Disclaimer, I wrote the blog post in Feb 2021, but forgot to post. Quarantine Part 3 to come!
So here we are 7 months later, not much improvement on the pandemic. It's cold now and numbers are surging again. Due to the kids prematurity, we have abstained from going to birthday parties, or any indoor events since March. Who knew a pandemic would fall in the triplet 'pro' column? Thankfully they don't seem to be missing a beat not seeing other kids. They love playing in the yard, down in their playroom, and at Grammie's pool. That's the extent of what we do.
Miguel and I are both grateful to have jobs and be working. I'm fortunate that a lot of families got puppies over the shut down, so that is helping business. We have a house project that is dragging along, we were hoping to be done by October, but looking like February. The good news is it is happening in 2 phases, so we are completely walled off from the contractors and don't have contact with them. The bad news is we really wanted this done before the winter surge which didn't happen.
On the school front we have settled in with full out homeschooling. We knew we were not going to send the kids in this year, but we tried the full remote option and it was too chaotic. Like dystopia. All we were doing was yelling at the kids to sit still and pay attention, and it became painfully obvious right from the go that our kids could not sit in front of a computer for 6 hours a day. We held out 3 weeks in hopes modifications might be made to make it sustainable, but it was to no avail. So after speaking with the school department we made the choice to school them at home until the pandemic passes.
As a mother, who is also a teacher, I can say there are days I love them being home all day, and others that I can't wait for them to return to school. The pros are a big deal: no one has been sick. I mean not even a sniffle. Elsie hasn't used her inhaler since the week they came home in March. She was on 4 puffs a day and a rescue inhaler. She's grown 2 sizes in 6 months of not being on a large amount of daily steroids. It's been amazing to have no sickness in the house considering their premature status. Another pro is is they are not exhausted from a long day. Last year they would get off the bus at 4pm and not want to play. They were whiny and tired and cranky until they went to bed at 8pm. The jump from preschool life to full out Kindergarten was a tough one, and being home all day let's me enjoy them a little more.
Here are some summer pics of 2020, their birthday, homeschooling, and our house remodel.
the good news is we opened the pool early and did lots of swimming
July 4th hanging outside
summer popsicles
playing in the rain
organizing her my little ponies
last day of kindergarten (at home)
Danny helping clean the pool cover
Elsie and Sammy taking care of the pool toy bin
Danny loves treasure chests. He hides them all over. Here he is filling one up with little surprises
my summer girl
Elsie sitting on a step stool watching the construction guys. They have been working here at 7am everyday for 8 months, we are so ready for them to be done
losing teeth left and right around here
me and my girl
4th of july with Lana and Joey
pool time at Auntie Cathy's
Daniel is the sweetest. He leaves little notes around the house for us
Joey brought his motorcycle over and did some neighborhood spins. They LOVED it.
Danny joining the workout craze
building forts in the old den the week before it was demolished
birthday ice cream with Sandy and Homer
pool time at Erin and Nick's
Fun times with our cousin Ellie
lunch outside
a birthday message from my babies at work
love this trio
walks with Rosamaria
4th of July
a walk with my boy
leaving handprints on our new garage floor
working in the garden
riding the pool bull at auntie cathy's
playing nicely
Sam enjoying a nice snack by the pool
A mother and 3 little ducklings
camping summer 2020
Danny's first sudoku
playing soccer in the yard
Seekonk speedway with our cousins
Virtual school starting...here we go!
Elsie logging in
Sam participating in an activity
sam got new glasses
playing barbie
the drive thru dinosaur exhibit at Gillette
fun with our cousin Dean
logging in outside
silly kids
at the park
more ice cream with Sandy
the den in the demo phase
cards with grammie
bathtime buddies
a very low key birthday this year. visiting a cool Halloween display
Buttonwood Zoo with Mom and Grammie
They wanted an ice cream cake
Danny and his wish lol
Sam showing off his new specs
this was their virtual schedule. a nightmare. the kids hated sitting at the desk for 6 hours a day. it was a struggle to keep them there, every minute I had to sit with them and keep them focused because it was chaos on the screen with one teacher trying to manage 35 kids. I felt so bad for the teachers, and the kids. Not much getting accomplished in 6 hours.
This is basically the one room we are living out of. It was our old living room and dining room. Converted to the school room. The other half of the house has walls and plastic up and they are banging away all day long.
picking out gifts with our birthday money
doing her reading for school
Sammy was SWAT, Elsie was Vampirina, and Danny was a ninja
with our Collins crew
Seeing Halloween displays with Sophie
This is the other room we are living in, down to 2 bedrooms, one for us, one for them while the other half of the house is worked on.
good thing this bathroom is being demolished next month because Danny dropped a bottle of nail polish everywhere
celebrating world prematurity day
low key Thanksgiving
Danny's legos
playing with stick on tattoos
Christmas with my little elves
how you visit family in 2020, you wait for the nicest day you can find and hang outside for an hour
they do love each other
Danny and his creations
ringing the bells for Santa
Elsie's letter to Santa
We were able to get into the new kitchen area on Dec 23rd, so I spent most of the Christmas Eve moving our kitchen over so they can demo the old kitchen after the 1st.
baking in our new kitchen!
Dancing Danny
what's more fun than popping bubble wrap???
Biggest snowman ever!
