The Saturday 7

Congratulations, y'all! We made it through our first week of social distancing! I'm trying not to think about how many more we have to go . . .

1. Our week at home actually went really well. I've recently started tracking my moods with an app called Daylio, and this past week looked good! I mean, there was definitely one evening that I said, "I will refill your drink one more time and then I am done for the rest of the night. Daddy's in charge now." Haha. But overall, we're doing well - mostly because I've been very lax about schoolwork and screen time limits. If ever there was a time for relaxing the screen time rules, this is it. Although I've also been intentional about making sure the kids move and get outside at least once a day. This coming week we're supposed to have temperatures in the 40s and 50s instead of last week's 30s. I'm hopeful that will go a long way toward getting us all outside.

2. Now I'm going to tell you a little secret . . . I'm kind of annoyed by all the "entertain your kids at home" ideas on facebook. Because that's just what I need: more pressure to give my kids a magical, fun-filled childhood. More guilt for letting them watch TV instead of making sensory bins or interactive learning activities. 🤦But that's just me and my issues. In case you're one of those people looking for ideas, here's what we did this week. (Most of these activities were instigated by Lena, my little "cruise director.")

Lena came up with the idea of drawing various items with our non-dominant hand. This one is mine. My non-dominant hand is especially stupid. Although in its defense, my dominant hand is not particularly adept at drawing either. 

Salon time. Levi looooooves spraying my hair with water, then violently brushing it. 

I got this giant coloring page at Sparta Variety last summer, but forgot about it until this week. It was a great time-filler! (And yes, Lucy lives here too, but she's a hardcore "tween" already and spent the beginning of the week in her room chatting with Skyler on Messenger kids. She's way too cool to color with her siblings.)

The finished masterpiece. Can you tell where Levi was sitting? Lol

On St. Patrick's day, someone posted on the Sparta Communications fb page that we should all hang shamrocks in our windows so kids could have a shamrock scavenger hunt. We walked around our block, but only found 2 houses with shamrocks - and I think those were just decorations, not actually intentional. Our construction paper shamrocks are still hanging in our window if anyone is still searching! 

Lots and lots and lots of this. 

Justin's parents bought him a new bike for his birthday, but it was in Florida with his dad. He finally came home this week and Levi was thrilled to try it out. It was something like 25 degrees this day, but he layered up and went up and down the sidewalk all afternoon. 

Books and gymnastics.

When my parents moved, my mom found a box full of yarn and knitting needles that she gave us. Lucy happened to be cleaning her room this week and came across it, so we pulled up some YouTube tutorials and gave it a whirl.

Again, it's so interesting to see the girls' personalities come out. Lucy tried for a while, but gave up when she couldn't get the hang of it. Lena, meanwhile, tried and tried and tried and tried. She didn't give up until much later. And it drove her crazy. She kept saying, "We need to have grandma teach us." 

Levi, meanwhile, took skiens of yarn and unraveled them alllllll over the house in an elaborate "trap." It was a huge mess, but it kept him busy for an hour! #worthit

Another of Lena's brainchildren: the 3 color challenge. She put a bunch of markers in a shoebox, and we each got to choose 3 colors (with our eyes closed), then we had to color our whole picture using only those 3 colors. I may or may not have given Barbie fishnets . . .

Lucy and Levi eventually joined us for this project. I'm pretty sure we colored for almost 2 hours!

This is so true. I was all like, "Yay! I'm going to get so much reading done! I'm going to deep clean my house! I'm going to work on all those projects I keep saying I'm going to do . . ." But here I am, on the couch, scrolling through facebook as usual. 

3. And then Friday came. On Thursday night as I got in bed, I noticed my stomach hurt, but I had just downed half a bag of barbecue chips, so I figured that was to blame. Friday morning I woke up with a pounding headache, feeling especially nauseous. I got up, figuring it would wane, but it only got worse. I forced myself to drink half a cup of coffee in hopes that it would alleviate my headache. It didn't. I poured Lena and Levi bowls of cereal the went back to bed as the nausea got worse and worse. Then the body aches started. It was mostly in my hips. I couldn't get comfortable no matter which way I sat/lay in bed. Then it moved down my shins/calves, ankles, feet, even toes. My ribs and back started to ache, my arms felt like I'd been doing bicep curls (I hadn't), and still my head continued to pound. I took 3 ibuprofen every 6 hours around the clock, but it did not help at all. Around noon, I texted my mom and asked if she could come get my kids. The girls could survive without me, but Levi is a terror and needs constant supervision. My wonderful mom came to get the kids . . . but then Lena suddenly couldn't be away from me. So she stayed home and laid next to me in bed for hours doing who knows what while I writhed in pain and watched 5 episodes of Project Runway: All-Stars. At one point I decided to lay in a hot bath to help my aches. She camped outside the bathroom door with a book (I guess I should be thankful she stayed outside the bathroom!). I couldn't sleep because I was in so much pain, I couldn't stretch because standing up made me feel like I was either going to puke or pass out, but laying in bed just made me more achy. It was the worst. You know what's really discouraging? Quarantining yourself in the house for a week, only to get sick anyway!!

4. I finally fell asleep last night around midnight, and didn't wake up until noon today!! I'm so thankful that this plague fell over the weekend, because Justin doesn't have the privilege of "working from home," so he's gone during the week. Having him here today was a godsend. Thankfully I woke up this morning with no stomach ache and very few body aches! My hips felt completely fine. I just have a residual headache and some muscle soreness. I tried to clean up some of the disasters my kids made yesterday, but was stricken with intense dizziness after about half an hour. So I guess that means I don't have to do housework for a while! I ended up falling back asleep from like 5-7, and the nausea came back very slightly. I still can't get rid of the headache or the dizziness, but I'll take this over the aches of yesterday! Now to ensure that the rest of my family doesn't get it . . .

5. In more exciting news, Levi was accepted into preschool for the fall!! Assuming the school is still in business by then. I don't have much faith that we'll be going back to school at all this school year, and I can't imagine what that will mean financially for our privately funded school. Regardless, I was relieved that he made it!

6. Wouldn't you think that this time of quarantine would be like a salve for Lena's anxiety? Get to stay home with mom all the time? Score! Alas, it only seems to be bringing out more issues. We're not making a big deal about Coronavirus. If anything I've downplayed it more than is actually true for the sake of her nerves. But as yesterday showed, she's still highly anxious about being away from me. And her new thing is not wanting to go to bed. Last night and tonight have been long, drawn-out wailing fests of begging to sleep in my bed. It is sooooo frustrating. And so discouraging to imagine that she'll ever be able to handle going back to school!

7. Well on that note . . . I don't even have any more pictures for you! I'll try to do better next week. 🤷