Late Winter 2020: Last Days of Freedom

When we first got back from our mid-winter break trip, Allison and I drove down to Redmond to pick up her new glasses. She loves them, and these pictures are so representative of her little bubbly personality!

We had some nice days to play on the YMCA playground, but unfortunately Tyler slipped on a ladder rung and bit his tongue pretty badly. This picture was after 10 minutes of doing everything I could to stop the bleeding in the bathroom and debating if I needed to take him to urgent care or not.

On the final day of February we saw the Reptile Man at Tyler's school. It was our last large indoor gathering before the Covid-19 crisis began.

Allison was a bit challenging to wrangle, and both kids kept trying to sit on my lap. It's impressive I got the few pictures and videos I did.

In early March Allison made a sea turtle with clay at the children's museum. It was the first time I've ever seen her sculpt anything specific without some sort of mold to put it in. We also celebrated my 38th birthday with Owen and Tanya.

One afternoon Oscar and I were downstairs and we heard Allison groaning upstairs, so Oscar called out "are you ok?" She replied "nothing is wrong" which usually means she is just a bit upset that her toys aren't doing what she expects and she generally calms herself down. A few minutes later she called out "something is wrong!" so Oscar said "What's wrong darlin'?" And she replied "Nothing is wrong, Daddy. Don't come up." We like to honor our children's wishes and we didn't hear water running or splashing, so we stayed downstairs. 10 minutes later we go upstairs for something unrelated and discover Allison (40 lbs) has pushed her bookshelf full of books (70-80 lbs) through her room, down the hall, and into our bedroom so she can reach the place we keep her Kindle and headphones. We were a little annoyed but a lot impressed - our children know what they want and are resourceful in finding a way to get it. I have to admit I'm glad she was successful and had the satisfaction of working hard to achieve her goal before we caught her. On a side note, Allison had been told she could have her Kindle after we cleaned her room. As I was helping her clean she said she wanted to play with her toys for a bit. I told her that was fine and to let me know when she was done playing so I could help her clean up and get her her Kindle. She chose physical labor over cleaning her room with assitance.

Here are our cute kids cleaning the church, though church was actually cancelled the next day thanks to the early Covid-19 outbreak. Small meetings were still on at that point, so cleaning was still scheduled.

We got a new smoker after our old one had lived through far more than its average life expectancy. This one is very powerful!

Tyler started a new level in swim lessons, and Allison tried showing grandma her new dinosaur sippy cup on the telephone.

 

We watched How to Train your Dragon: Hidden World, then Tyler went and made Allison a light fury. I don't know where this kid gets his artistic creativity from, but it's definitely not from me (I graduated with a 3.9 GPA, but I got a D in art).

On March 12th schools were closed for what has now been determined will be the remainder of the school year. I wanted it to be clear that this did not mean we would be constantly watching TV or playing tablets now that school was out, so I made a list of things they could do for our first day of homeschool. Trails were still open at that point, so Oscar took the kids out on a nature walk the next day.

On Sunday we took the kids to Silverlake park after our first virtual church at home service. The original intention was just to play in the lake, which seemed like a perfectly responsible socially distant thing to do, but then Allison begged for the playground and I didn't have the heart to say no. 5 days later the playgrounds were closed too.

On Monday I'd planned on doing some interactive songs with the kids to keep them active, but Tyler was far too tired to participate. He'd accidentally received a double dose of his evening medicine the previous night (I gave it to him then Oscar gave it to him 5 minutes later not knowing I'd just done it), so we had a few more hours until his usual energy returned. I knew he would struggle to do table work, hands on activities, or independent reading, but I didn't want us to spend all day watching television and creating an expectation that we could have extensive amounts of screen time while school was out. I decided to put on a library picture book we have on CD, which both kids enjoyed and fought over who got to hold the book while we were listening to it. It then occured to me that we have dozens of picture books that must have been turned into audio books at some point. I taught Tyler how to look for a book on audible, we purchased several that were cheap (many are only $0.69 cents and I bought a bundle with 4 for $1.89), and we wrote down the ones that were more expensive to look up online or at the library. The kids spent over 90 minutes reading, which is more than my voice could have possibly handled. It was a huge parenting/homeschooling/social distancing/reducing screen time win!

