Quarantine life continued through May. Ever did homeschool and weekly virtual Girl Scout "snack chats," dance classes, and piano lessons on Zoom. We saw our neighbors and Subrebosts and no one else. Jim worked on the garage loft project, and we pretty much never left the house.
Avery Walker turned nine, and they had a puppy-themed party. Attendees drove by the Walkers' house during a certain window of time to drop presents and pick up party kits (little stuffed puppies and various related items and treats) and then went home and tuned into a Zoom party. People really go all out with birthdays, even when we're supposed to be quarantining. Avery and Ever, not quite six feet apart, at the drop-off/pickup:
The girls' hair had gotten so long. Rebecca had given Ever and Tiny trims a few months before, but Wrenzy's hadn't been touched in way too long. Rebecca noticed and offered everyone a haircut. She cut us really quickly on the street first thing one morning. I was worried that people might report us for not social distancing; then I became worried that other people were going to try to finagle haircuts, too. (One lady walked by with her husband and said she might have to get Rebecca to do her, too.) Days later, after she'd picked up some other scissors from her salon, Rebecca quickly thinned the ends of Ever's and my hair, but even before that, we were all vastly improved and grateful.
Wrenzy and Tiny followed Ever onto the bandanna train. I could not get a normal picture of them. Wrenzy not infrequently makes a fight face like this and growls:
Wrenzy as a chunky cholo:
We made homemade popsicles that day by blending berries and grapes, separately, with a teeny bit of fruit juice and layering it in ice trays. We didn't have popsicle sticks, so we inserted toothpicks, which mostly just fell over but worked well enough.
Wrenzy added sunglasses to her bandanna ensemble.
We usually pull the chairs away from the playroom table and up onto the rug before we run Roomba at night. The girls never bother to pull the chairs back to the table during the day. I find the children perched precariously like this:
For a Girl Scout project, Ever scheduled a day and executed it.
We had to document certain steps by posting photos on her troop's app. Apparently her version of making her bed is displaying all of the books she's reading and the next book in all the series she's reading. That made five books:
School time:
Ever chatted with Leela while she snacked. (Anna lent Ever one of their walkie talkies so that she and Leela could talk from home. Anna started letting Leela and Rafi go for walks with their walkie talkies while she kept one on at home so she could monitor their goings-on. Pretty quickly, Ever and Leela started using their walkies to meet up, rather than just to chat at home. They'd turn on their walkies and talk to each other as they walked to the tennis court to meet up, or Ever would just talk to Leela as she walked to her house. It's been exciting having an independent kid who can walk up the street to her friend's house by herself.)
Ever helped make pizza that night for dinner.
She did a good job with her "great day," as the Girl Scout project called it. She was crazy about staying on schedule - to the point of tears when we got behind a teensy bit - but it went well. She had to do one portion of it - organizing a space - the following day. She organized the playroom and used the label-maker to label all the cubbies.
Ever had been asking if she could start reading Harry Potter. I thought maybe she was still a little too young, but on Friday, May 8, about 6:45 P.M., she took it upstairs and got about a half hour of reading in before bed. Saturday morning, she woke up just before 6:00 A.M. and read in bed all morning, breaking only briefly for sustenance. She finished the book at 10:30 A.M. She passionately loved it, of course, and was excited to watch the movie (which she did at her next movie night) and go on to the next book.
Ever went out to play with Leela and Rafi one day. I think this was right on the heels of Harry Potter. Anna was confused when they spent the afternoon reading and testing on the AR website. She sent me this picture of the kids in her garage:
Eventually a little game-playing took place. Like two old men playing chess.
Jim piled all sorts of debris by our front door again.
He cut a whole in the side of the house so he could figure out where to build the little alcove that will lead from the top of our stairs inside into the new room (the garage loft). The children spied on him working. Tiny:
Wrenzy:
Ever:
And Tiny again, this time with binoculars:
After he built the structure of the new alcove, he cut this door-sized hole in the wall at the top of the stairs. For my benefit, he sealed it off with plastic to help contain the dust.
The littles danced and sang outside Jim's workspace. Not sure why they were repeating "what we've been waiting for" here while Jim seemingly talked to a visitor out front.
Wrenzy did her own hair that day, and it was really something.
