Social Distancing Day 33: flower house play

Today was more of a pretend play sort of day.  We have these amazing purple sand cherry bushes that I trimmed up so that they are almost like a cave on the inside and make a fantastic play space.  We spent a long time playing in the bushes and pretending they were a house and making soup for my yard ornament dog "Rusty".  Flynt was insistent that it was tortellini soup which is his favorite.

Social distancing day 23-25

I was really happy to take a few days off and watch the kids while Sky was getting and recovering from her biopsies.  Usually when I take vacation days we're off on adventure or doing some kind of house project, so this was a nice change of pace.  But it was a lot of work!  Sky is a Super-Momma; big shoes to fill. Wren and Flynt were very kind to Papa and we had lots of fun! 

The first day started out pretty mellow.  Lots of books and snuggles and a FaceTime with Grandma.  We all stayed in our pajamas too long and while I was (finally) changing into "real clothes" the kids decided they were wolves and needed to turn the coffee table into a den.  Usually Sky and I get nervous when it gets too quiet, but in this case they were happily pretending to get ready for bed in the wolf den.  We then of course had to read a night-time story and snuggle up and pretend to sleep. 

Later in the day after lunch Wren and Flynt decided to have more pretend play and I helped build them a "castle" with barstools and a blanket.  They got dressed up and were training their stuffed animals with magic.  Super cute!

After some quiet time I finally convinced the kids that going outside would be fun.  So we got on the cargo bike and took a ride to the river.  We took the long way because it was such a beautiful day to be out on a bike (and yes, also because I like to ride bikes), but had to scrub our plans to play at the river as most of Boise had the same idea.  Fortunately the kiddos were just as excited to play in the backyard so we did that until dinner.

The highlight of the next day was a walk up the street for a picnic lunch.  There's a small park in our neighborhood that doesn't have any play equipment which is good because in these circumstances, seeing a playground that can't be used invites way too much drama for the under 5 crowd!  It was another gorgeous day and we had much fun eating on our blanket and running around blowing and chasing bubbles.

The final day of Dad Duty was a little more like a normal weekend day.  After I did a big solo grocery run, Wren and Flynt and I spent much time playing in the backyard on the climber, slide, and in the sand box.  Also Wren decided the little patch of renegade grass by the chimney looked like a wonderful place for a nest, and proceeded to play a game with Flynt where they were tailor birds weaving sticks and leaves into the nest.  I'm constantly amazed by their big wonderful imaginations, and spending some extra time with them helped me appreciate them even more.  Of course there was some drama and fussing here and there but that's to be expected, but overall it was a great way to spend a few days!

Social Distancing day 32: Obstacle course (and crying)

Today was a little rough.  I'm not sure what Flynt's deal was today but he was very much acting his age and doing all of the things that make people call the terrible two's the terrible twos.  A good portion of the morning involved Flynt crying and a chunk of the afternoon too.  Not to be outdone by little bro, Wren also had a good bit of crying this afternoon as well (not related to school stuff mentioned below). 

In between the feelings we had to go to Wren's school to pick up the last bit of her stuff that was left there and a bag of materials from her teachers.  She's in preschool so it's art supplies.  They didn't provide anything useful like kindergarten writing paper or how to teach math concepts to little people.  I'm a little (a lot) frustrated with her school for not putting forth a little more effort to engage or interact with the kids.  It's expensive and I feel like they really haven't tried very hard and they are not even going to try next month.  They are just dropping all attempts at school but they still want the parents to pay full tuition.  I'm not mad that they want us to pay tuition.  I feel like it is important to pay teachers and to keep as much as the economy going as possible but I also think they could have tried a little harder (like, at all) to provide some learning and interactions with the kids.  In the month and a half since they had school there was exactly 1 zoom meeting with all the kids in her class.  That's it.  No other online interaction.  I feel like this was a huge miss.  So many other schools do so much more.  Okay... I'll stop ranting but I have a lot of feelings about this.