We did some bubbles the next day during some brief moments of sunlight.

Oscar bought a new sit/stand desk so he could start working from home.

Here's one way to get children to entertain themselves - tell them they can have their tablets as soon as they clean up their rooms (I didn't actually care if their rooms got cleaned or not, but going in there to do it distracts them and they play with their toys instead).

Another tip from my own experience: Kids are more likely to keep themselves busy without screens if you're keeping yourself busy without screens. Any screen use, even if it's productive (reading an ebook/working on a computer/sending an uplifting message to a friend), will make them want to play videogames on their tablets or watch TV. It makes it hard for me to get a workout in because my workout videos/video games only motivate them to exercise for a minute or two and then they just want to stare at the screen. I have to workout in the morning before they're up and going, which I don't love, but it's what I have to do now that the YMCA is closed.

I've been very pleased so far with how my family is adapting to church at home. Before 2019 we noticed our kids were very responsive in our family home evenings if we put real effort into it. If we just came up with something last minute to fulfill our duty, they wouldn't respond as well. Incorporating the Come Follow Me program last year gave us an organized curriculum to teach the gospel to our kids inside our home consistently. It coincided with Tyler learning to read which allowed us to have him start reading verses of scripture with us. It's been a marvelous blessing to have in our lives, and it's been so timely with the COVID-19 quarantine. We've had over a year to make it a habit, and now we're enjoing the fruits it brings to us.

The first two Sundays of church entirely at home were both wonderful! After streaming a 25 minute church service where the kids behaved not perfectly but better than they typically do in Sacrament meeting at church, we were given permission for any home with a priesthold holder to bless and administer the sacrament. It was a very touching experience for all of us. The spirit was so strong that I got all choked up during our Sacrament hymn and Oscar did as he said the sacrament prayers. We looked at each other as he brought the bread and water over to us knowing this was a special experience we'd remember for the rest of our lives. I've never been more grateful for modern prophets and apostles to guide us and direct us. I always had faith in them, but only now can I say I know they are called of God to guide us and to lead His church.

The next day Tyler helped me set up a preschool lesson for Allison. He made the Legos with stickers all by himself and cut nearly all of the laminated dog. There were just a few spots where the laminate made the tiny cuts extra challenging for him that I decided to take over.

On Wednesday the 18th I was surprised to see playgrounds were still open, so they had their last day of fun at a Washington playground. Allison was in her happy place on the dinosaur rocker.

Here's Tyler on the roller slide and starting to pump himself on a swing. He's never had much interest in swings so he's been a little slow to learn this particular skill. He had lots of fun of the roller slide!

I'm glad they had fun this day. Who knows when our playgrounds will open again? Several articles I've read say the virus primarily travels inside in close encounters and really doesn't spread much outside in the sun and warm temperatures, particularly when people are constantly in motion. I really hope that means they can play on the playgrounds again as the weather warms up.

For the first month that school was out, we were left to homeschool entirely on our own before the district was able to get approval for and implement distance learning. One day we homeschooled by watching Pocahontas. This came about because Disney songs were playing in the background while they worked on some academic worksheets the previous day. They were intrigued by "Colors in the Wind" being from a movie they'd never seen before, so we decided it'd be our next movie. I explained that some aspects of and characters in the story are true, but that much of it is just a story. Allison recognized the grandmother willow scene from her "Disney Princess Look and Find" book and ran up to bring it down while we watched. Tyler said "but Pocahontas isn't a princess" to which I explained that in Native American tribes the daughter of the chief is a princess to them. I then remembered that we are distant descendants of an Algonquin Indian princess and told him that his great great great great great somethingth grandmother was a Native American princess just like Pocahontas, which he thought was super cool. They had history and family history lessons all in the first 15 minutes of a Disney movie! There were also many good moral lessons about how we shouldn't assume people are bad just because they're different from us and how fighting is often started over misunderstandings and lack of communication.

