Lego Playing, Owen's Long Hair, Work from School, and a Date Day with Aedan and Samantha

Samantha: 106 Months, Week 3
Aedan: 73 Months, Week 1
Owen: 30 Months, Week 3

Sunday morning church looks a little different these days. We usually gather everyone in the living room for the worship time at the beginning, and then we have our kids go down to the basement to watch a Veggie Tales movie while Ben and I watch the sermon. It's been working pretty well, but this is definitely not my preferred learning style. It's hard for me to feel connected when just watching through a screen. I find myself to be very distracted by outside things, so that is also hard for me since I'm not sitting in the church building, but I am in my living room and see things that need to be done around the house. I don't often just "sit" and watch television, especially in the morning, so this has definitely been challenging for me to keep my mind focused on what is being said. Here is Owen (wearing a super hero cape) ready to sing with his guitar in his hands.

I saw someone post a recipe for easy Oreo cheesecake cupcakes with a chocolate ganache topping, so we bought the ingredients to make them and finished them up on Sunday so we could have them for dessert. Here they are. They were pretty good for being simple and quick to make, although I think I would prefer something that tastes a little bit more like a traditional cheesecake. Nevertheless, the kids enjoyed them, and they like that we have been buying things to make special desserts together.

As I think about the future weeks to come and hear about more and more schools that are closing down for the rest of the school year and going to online, it makes me wonder and dread just how long this is all going to last. I really don't want school to extend into the summer or have to cancel summer travel plans either, but I know that is just me being selfish. We are going into our third week of having school at home, but nothing has been decided for sure in Pennsylvania yet.

The other thing that was hard for me to process going into this week was hearing that Alaina would be in Upland for the week. We don't get to see Alaina very often, and our kids would love to have this extended time to play with her. However, Ben and I had already decided it would not be wise to go with the new stay at home order issued for Pennsylvania, too. But hearing this news about Alaina made me feel unsure again about whether or not we should go visit. We just don't know if it's wise to travel since this would not be considered essential travel. But then I felt like it would be safer because we have already been around Ben's parents, we have been isolating ourselves, and none of us are sick. Plus, we would basically just be going to stay in a different home than our own, but still staying indoors or just playing outside. Ben was a lot more confident about staying home than I was and felt more uncomfortable about going somewhere. I can just tell that the kids are getting a little sick of each other. They were fighting a lot today, and Ben and I have both been getting more irritated with them. I think we all need a break from each other, but we can't do that when we can't see any other people. It doesn't help that it rained all weekend. It's a lot worse with the kids' behavior on days when they can't get outside to play.

Monday was an interesting morning because we had time slots to go to the kids' school to pick up work for the next two weeks. Mrs. Weaver had packets of work for the Kindergarten kids, and Samantha had some packets to pick up as well as her Chrome Book so they could start doing some instruction and communication though Google Classroom. We got the kids' work from school and also picked up lunch later. Once we got all their packets home, I tried to figure out what the teachers wanted the kids to do, and we got started on some of their work, leaving behind the activities that I had found for them to do the previous two weeks, so it was a little bit of an adjustment figuring everything out.

When we go to school to pick up the kids' lunches, Owen always gets peanut butter and jelly. They are the little Uncrustables, and he makes a mess of himself when he eats them. In fact, on this day he decided to style his hair with his sticky jelly hands. We kept laughing at what he looked like, so I showed him what he looked like in the picture on my phone. His hair is going to get long in this time of staying at home!

Owen always seems to be in the best mood right after lunch when he is playing. On this day, the kids had built a little zoo with little animals, and he was pretending that there were bad guys coming, something that he has learned from playing with Aedan. It was cute watching him play before I had to take him upstairs for his nap.

During this time of not being able to take the kids anywhere and having school cancelled, I was really grateful that Samantha and Aedan have had a renewed interest in Legos. We have their Lego tables set up in the basement so they can spread out to build and play without having a mess all over their bedroom floor. It's fun to see what they create, and it's been a wonderful way to keep them occupied in the afternoon while Owen naps.