We made an obstacle course out front today.  Both kids had fun wandering around the front yard and getting outside.  I let Wren help choose the types of challenges that she did.  There was "rock hopping", jumping, jumping jacks, single leg hops, spins, donkey kicks, a big jump, side hops and a balance beam.  It was fun and Wren really seemed to enjoy it but it was a little to much structure and too physically challenging for Flynt to have any interest.  She started from the beginning each time we added a new obstacle.  Flynt was busy being a "flower" in my big pot out front and he was an iris apparently.  We also did a little front yard raking with lots of help from Wren and Flynt.  Our outside time was the longest stretch of the day without crying so I most definitely call it a win.

Social distancing day 31: tea party, picnic and puddles

Today started out with a tea party for Cinnaboo's birthday party.  Cinnaboo is one of Wren's stuffed animals and has birthdays fairly often.  Usually such events are met with some pretend play, pretend food and sometimes dress-up.  Today we went all out.  I got out a tea set that Wren was given a while ago that is actually lovely (hand painted and way too nice for small children), we made real tea, chamomile, much to the delight of both Wren and Flynt and party hats (left over from Wren's birthday last year).

I couldn't believe how into the party Flynt was.  It too him a couple tries but he was delighted to sip tea out of the fancy cup and pretend to eat cake.  Wren thought it was awesome.  The two kids drank a pot and a half of tea (all be it a tiny pot).  It was great.  We also sang happy birthday at least 5 times.

It was decided that we needed some party games after the tea party so we hid Easter eggs and played some other random things but nothing was a huge hit.  The next big success was an indoor picnic.  It was a bit rainy outside and eating outside didn't seem all that appealing to me so I compromised on an indoor picnic.  That was a huge hit and both kids were delighted.  It was further appreciated when we invited the party guests (stuffed animals) to join us.

We finished off the day with some good puddle stomping.  There was some drama about Flynt wanting to ride Wren's bike but not being tall enough to reach the pedals (hence the helmet) but he got over it with the puddles.  It required dry pants and socks but worth it.  All in all, a good day.

Social distancing day 30: Water play

The kids wanted water play so we had two types today.  In the morning we played colored water.  This used to be something I did as a kid on weekend mornings.  I remember it being really cool but my kids were not that excited about it.  Maybe they are too young?  Not sure but it was not the huge hit I was hoping.  Maybe it just because my dad did such a good job of convincing us it was super fun?  Not sure.  It was 15-20 minutes of entertainment not the hour I had hoped.

The game is clear containers of water and kids tell you how many drops of food coloring they want of each color and then you get to watch the colors swirl and change.  Its really lovely.

In the afternoon I thought we'd get out the sensory table and play in the water a bit.  Wren decided she wanted to scrub the rail road ties with a toothbrush instead but Flynt played in the table for a while before he decided he wanted to "paint the deck" with water.  Not what I planed but everyone was wet and happy and played outside for over an hour with little supervision.  I even got to pull a couple weeds while the kids were playing.

Social distancing Day 29: Easter egg hunt, again and seeds

The kids had so much fun with the Easter egg hunt on Easter that we had to do a couple more inside today.  They had fun taking turns hiding the eggs for me and then having me hide them so they could find the eggs.

We also planted some more seeds.  These are ones that will have to start in the house since they are not frost tolerant. 

Social Distancing day 28: Egg hunt/Easter

Easter was a super fun day for the kids.  They got to checkout their baskets before having pecan sticky buns for breakfast and then we played for a long time. 

Eventually we got dresses and had our Easter Egg hunt.  Some of the eggs they did a really good job finding and others were so funny because they would just keep walking past the egg without seeing it.  They really liked hunting for eggs.  Flynt found quite a few eggs on his own and Wren was really sweet and kept giving him some of her eggs.  They loved it.

We went to the part and flew a kite in the afternoon since it was a windy day.  It was a tiny park near our house.  It was weird.  It was completely empty when we showed up and randomly 3 other families showed up in rapid succession after we had been there for about 15 minutes and it got really uncomfortable and then poof!  they all disappeared again right when we almost got the kids all packed up and ready to go.  Since it was no longer crowded we stayed a little longer and threw pine cones into the pond.  So much fun!

Dinner was our traditional egg salad sandwiches but the kids were not sure they wanted it so I made faces and they had pita bread wedges.  The loved it and thought the faces were really cool.