Later that day we took the kids for a walk. They practiced doing planks with daddy during our rest and decorating daddy with dandelions.

On Friday the 20th we picked up some school lunch  and then drove over to Howarth Park beach. I saw the playground was roped off by then, but at least the beach and parking lot were still accessible. They ate, threw rocks in the water, and played in the sand. It was a good way to do our social distancing in the fresh air.

Tyler spent a good chunk of time making a T out of rocks. Allison then helped him make it into a bigger T. This is the type of activity I really miss now that beach parking lots are closed.

That weekend we'd hoped to do a little hiking down in Mt Ranier but the hike I most wanted to do was on a road that was still closed (it was warm and sunny, but certain high elevation roads don't open until July). We realized it'd be an equivalent drive to go down to Portland, so we went for a weekend trip down there and did some hiking in the Columbia River gorge. Here's cute Allison falling asleep on the drive. I worried she'd wake up if I tried to take off her glasses, so I didn't.

There were plenty of people at each spot, but everyone was social distancing as much as possible. Here we are at Chanticleer Point.

And here we are at our first waterfall - Latourell Falls. On our walk down Allison sweetly said "I'm so happy we came to see the waterfall!" It made the long drive worth it.

On our way back up the kids found something else they could climb.

Next we took the short but steep hike down to Bridle Veil Falls.

Daddy and Tyler had fun taking selfies. Compare these to the two they made at this same falls 5 years ago here.

Oscar did a few with Allison too, then a couple with the whole family. I just love these smiles on my sweeties!

There's also a short walk out to a Columbia river gorge overlook nearby. 

I love being in the gorge when it's sunny and clear!

We drove on to Shepperd's Dell falls,

Wahkeena Falls,

and finally to Multnomah where we hiked up to the bridge. We got some great family selfies there!

Oscar had some school work to finish up, which was going to be very difficult with the kids in the room. I looked up online and saw that Oregon's playgrounds were still open, so we drove to the nearest one. There were signs telling people to social distance, and there weren't many people around, but it was open. The kids were delighted! 

Tyler liked the clear view of Mt Hood. He's all about volcanos these days.

There was a lot of equipment and some big, fun rocks to climb on. One was even slick enough to slide down.

The next morning we had virtual church service at our hotel. The hotel was very careful not to spread germs. Breakfast was fruit, juice, and a nutrigrain bar in a sack, the pool, hot tub, and exercise room were all closed, and there were clorox wipes everywhere.

Oscar's family had planned on having a conference call on Zoom at 11am, and we didn't want to be out in the gorge where the internet service isn't great. We had to be checked out of the hotel by 11am, so we figured we'd do our call from the same park we'd played at the previous evening. The kids found a couple with a dog and loved throwing a ball to her. I kept trying to tell them to social distance, but I failed.

Oscar picked us up some fast food then we drove out to Horsetail Falls. Here's my attempt to get the kids smiling with the falls in the background.

We started our hike up to Ponytail falls. The kids had fun on the trail where we taught them about the big fire that had burned through the gorge a few years ago.

Tyler and I made it to the falls and enjoyed walking behind it as Oscar and Allison came around the corner.

This was really the perfect hike for our little family. It was short enough that the kids didn't get too tired but long enough that the kids had some satisfaction of working hard to gain a wonderful experience. This was the first time they've ever gone behind a waterfall.

Oscar and Allison got up close to the water. Allison was afraid he was trying to take her down into it, but she cheered up and ventured down once she realized she was safe.

We tried to take family selfies with the falls, but they didn't quite work with all of us.

And from there we hiked back down to begin our long drive home. The next day our governor instituted a Stay Home/Stay Safe order, and we haven't been on any outings since.