We’re at the start of our fourth week out here at The Lodge. We are doing well and hoping for the same of anyone reading this.
We have been making the most of the constantly changing weather and we have been practically living outside. This is what “homeschool” looks like in our house:
My main goals with the kids for this time is for them to just play and be kids. I want them to run and jump and climb and get dirty and explore and simply enjoy nature.
Both kids have been having a blast on their bikes. We have Ben’s pedal bike and balance bike here. Over the weekend we took off Ben’s training wheels, so he’s officially riding a two-wheeler now!
Hannah just wants to do everything Ben does, so she’s been eager to ride the balance bike. It’s been fun to see her get closer to being able to push off and ride it on her own.
We had a few organized activities last week. My favorite was making our rainbows. Perhaps you’ve heard that kids in northern Italy painted rainbows and hung them in their windows and wrote “andra tutto bene” which means “everything will be okay.” Our rainbows are hanging in our kitchen window and they certainly brighten my day.
Hannah inspired our water pouring station one afternoon. She had been pouring Jackson’s water from one bowl to the next so I figured I’d give both of them a chance to practice pouring. Plus, they’d do anything to play with water.
I grabbed a big plastic container, some measuring cups, a couple mugs and some disposable travel coffee cups and added warm water and bubbles and voila!
One of the themes of our week last week was MESS. Dear goodness there was some type of explosion of food in the house every day. It’s hard to say if the worst was the chili powder that Hannah dumped all over the rug or the cup of party mix Ben threw across the floor.
One element I have been enjoying while being holed up is the challenge to be more resourceful. At the time of writing this it’s been 11 days since I’ve been grocery shopping. Sure, we’re out of all of our fresh fruits and bread, but we’re making do with what we have and I’m really trying to make it to 14 days.
We’ve been baking a lot and I have been able to make more creative dinners using the ingredients we have on hand. It’s been a fun challenge to make sure we minimize our waste. I didn’t want to waste our brown butter rice krispy bars so I took one for the team and ate at least 90% of them myself in a matter of about 30 hours.
There has been an abundance of family time and I am loving the privilege of spending these days with both of my children. It’s extra special having Alex home during the day. The kids love when he pops up for lunch or can take a 20-minute break and play with them.
The passage of time feels so strange right now. Each day goes by really fast and things that happened just a week ago feel like it was months ago. So much has changed, yet so much remains the same for us in our already isolated life up here. We remain tremendously grateful for all that we do have right now.