The solar company dug a giant trench in front of our house and piled up all the dirt on our driveway one Thursday. They said the City would come inspect it on Friday, and the solar people would come back on Saturday to fill it. At this point, months have passed, and still we have an open trench and a huge mountain range of dirt on our driveway. I am extremely displeased. Anyway, for the first bit, the children stayed out of the dirt. Then one afternoon, I was busy in the house and let the littles play out front unsupervised. Rebecca came to knock on the garage door after a while to point out the piles of dirt they had made inside the garage and make sure I was OK with what was going on. Nathan had just joined in the festivities. Water got involved. It was not ideal, but they had fun.
On Mother's Day, I requested a walk. Ever wanted to detour down by Ella Rondo's house, and our walk turned into children playing in the tree. Wrenzy fearlessly climbed way out on a limb.
She asked me to take a video of her. I started it right after Tiny said something funny that I don't remember. Listen for when Jim whispers, "I'm so scared." Right after this, he told me to turn off the video and Wrenzy to come back.
We enjoyed ice cream sandwiches.
The girls gave me presents. In the morning, Ever gave me the pretty paper on the left (with coupons) and the tissue paper rose. That night, I found the note on the right inside the pink envelope on my bed.
Close-up of the note since it's hard to see:
Tiny gave me a present containing a bunch of crumpled paper, an old necklace of the girls that no one ever wears, a new bead necklace she made, and her Hawaii painting.
Tutu sent a most adorable homemade card.
We made cards for Tutu's birthday on the 15th, and Ever decided she wanted to copy the one Tutu gave me for Mother's Day because she loved it so much. It was very cute. She did it all by herself.
This was Wrenzy's card:
Tiny's was very interesting.
She used the letter stencils on the back.
Wrenzonamous built a castle, and Jim found it picture-worthy.
Dottie Murray, who is in Wren's Primary class, had a drive-by birthday. I asked Rachel (Dottie's mom) for ideas of what to get her, and she said not to get her anything or just to give her an old toy or something. I appreciated that answer very much because I do not want my kids to get tons of presents from friends on their birthdays, I like recycling, and I do not think it is appropriate to require people to shop for birthday gifts during quarantine. So I told Rachel I was going to take her response at face value, and maybe we could give Dottie a book or two since we were cleaning out our shelves. She said that would be great; Dottie loves books. Ever got wind of this, and she was absolutely mortified at the prospect of giving Dottie a hand-me-down for her birthday. I began finding notes like these in my planner:
Ever was very upset by the whole thing. I promised her that I would explain when we dropped our gift that she had nothing to do with it. We ended up giving Dottie a book and a tutu. Probably they were a bomb, but most likely anything I bought would have been, too. Anyway, on the day of the party; we were supposed to drive by, get a doughnut, and wish Dottie a happy birthday. When we got there, some people were milling about and totally not socially distancing. I was lame and pulled up, took doughnuts that were handed to me through the car window, gave Dottie our hand-me-down present, told Rachel that Ever was mortified and wanted it to be known that she washed her hands of it, and drove away. Later I found this note:
Wrenzy and Tiny brought down lots of books and went through all the pictures looking for fancy girls. (Where do they get this?) Wrenzy dressed herself to match a girl on the cover of Never Talk to Strangers.
See the girl on the bottom with the pink bow and pink socks. Bearby nailed it!
One night I caught Tiny cuddling with an old picture of me standing by a lake in Canada. She said it was a picture of her best girl, and she likes it because she can remember me when she can't see me. Here's the explanation she gave for the camera:
As part of a Bingo challenge from Cadence Dance Project, Ever and Leela made up a dance. I documented it, and they wanted me to post a video on social media. I was not comfortable with that, however, because it showed a lack of social distancing and I hate social media.
Wrenzy decided she wanted to learn to ride a bike without training wheels. Jim removed her training wheels, and we went out back, full of hope.
I tried to help her, and she got mad at me for helping her and said to let go, so I let go and she fell and got upset and the practice was over. Didn't work out.
I fear the sun so much that I try to get the girls to wear hats and/or get sunscreen on whenever they go outside. One day Tiny did her own sunscreen. She went for the white stuff, and it was intense.
