Well, Sam spent the weekend working on another video. The one they played at church (over the internet) had a photo montage of pictures folks had sent in. I spent most of the morning Saturday sewing us two masks by hand since my sewing machine has been missing a cord for ages. They’re actually probably really both for Sam since he’s our designated grocery shopper and I haven’t gone anywhere and am not really planning to until work and school open back up. Unless, I guess the recommendations change and we’re asked to wear these on our daily family walk, in which case I’d need to make the kids some, too. I used the Victorious STL pattern with t-shirt strips for straps and a layer of fusible interfacing in one (so three layers with a pocket to add an additional filter - coffee filter or my friend may drop off some of the blue shop towels that do the best job). I had some interfacing (already fused to fabric swatches) leftover from a very old baby shower project. The first one I cut out my two front pieces by sliding the pattern over instead of flipping the pattern over and got two right sides instead of a right and a left so I wasted my other piece of interfacing, which is apparently all sold out and hard to come by. I also put a coffee bag bendable metal closer in for one nosepiece, but I only had one of those so I used a folded-over pipe cleaner for the other. Sam was surprised we just had all the stuff to make the masks around the house.
Sam also said, “I guess we don’t have to smile for the photo.”
I was scheduled to teach Potter Class at church, and our DRE asked if I’d be willing to lead it over Zoom and I said yes. Then I worked myself up about preparing for it since I had participated but not led a Zoom meeting before, and then I managed to get the time it started wrong and missed half the class. Anyway, I read a story about rainbows to a handful of preschoolers and at the end we encouraged them to make rainbow art and hang it up in their windows for the people walking by to see. Amelie, Leah, and I cut shapes out of craft paper and hung them up in rainbow order in our big living room windows. I had to nudge Amelie to do the arts and crafts with me, but as I knew, she was into it once we got started. James and Sam and Spark took a gigantic nearly two hour walk around the neighborhood while we were crafting. Here’s Amelie standing on the end table:
And this is the view from outside:
After my very, very, very brief stint as an online Sunday school teacher, we watched big church on the laptop and for the 3rd week in a row the kids are just not interested in it at all. This would not be so much of an issue if they’d be content to play somewhere else - perhaps independent of each other, maybe outside, the way they are perfectly willing and able to do many other times throughout the week - while Sam and I listen but they inevitably bring out the rowdiest, oneriest behavior right on top of each other right in front of us in the living room. I cannot imagine how incredibly difficult it must be for families where both parents are attempting to work from home if this is the way they act for the 60 minutes they have to suffer without a parent’s attention.
For example, I went looking for James and found him quietly lining up his figurines (on one of the desks Sam made).
Leah loves to paint. She frequently wants me to sit and paint with her, and I frequently (now that they’re home) try to get the big kids to sit and paint with her instead (this has been almost entirely unsuccessful, but I did convince James to play alongside her with play dough last week).
I told the kids to stand next to my tulips so that I could take a picture and James obliged.
We’ve been successful at limited to no screen time outside of their school math app for the kids (because I’m on leave), but we’ve been watching a nightly family movie. James gleefully reported this to his class at their homeroom meeting - “Every Single Day!!” We rotate who gets to pick the movie and without fail, James has chosen Sing every third night or so every time it’s his turn to pick.
Okay, these are from Sam's phone (still super recent). Amelie's so stylish:
James:
I've mentioned before that their favorite quarantine toy BY FAR is the dog crate that the dog won't use. They tip it over on its side so it's harder to get into and out of (I guess, I don't really know why). They're also in the process of filling it up with ripped bits of scrap paper "hay." Notice all three are crammed in there (they argue about who gets to be in the crate!)
Me (and Leah) helping James with Zoom.
Wow, look at that climbing!
Grindstone nature area:
This one's at our neighborhood park. I did not carry the other kids on any kind of regular basis once they got to be as big as Leah. My options for the walk are to amble along very slowly at her three-year-old pace or to carry a 35 pound pack.
No comments:
Post a Comment