When this has passed, I think there will be interesting articles written about the perception of the passage of time. I remember reading, once, about how variety in our days adds to the perception of time. For example, if you spend a week long vacation sitting on the same beach you’ll remember the vacation as shorter than if you spent the trip doing different things every day. So all the days blend together right now, but it’s also hard to remember a time when this wasn’t our lives. Reentry will be very interesting.

We had a good flow for distance learning this week. (Well, Penni did. With our thanks.) I’m so glad it isn’t a battle to get them to their morning meetings. I credit the way the teachers engage the kids and the fact that it’s never more than 30 minutes of live learning per day. Honesty, the fact that these teachers have “classroom management” for 22 5 and 6 year olds via zoom is amazing to me.

Steven, Sammy and Amaya are really into Master Chef Junior. (Thanks Nana.) They have their favorites and least favorites and it’s fun to hear them talk about the show. They watch every day after lunch.

On Monday afternoon, Gabby returned! The kids were so excited to see her which made my heart very happy.

From Amaya via Gabby, “Send this to Mommy. I love her.”

Amaya can truly turn anything into art. She found some sticks, branches of leaves and cut out a star to make a wand. I love seeing what she creates.

I’m still working on getting back to reading books every night. The kids have books as part of their eLearning but I’m not certain they’re reading enough on their own, or being read to enough.

The kids do their eLearning between ~11am and 12:30pm so, if I come down to grab lunch during that time, I can see them in action and hear a bit about what they’re working on. Here, Steven was excited to show me his math work.

The kids spent a while working on puzzles which made me realize we should probably bring out their more advanced options. If they can focus for long enough and stop losing puzzle pieces. 🙂

I’m not sure what this exercise was but all of the kids ended Wednesday with these random but, accurate, statements about animals.

Amaya found some feathers in our craft cabinet and made this lovely addition to her headband. I love it.

She’s also obsessed with barbecue sauce lately. At dinner tonight she dipped her avocado in bbq sauce and she asked me to buy felt to sew her stuffed bbq sauce bottle lol.

Dance is going okay. It’s a little hard for the kids to focus but they’re making it through class and seem glad to keep at it. I think I need a different option for flooring in the basement. I floor is a little slippery for tap shoes.

I logged into the zoom while I was working to keep at Amaya and Sammy in tap class. I think I’m going to do that again this week while they’re all in jazz. (Weird, since I’m just two floors up for them but also fun.)

Steven has a beginner rubix cube and was so excited every time he made a side a single color. He FaceTimed with Nana and Papa to show them his progress.

We’ve only made it through 4 chapters but I started reading the kids, “Hot To Eat Fried Worms”. I loved that book as a kid. I read it over and over again and I hope they have the attention span to get through the rest of it. Amaya is decidedly not eating fried worms, though.

I got a brief visit from Captain Marvel while I was working.

Piano lessons moved to Thursday this week and, from what I can hear, the kids are still progressing. I get the sense that zoom lessons are going to be the way we roll for a while. Mr. Anthony even sent us the sheet music for Into the Unknown as some (very) advanced practice.

With our Mario obsessed kids, Gabby found some drawing tutorials on YouTube that Steven and Amaya, in particular, love it.

Steven’s Yoshi.

Amaya’s Princess Peach

Steven and Sammy (and maybe Amaya) had a nature show-and-tell on Friday. Sammy couldn’t wait to show his big stick!

Amaya loves video chatting. She could talk to Charlie all day long. On Friday she was able to talk to her school friend, Abby. It mostly consisted of trying out different video filters with very little actual talking.

Reading a book to Nana, can’t be without the filter.

SSA have been sleeping with us a lot more than usual. I think I’ve mentioned that. On Friday night, Sammy was scared and afraid to be alone. He was in true distress. So he got to cuddle with Jason and watch the NFL draft until he fell asleep. (Which makes me think this was probably Thursday.) He’s such a sweet boy.

Weekend!! We all got out into the (sort of) sun on Saturday. The boys were excited to play “sports” with Jason. Damn, they were sweet doing their stretches, playing catch and t-ball.

Amaya wasn’t into anything sports related so she and I went for a walk.She left this message at Nico’s house lol.

Our little outing turned into a nature walk. We watched birds, picked dandelions, looked at the interesting trees in our neighborhood.

Amaya was most excited when she found a “pine cone patch”. I love that the little things still please 6 year olds. She was so happy to collect these little baby pine cones.

When we got home, the boys were excited about the pine cone patch, too, so I took a walk with each of them, as well.

The Clines! Eating delicious grilled steak ala Daddy.

Even her nature finds became art.

Watching The Phantom Menace, Sammy got right up close to his Daddy again.

I was finishing my Lego diner and Steven asked if he could please make the car that finished the set. I can’t say no to my little lego master. He did great!

How sweet is this? It’s the garage I did last year connected to the diner. And there’s the car Steven made.

Steven probably spent 3 hrs this weekend working on a Lego creation of his own. Once side is a restaurant complete with decorative fish tank and the other side is a playground. He saw how I connected my garage and diner and got the same type of pieces to do the same.

The Cline men and I played a little baseball today. Amaya didn’t want to join in but appointed her self Team Photographer. She had us pose those this photo. “Steven and Sammy and Daddy get down on your knee. Daddy and Sammy put your hands on your hip. Mommy and Steven put hands on shoulders.” lololol

We wrapped up the weekend with our April Raddish Kids kit and made carrot cake cookies with cream cheese frosting. I truly love being in the kitchen with them. <3

It was a good weekend and also a hard weekend. I think the kids are feeling the strain of being cooped up. (I know I am.) It’s a lot of together time for them in the same place, day after day. We have a routine but this just isn’t normal. Same for everyone reading this, I know. I’m trying to balance how I handle bad behavior – the difference between frayed edges and straight up defiance or belligerence. It’s hard. My own fuse is short so I need to remember that before I react, and also in how I think about the kids’ behavior right now. We all need balance and boundaries. It’s a work in progress.

Have a safe week.