I don't remember exactly when this happened, but I have to share a funny conversation that Ben told me about when putting Samantha and Aedan to bed. Ben was talking to Samantha about how she liked a boy once who was a skinny boy with glasses. Samantha said, "Oh yeah, I do like a skinny boy with glasses, who also has a scar on his forehead." She was talking about Harry Potter, of course. Aedan got a sad look on his face, and then said, "But I don't wear glasses. I'll wear glasses for you, Sissy," with the sweetest expression of sincerity and love. He just loves his big sister, and her love and attention is all he ever wants. He even admitted to her once, "I don't care what we play Sissy, I just want to play with you." He is loving this extra time having her all to himself to play with.

Monday afternoon Ben and I tested a theory in reference to Owen. We discovered that we were training him too well. We started training him with the Hatch Baby Rest sound machine that we have had in his room for awhile. We set it to turn green in the morning when it is okay for him to wake up. (We started this back a couple months ago because he was waking up between 6:00-6:30 and calling for me or banging on his crib until I came upstairs.) Well, in the past week, ever since having his bad cough and cold, he has been taking really long naps, like close to three hours most every day. However, it's hard to tell when he wakes up sometimes, so we did an experiment where I set the green light to turn on. I can turn it on and off from my phone, and as soon as I turned it on, he started calling out for me, so he must have just been waiting until it turned green. However, we never have used the green light for nap time, just for in the morning, so I'm not sure why he started thinking that he had to wait for the green light at nap time as well. Seeing that he did that made me wonder how many days he is just waiting in his crib for the light to turn green. So maybe he isn't taking as long of naps as we thought he was! However, I can't complain because he is in his bed quiet, which really is the ultimate goal to teach him to do that, even for when he eventually stops napping and we want him to have quiet time in his room. I was surprised that the green light thing was working so well for Owen, and that he translated it over to nap time as well. I guess we will have to start using the green light at nap time, too, so that way he knows when it's okay to wake up.

We still sit with Owen every day to get him to fall asleep at nap time. Sometimes that takes longer than it should, but most of the time I don't mind the chance to sit in a quiet, dark room and hold my little boy. Sometimes I even end up taking a little nap myself. Well, on Tuesday I took this little video of just the sound of Owen snoring because it made me smile. He was really comfortable in my arms.

Ben got the Wii game system out a couple weeks ago, and every once in awhile we play it with the kids in the evenings. On Tuesday night it was time to get ready for bed, and Owen wanted to play a game on the Wii instead. (He doesn't really play it much on his own, but he loves watching everyone else play. He jumps around and pretends to do what Samantha and Aedan are doing, particularly if they are playing the sword fighting game, which seems to be their favorite.) Owen was very upset that we couldn't play a Wii game this night, and it was just one of those times that I wanted to capture what his emotional outbursts look like when he doesn't get what he wants. He definitely has certain things in mind lately of what he wants to do, and he gets really upset when he can't do what he wants, especially if it means we are trying to get him to go to sleep, because that's the worst. It might be kind of sad that I took a video of him crying like this, but it's a good reminder of how hard life can be for a two year old sometimes.

Despite all the tears in the videos above, a half an hour later he was in his pajamas and ready for bed. We took this video of Owen that night because this is how he gets from Samantha's and Aedan's room every night to his bedroom. Yes, he is riding on a motorcycle for dolls, but it is a great mode of transportation for our little guy, and it makes him happy on the trip to his room for bed.

When getting down from the ladder once this week, Samantha accidentally bumped into the corner of the bookshelf, leaving herself a pretty large scratch and bruise on the back of her leg, as well as lots of tears. I had thought before that the bookshelf made it a little tricky to get up and down the ladder easily, so I had the thought that it would be good to rearrange their room a little to leave more space next to the bunk bed ladder. I thought it would help switching Aedan's two brown bookshelves from under the window to on the wall next to the bunk beds, so on Wednesday I had the kids clean up some of their toys and things that were left around the room, and then Ben helped me move the bookshelves across the room using the little furniture scooter pads that we have. Samantha then took some time to organize her American Girl doll stuff how she wanted it. I took a couple of pictures of what their room looked like now because I really liked the change. Not having all the shelves lined up by the window really let more light come in the room and made the room feel more open. I like how it all turned out! Sometimes it's hard having the two of them share a room because we have to balance how much stuff they each have so they both feel like it's their room, but I have offered to have Aedan go back into his old room since we don't have any foster children right now, but neither of them want to be split up.

