Here we are at the beginning of our third week in quarantine out here at The Lodge. In particular, my mood remains one of tremendous gratitude. I’m focusing my energy on finding joy and savoring the family time.
It’s overwhelming reading the news right now; however, I am finding it so heartwarming hearing stories of communities coming together to support one another during this time. I do hope this will be our finest hour.
Back to The Lodge… the kids and I had a fun week together while Alex continued to work remotely. We’ve been so fortunate to enjoy abundant sunshine all week, which ended up melting away all the snow on our property.
It feels like we’re getting into a really good routine and I have to imagine that is helping everyone know what to expect on some level. We still talk about what day it is and what we’re going to do and I’m trying to come up with something fun for the kids to look forward to.
A few things have been incorporated into our routine that have been helpful. My favorite has been my “mama move” time, which I’ve dubbed “stroller snack” to the kids. They now enjoy their morning snack in the stroller {happy to let them eat all the crackers they want!} while I can walk the dog and get a little exercise. I enjoyed two runs in this week pushing the two kids in the stroller and managing the dog, then another one on my own this weekend.
We love to visit the chickens, turkeys and horses on our street and Ben comes up with a new question about the horses every day. I know virtually nothing about horses, so we’re doing a lot of looking things up… Side note, we watched a video last week about how to milk a cow, per Ben’s inquiry on how the milk comes from the cow to his glass. A three-year old’s curiosity is so precious.
This week we’ve been sticking very close to home. As the pandemic rattles the world more and more each day I’ve been less comfortable going out.
I have not subscribed to the “homeschooling” phenomenon sweeping the country. I have two toddlers at very different developmental stages, one of whom is used to no structure or instruction. We’re under enough stress right now and I’m not interested in adding to it.
What I am subscribed to is providing a fun, nurturing environment for my two children where they can run, play and explore. They can imagine, discover and create, all on their own with a little support and a lot of engagement from me.
The weather has been amazing out here for our whole stay, so we’ve basically been outside. The forecast isn’t quite as great for this week, so we may employ a few more creative ideas.
Ben’s school began putting together remote learning last week. They’ll send a “morning meeting” and “movement” video, along with some extended learning suggestions and some coloring sheets. This week Ben gets to join a “Zoom” video conference with his teacher and a couple of his classmates. It has been extremely heartwarming to see these videos and still be able to connect to Ben’s school.
Alex has been working remotely, which has been a mixed bag for him. It’s very difficult to work from home when you have two young children, and especially when your kids aren’t used to you working from home. We made a few adjustments, and surely more will come, to make sure Alex can focus on work during the day. Now he’s downstairs in the bunk room where he’s a little farther removed than he was up in the loft.
Since he’s been working all day, Alex has missed out on a lot of our adventures. One morning last week Alex woke up and headed for the mountain pass to do a little skiing. The resorts have been closed for a while, so he brought his skins and skinned up, skied down and came home. This weekend he took some time to himself to start cleaning up the yard and began a big burn pile.
Shortly after California shut down I decided it was probably wise to venture out to the grocery store and do a big two-week stock up. I managed to find just about everything I had hoped, with the exception of flour. The store I went to was completely out. Overall, the selection was rather limited for many items, but I was able to find something suitable.
Alex is venturing back to our house for a day or so to take care of the lawn, make sure Henry is doing okay {we’ve made care arrangements for him} and collect some nice-to-have items. At this point it seems as though we’ll be here for quiiiite a while.