for Dane (I would have done this regardless - because he needed some "toddler" toys) - but the kids played with them more then Dane. They got rediscovered and invited a lot of creativity.
The big blocks were a big hit with the big kids. We had tower building contests several times a day.
We wrestled (by we I mean they) and played weird racing games.
We baked. Oh how we baked. By mid May and into June this died off a little. But in the beginning I or we were baking something once a day. It was marvelous.
Brock got back into the fun of taking things apart. Our printer broke so he took apart our old one.
We did play outside EVERYDAY. Dane must be outside if he is awake. And everyday after "school" the kids had to go get exercise for 20 minutes.
The kids bonded. I mean for real. Megan and Madison have really discovered each other. They have never NOT been friends - but they have never been really close. They played together, slept together, read together, talked together, worked on school together. It has been awesome to watch. All 4 of them would go out and have lunch on the back deck together and have sleep overs in each other rooms. It has been so great to watch.
We have morning devotionals every morning. Since our missionaries are also in quarantine they were offering families to sign up for spiritual thoughts - so once a week we had the sister missionaries give our morning devotionals.
As you know every time we have a "new season" I make a schedule. Well... unlike me, this time I didn't. I did't have a schedule or written down rules. We came up with a loose routine but most days we just did what ever. Then 3 weeks before school ended I finally got a vision and made a schedule. It rocked and helped us all transition into summer. But is was also really nice not having any schedule for 2 or so months.
As restrictions started lifting the kids slowly started seeing neighborhood friends again. Here the boys are "social distancing scooter riding" complete with masks. I didn't make my kids wear masks outside - but some of the moms wouldn't let their kids play with kids who weren't wearing masks.
- reading - Jason has been reading books to the kids everyday. It has been so fun. The kids love when Jason reads to them. So far we have read: Mr Terrupt, A Wrinkle in Time, the 4th Harry Potter, and My Summer of the Monkeys. Also the kids have been reading a TON and the all want Jason to read simultaneously with them and then talk about them. The boys have finished the Harry Potter series (well... to date Noah is still working on it) AND then they get to watch the movie with Jason once they finish. Some days the kids will spend hours talking with Jason about what they are reading.
- closing of the library was the worst - I really had no idea how important the library was to us until we didn't have access to one. We may have missed it more than anything else.
- missionary devotionals - Since the missionaries were in quarantine the ward asked us to sign up once a week for zoom devotionals. We did this on Tuesday mornings usually in place of our morning devotionals. Honestly, they weren't great. But we did them (and are still doing them). Once they asked what their favorite thing about quarantine was and Noah said a blessing was doing Sunday School with us. He really liked having lessons with us. So that was awesome!
- Games: As mentioned earlier we played a lot of games. First off our chess tournament. Then we played a TON of Harry Potter Scene It that our neighbors gave to us. We played 5 crowns a lot. And the kids (mostly Noah and Madison) made up their own board games and had us all play. Specifically Noah made up a dungeons and dragon game.
- making dinners - The first 2 weeks I had the kids make all the dinners. That was a lot of fun. We should do that again.
- jobs - The first few weeks I was still not "too pregnant" and felt pretty great and I knew it wouldn't last long. I had a list of things I was planning to get done during the spring and so instead I had the kids do them. So we did a lot of family projects like: cleaning the garage, washing the cars, tons of yard work, deep, deep, deep clean rooms and closets, clean out and organize storage room and crawl space, get out, wash, and organize baby girl's stuff, clean out 4th bedroom and move Dane into his new room. It was lovely. Plus I got my kids back doing Monday cleanings right at the perfect time when I realized that I was too pregnant to do Monday cleanings. So that was a blessing.
- taught me our priorities were correct - I think I have a whole blog post on this. But what this time taught me what that we are doing exactly what we should be doing and that our priorities were correct before Covid. When life is "back to normal" we will cherish this time we had, but I don't think we will make any real changes. We were doing all the "right" things before.
- playing Fortnite with fosters - The boys discovered they could and wanted to play Fortnite everyday with their cousins. While this was mostly annoying because they became obsessive - I loved that they were bonding with their cousins.
- Having an 18 month old and pregnant kept us consistent and balanced NOT bouncing between extremes - This comes after a lot of post, videos, and memes on Facebook about how everyone bounces between crazy productive ideals and total depression during this quarantine time. Had I just had these 4 older kids I think I would have totally done that but having Dane kept us on a very real schedule and kept our flow of the day with meals and snacks and also me being pregnant kept our projects and outings realistic and easy. It made for a perfect balance almost everyday. I am SO grateful for that.
- but being pregnant kept us from doing a lot we would have done -Had I not been pregnant we could have done a few cooler things my hear longed for. We would have taken more and longer bike rides, we would have gone on a ton of hikes, and several other things like that - but we just couldn't. Jason couldn't take them becasue he still had to work (boo) and he isn't one to do things like that - those things are all up to me. So while I was grateful it kept us balanced, my heart yearned to do those things it feels like we never have time for.
- lost my spring with Dane - I talked about this on our 15 year anniversary post at the bottom. I could still cry about it right now. Not only did I loose my spring with Dane but also loosing my summer. If things were "normal" we would be at the pool and splash pads almost every day. He is the PERFECT age for them and it would be all about him. It will never be just him. Once those things open there will be a baby and things will get harder and different. It makes me sad. But I also have perspective and KNOW that it really doesn't matter. I felt this was every time, with each kid. and everything is fine and works out great and all the "missed things" end up meaning nothing.
- Noah's magic - We have tried to work on the children and youth goals during this time. Mostly it hasn't stuck. Except for Noah's magic. He decided he wanted to learn how to do magic. Noah likes to shock/amaze/trick/surprise people (for both good and bad). He has really taken off with it and is becoming quite good. He spent his allowance on some props and works on it almost daily. It is pretty cute.
- Having Jason home has been easy peasy. Most of my friends and family have been in turmoil adjusting to their kids AND husband being home. I feel for them! I am so grateful we had Jason's unemployment recently and we learned how to be home together. We just fell right back into those roles and hardly skipped a beat. I love having him home and could care less if he ever went back. This is a HUGE blessing!
- In my opinion the best long term thing to come out of all of this is that I trained my hair to only need to be washed once a week! I have wanted to do that for years! haha
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