Overall, Wednesday was a harder day with the kids. Samantha and Aedan got work from school at the beginning of this week, which is good, but now I'm trying to help Aedan with his work since he can't do it independently, supervise and help Samantha with all she has to do, get her online for that, and even set her up with two Zoom meetings that morning. Meanwhile, Owen is whining and crying and being loud because no one is giving him attention or playing with him. I just feel bad for Owen because I don't want to just ignore him, but I have to get work done with Samantha and Aedan, and sometimes he is just not great about going off and playing independently on his own. He just wants to be with everyone else, but he doesn't understand that he is being a distraction when they are trying to work. I'm sure this transition has been more difficult for him than I realize because he was used to having me to himself during the day when Samantha and Aedan were at school He's used to going out and doing things with me, eating lunch with me, and doing things around the house or playing with me, and now I feel like I hardly have any time with just Owen because we were doing school most of the morning, then lunch, then he takes a nap in the afternoon. It's hard to feel pulled in every direction and feel like I have no time where there is no noise and no people needing me for something (which is what I need to not feel burned out). It feels a bit overwhelming that we could be doing this the rest of the month, at the very least.

I was so desperate to just have some peace and quiet in the afternoon while Owen napped that I let Samantha and Aedan watch a Star Wars movie in the afternoon so I could have a quiet house for two hours. I am trying desperately to get caught up on my blog. I hate that I let myself get so far behind, and it makes it harder to remember and write about important things, so I am trying to use this "extra" time to get caught up and then keep myself on top of it like I used to be. My other project has been doing work outside, and I have most of the areas cleaned up at this point. I just have a few small sections to clean up, so I feel good about that. However, our next step is ordering a truckload of mulch to put on all our landscaping areas so that it looks nice and prevents weeds from growing up. These are the two things I have been trying to work on in the afternoons when Owen naps, when we all play outside together, or in the evenings. It's nice having all our landscaping areas, but it's going to be a lot for me to keep up with each year. I wouldn't have nearly as much done if we weren't stuck at home right now. Plus, it's a learning curve because I don't really know what I'm doing and we don't really have all the yard tools we should have to make the job easier or faster.

Owen often joins me in the bathroom while I am getting ready and brushing my teeth. He brought these books downstairs and started reading this one about trucks. He knows all the words to it since we have read it to him so many times, and I loved listening to him read it to me. He really loves trucks, much more than Aedan ever did. He just soaks stuff like this up, and I'm so glad he loves looking at books and being read to.

Thursday seemed to be a better day with the kids as far as getting work done, and I think a lot of it had to do with Samantha not having any Zoom meetings, which just makes things a bit more complicated and stressful. Samantha just has quite a bit of work to do, so it's hard to keep track of what she's doing, checking her answers, and making sure she's staying on task. Everyone was tired that day as Aedan was being mean to Owen that morning, and Samantha and Aedan have continued to fight with each other more as this week progressed. Instead of letting them play together in the afternoon while Owen napped, I ended up having to send them to play in separate places because they were just being mean.

Aedan brought some of his Legos downstairs to play with. He has enjoyed making new planes and even combining his people to make new characters from Star Wars. While I was working on my blog on the couch, I was able to capture these cute pictures and video of Aedan in his element: building and playing with his Legos. I love seeing his creativity in the way he builds and his imagination in how he creates stories with his Lego characters.

