Life Lately – June + July 2020

I feel like these posts have been few and far between because there’s just not much going on these days. Usually we’re busy busy, and I’ve got more to share about what we’ve been up to, but right now each day feels the same.

More often than not, our quarantine days go like this:

• I get up around 6 or so, do my Bible study, read, or work on blogging related things
• The girls get up about 7:30-8:00
• Eat breakfast, watch some cartoons
• Maybe work on their summer workbooks for a little while, depending on their mood and mine
• They play in the playroom until lunch time. In the meantime, Audrey tells me multiple times she’s soooooo hungry and asks for snacks
• Lunch around noon or so
• More playing, watch a movie, play games, or we may venture outside. My kids are so much like me – they hate the heat. They typically last maybe 15 minutes outside before they’re sweaty and ready to come in.
• More of the same until dinner (Audrey still asking for snacks all day)
• Dinner around 6 ish
• We may go for a walk around the neighborhood (sometimes David takes them and I get a tiny bit of peace and quiet for a few minutes)
• Bedtime 7:30 – we let them have quiet time in their beds for 30 minutes to wind down and look at books
• Lights out 8:00 – sometimes they’re asleep in 15 minutes, sometimes it’s two hours. We’re still getting used to sharing a bedroom

That’s our typical day….boring right? It get’s really monotonous and I think we all get tired of doing the same old thing. I’ve been feeling guilty lately about not spending as much intentional time with them. They are very good about playing together and entertaining themselves, but when they ask for that time with me I sometimes put it off or tell them later and don’t follow through because there are other things I’m wanting to do at the moment (and sometimes I’m just tired and don’t feel like it.)

For the next month my goal is to be more intentional about spending quality time with them before they go back to school. I feel like in the first couple months after all this started, we did a good job of spending time together, and not just telling them to “go play” all day long. But I haven’t been as good about it lately and the mom guilt is getting to me. I know I’ll miss this time with them once they’re in school and gone all day, and I need to make the most of it while I can.

Since we can’t really go out and do anything, we’ve been swimming at my parents’ pool a good bit this summer. Honestly, we could probably have done it more, but taking kids swimming is exhausting! In any case, this is our go-to when we need something to do, since it’s literally the only thing we can do outside our house + it burns off energy for them.

Sometimes we’ll break out the water slide in the backyard. Sometimes if we’re not feeling up for getting the whole water slide set up, we’ll let them play in the sprinkler. Like I said, my kids are not outdoor people if it’s too hot and they don’t have something like that to cool them off. They may be the only kids I know that when asked “do you want to go play outside?” they say “nah, it’s too hot.”

We’ve had a couple of things lately that have broken up the monotony of this pandemic. Back before we went to the beach, the girls got to have their dance recital. I was very appreciative of The Dance Company for the way the recital was handled. Typically, the girls would have had to stay in a big room backstage for the entire length of the show and everyone would be in the audience at one time. TDC recognized that that wasn’t going to work this time, even with lowering the number of audience members. How in the world were they going to keep hundreds of tiny dancers separated for an entire show? I was very thankful for the solution they came up with, which allowed us to arrive and send our dancer backstage at a specific time, they performed their dance on stage twice (once for practice, once to be videoed as their actual “recital” performance), then we could leave. We were in and out in about 20 minutes. The only people in the audience were the family members for that particular dance, and audience members were limited to 4 per dancer.

This eased our minds so much. This also put a TON of extra work on the staff and teachers at TDC, but we were very appreciative of their consideration, organization, and hard work. There are some things we missed by doing it this way, such as getting to see some of the seniors, who have been helpers in their classes for years now, dance in their last show. But it is what it is at this point in time. We’ll be able to see their performances on video. And I’m just glad they were able to do a recital at all. I’m pretty sure I would have been crushed if it didn’t happen. As a girl mom, I live for this kind of thing.

Since our families were not going to be able to attend recital this year, Raley came up with the idea to have them come over to the house one evening and they would do a mini recital for family. So I got them all dressed up – hair, make-up, and all – and they performed their dances for our immediate family. It was pretty adorable!

We normally all go to Rosie’s after recital, but since we couldn’t do that this year, I made tacos for everyone for dinner after their mini-recital.

I literally had to scroll through my pictures to figure out what other things we’ve been doing lately, because time is running together and I feel like we do the same thing every day. These pictures reminded me that we did make some M&M cookies together for the 4th and we made a homemade pizza one night using this homemade pizza crust recipe from Whimsical September (so good!) I don’t know about yall, but something so simple as making a pizza together or baking together feels like a big deal. The kids love it and they feel like they were allowed to do something really special, which in turn helps with the mom guilt of not spending enough quality time with them. Mental note to self: I need to keep this in mind when the mom guilt and monotony sets in.

We decided to venture out the day before the 4th to watch fireworks at the new Trash Pandas stadium instead of getting out in the crowd on the actual holiday. We knew we would be tired on the 4th and that there would be more people out, so this seemed like a great opportunity to still get to watch some fireworks (a must do every year, if possible), and beat the crowd. We grabbed some DQ blizzards on the way, sat in the back of the minivan, and enjoyed the show.

On the 4th we swam at my parents’ house and ate grilled hamburgers and hot dogs. We played some cornhole, while the girls were occupied with their own game of washers. They caught fireflies before we drove home, seeing lots of fireworks on the way.

Audrey has started gymnastics this summer. She’s been telling me for a while now that she wants to do gymnastics instead of dance, but I kept telling her we had to finish out the year and she could start gymnastics after recital. There were tears every. single. week before dance class (although she told me after recital that she had a lot of fun dancing on stage). She gets so excited about going to gymnastics and I think if she’ll work hard at it she’s going to do very well. She has no fear and I can see her learning to tumble and do tricks easily. We’ll see what the future holds for her!

We’ve been babysitting my sister’s hedgehog for the past month or so while they’re in the process of moving. The girls love getting him out and playing with him (he’s not as big a fan of them though!)

Recently, Crumbl Cookies opened in Madison, and I highly recommend if you’re in the area. The cookies are massive and they’re served warm and so gooey!

And that’s about the extent of what we’ve been up to lately. What have you been doing at home to change it up and keep your kids entertained? Are you sending your kids to school in the fall or are they doing virtual learning?

Have a great rest of the week!

More quarantine related posts:

A Few Thoughts + Feelings Nearly 2 Months into Quarantine
Eating Lately – Quarantine Edition
Life Lately – May 2020