Life Lately – May 2020

A couple weeks ago I shared some thoughts and feelings I was having at the time about all of the things we would be missing during the month of May – what should be one of our busiest and most exciting months of the year. David and I should actually be heading to Philly tonight (we planned to drive through the night) to visit family and go to some baseball games. But as you know, none of the events we had planned on happened.

I’m in a better place than I was a few weeks ago. I’m sure we all have good days and bad days during all of this. There are days when I’m extra stir crazy and just wish we could go somewhere, and there are other days when I’m a hermit and I’m thankful that we have nowhere to go. Every day though, no matter how tough, I’m thankful to have had this time at home with my kids, and to have David here working from home.

So what have we been doing this month? A couple weekends ago we visited with David’s parents at their house. We should have been going to our niece Bailey’s first birthday party that day, but instead we did a Zoom party, watched her eat her cupcake and open gifts. The girls helped me make a cake so it sort of felt like we were all partying together.

The girls had a good time over there playing in their blow up pool, throwing water balloons, watching Gigi’s new baby ducks, and chasing frogs.

Audrey is so funny when it comes to animals. I call her my little hippie because she loves all animals and nature. She spent a good hour chasing this frog, who she named Jumpy, around. Then was very upset when we said it was time to go and we couldn’t take him with us.

We’ve been spending a good bit of time outside lately. Audrey is so proud that she learned to swing all by herself.

Last week, Audrey came into our room early one morning and said her tummy hurt. She ended up throwing up a couple times that morning and then developing a fever. This had me worried because I’d read that kids respond to COVID differently than adults and their symptoms are different – fever, abdominal pain, and vomiting being a few of them. It freaked me out a little. The pediatrician said  that it sounded like Strep and to watch her. If fever persisted the rest of the day, they’d see her the next day.

We ended up seeing the doctor on Thursday, they ran a strep test and tested for UTI, since there was no obvious signs of infection anywhere else that could be causing fever. Both were negative. They ended up sending off a COVID test, which we found out on Sunday was negative (thank goodness). It must have been just a really bad stomach bug. What was so weird about it though was that she threw up Wednesday for the first time, only had fever on Thursday (no stomach issues), then started throwing up again on Friday and started having diarrhea (sorry if that’s TMI). And the fever lasted 3 days, which seems long for a stomach bug. Anyway, she was pitiful and we were worried there for a couple of days, but finally on Sunday she started to feel more like herself and thankfully no one else in the house has gotten sick!

Throughout all of that, Thursday was Raley’s last day of school. She should have been at school partying with her friends and doing fun activities, so we wanted to do something fun with her to make the end of kindergarten feel special. I had ordered some custom donuts from Wow Donuts to surprise her for breakfast that morning. Once Audrey got sick, I felt bad that she wouldn’t be able to have any donuts, but she wasn’t feeling good and didn’t feel like eating them anyway.

Raley had one last video to watch for school, and then she was done for summer! She wanted to play outside afterward, so we did that. I had wanted to make this last day of school special for her anyway, but I had to put in a little extra effort to give her the attention she needed since Audrey was not feeling well. I tried to be very intentional with this because she tends to act out when she feels she’s lacking attention. For the most part she was very sweet and understanding though.

She’s been working hard on learning to ride her bike without training wheels, and all of a sudden, it clicked and she started doing it on her own! She refused any help from us and was insistent that she was going to figure it out herself, and she did. As frustrating as it was to not be able to help, we were proud of her for not giving up.

Raley was excited when her sweet teacher paid her a visit and brought her an end of the year surprise. She’s missed her so much the past couple months, and I hate that our year with her is over. She has made her first year of elementary school very special.

While Audrey napped, we decorated cupcakes using a decorating kit I found at Publix, then I let her choose what we ate for dinner.

The rest of the weekend we took it easy and got in lots of snuggles. I hated that Audrey was not feeling good, but I was extra bummed because my siblings and their families had come into town, and we were planning on spending the weekend with them. We’d also planned to visit with David’s family on Memorial Day. Instead we had to isolate ourselves so that no one caught whatever it was that Audrey had. We haven’t seen my brother and his family since Christmas, so this was a bummer.

I’m very thankful though that everyone is healthy now, that whatever that was didn’t get passed around the entire house, and that her COVID test was negative. So that’s our exciting lives lately. We haven’t ventured out anywhere since everything has reopened. We’re not quite ready to go shopping or eat at restaurants quite yet. We’re members at the garden, but I’ve been hesitant to go there because the Children’s Garden is still closed, so I’m not sure the kids will enjoy it all that much. Their favorite thing to do there is play in the Children’s Garden and splash in the little wading pond.

What has your family been doing to combat boredom? I’m ready for my parents’ pool to warm up so we can go swimming! In another week or two that’s probably where you’ll find us. I hope you have a great rest of the week.