I took these two pictures of Owen on Thursday, April 2nd to document how long his hair was getting. His hair was already a little longer than I liked after his last hair cut, and who knows when the barber is going to open up for hair cuts again. Maybe I should try to cut it myself!? I don't know. I have never cut his hair before, and I'm afraid even trimming these long pieces in the front would turn out very badly. Maybe I need to some help from other moms that cut their own boy's hair. It's going to get pretty unruly over here!

At the beginning of the week I suggested to my Bible study group that we could get take out from a local restaurant and then sit in the trunks of our cars, all facing each other in a circle, so we could talk and catch up with each other without being in someone's home and still keeping the recommended six feet of separation. I was a little unsure about how well it would work, but it was amazing how good it was for me to be around these ladies again. It was so great to share how life was going, to laugh, to support and encourage each other, and to just be able to communicate face-to-face instead of through Marco Polo or texting each other. With just moving here last summer, I feel like I was just starting to make friends and get to know people, we were just beginning to invite people over to our house for meals and games, and I was making plans with the kids' friends from school for play dates, and then all the craziness with the virus started happening. I'm really happy that we decided to meet in the parking lot together, and we will definitely have to do it again sometime. I forgot how much I miss talking to other women!

Friday morning, in an effort to give Owen an activity to do while Samantha and Aedan did their school work, I got out the dot markers and some paper for Owen to use. He really enjoyed being a part of the group, and it helped occupy him without distracting the other kids too much. Never imagined that I would be a homeschool mom!

With the kids getting work from school that they were supposed to complete, I took pictures of everything on Friday that Samantha had completed for the week to send to her teachers. I don't have nearly as many pictures of their work as when they were at school all week, but they have been busy hard workers this week. Here is Samantha's work:

Friday night after the kids went to bed, I noticed all these little Lego figures lined up on the kitchen counter. Here are all the Star Wars characters Aedan has created. I think he only has one true Star Wars Lego set, but he is creative and makes up his own people.

After a rough week with Samantha and Aedan and lots of bickering between the two of them, we wondered if maybe they just needed some time away from each other, as well as some one-on-one with either Ben or me on a date. So on Saturday we declared it a date day. After lunch Ben left with Aedan to go to a field on Dallas High School's soccer field to kick around a soccer ball, play baseball, play hockey, and let Aedan ride his scooter around. They had fun running around, playing together, and spending time together.

When they got back from their date, I took Samantha on a date. We loaded up our bikes in the van and went to Frances Slocum State Park to go on a hike together and ride our bikes. She always wants to go farther on hikes that either of the boys can manage, so I figured this would be a good date for the two of us. We took a different path in search of a way to get down to the water. However, with all the rain we had gotten the previous few days, the paths were super muddy. Our shoes and socks were soaked with muddy water, but we kept going, knowing they could just be washed when we got back home. We found this little bench down by the water that we sat on together, and she wanted to take some selfies together. Samantha is such a sweet, beautiful little girl. I love when she gets pink, sun-kissed, freckled cheeks in the spring/summertime.

And here we are with the water behind us. She was making silly faces because she said the light from the sun was too bright for her eyes.

We also took some time to throw rocks into the water together. I was even able to skip a few rocks across the water. Do you notice her hair? With their obsession with Star Wars lately, Samantha wanted me to do her hair like Princess Leia. I told her a side braid with a bun was the best that I could do, so this is a view of her Princess Leia hairdo. Her hair is so hard to braid because it's so thick that it's difficult for my hands to be able to hold it all!

Samantha and I had such a good time together, and it was so good to feel like we were having a normal day in the midst of this craziness. Samantha is growing up before my very eyes, and I want to make sure we stay connected by enjoying activities together. As she grows up and transitions into different needs that aren't always so apparent, I want to make sure we have open communication, and that she knows she can talk to me about anything, trust me with her feelings, and know that I am always here for here and will always love her no matter what. After our time at the park, we stopped at Wendy's to get a Frosty in the drive though, and then she came up and sat with me int he front seat so we could talk and eat our Frosty. She flipped through stations on the radio, we talked about whatever random thing would come to her mind, and it was a great end to our date day together.

(Blog about March 29-April 4, 2020)