Back at Home: Surviving Round 2

Well, we've survived week one of being home from school (so sad) and back to home from work for me (not so sad). I won't say it was pretty, but it was an improvement over week one last time. And definitely an improvement over the first day of spring school at home. No one buried their face in the chair this time!! 

Monday and Tuesday were official full school days. We set up three individual work stations as all three kids have Google Meets most of the morning. Dec is using the pull-out desk in their room, Fiona has her work desk in the basement (next to Mike, who is working at the bar), and Quinn camped out at the kitchen table for the week. 

We ordered another desk [which should get here tomorrow!] that will get set up in our bedroom, and that's where Q will go. Then I'm still hanging out at the camping table in our guest room. You can't say we aren't using every available corner in this house. 

Mike and I logged a lot of steps Monday morning, checking on everyone - but they all did great. Then Tuesday, Bugs did half a day of school and she and Mike headed up to spina bifida clinic. Dec had class all morning, but Q finished all her assignments by 9am. I handed her a bunch of art supplies and the hot glue gun. Then after lunch when I needed to go to a meeting and Dec was done with class, I handed the 8 and 6 year old the glue gun and told them to be careful. Who am I!?!?! 2020 has clearly lead to big steps in independence and trust [not desperation ... obviously ...]. Thankfully, it was a two day week for school. We'll see how it goes this coming week when they all need to put in five days of effort! 

Both Mike and I had to work on Wednesday, but the kids got to hang out and have fun. Mike had to run into the theater, so I was solo wrangling. I bribed them with nachos for lunch if they were well-behaved (they were angels). Then I had the very best visitors in the afternoon. The girls came twirling in, wearing fancy dresses they had found in the closet and looking like supermodels. Then they told me Declan was coming too. I fully expected him to be decked out in something fancy (they usually convince him to do that) ... so when he came somersaulting in as Superman, I laughed really hard. Well played, Dec!

It was very clear on Wednesday evening that everyone needed OUT. I sent Mike to find the stash of flashlights, made the kids put warm gear on, and we went for a flashlight neighborhood walk. We admired Christmas lights, sang some carols, raced up and down the big hill, burned off a lot of energy, and enjoyed the crisp fresh air. 

Like Round 1, we have experienced some bumps and frustration in Round 2 of being home all.the.time. But we know a little more about what works and how to manage the energy and emotion of togetherness. Right now, when all else fails, we are working on learning the lyrics for The Twelve Days of Christmas. #goals

All or Nothing

Wednesday night found me lying on the floor and Mike sprawled on the couch. The last 48 hours were threatening to overwhelm us. We were processing the transition back to distance learning, the suspension of sports (for the kids and Mike), and the full-scale business pivot of the theater since all indoor dining and entertainment is also suspended. It was a lot.

After tonight (Mike is at his last hockey game before sports suspend at 11:59pm), our calendar is suddenly wide open. In contrast, Tuesday was a full-on sprint from morning until bedtime. I had an early meeting that I took from home so I could walk the kids to the bus stop for their last day of in-person school this [calendar] year. Then both Mike and I headed into our offices. I had a full day of meetings, left the office in a flurry at 2:58 to try to make it home for both my 3:00 meeting (clearly I was late) and the school bus (nick of time).

My meeting ended at 4pm, when we told the bookends to find something to do because we had Q's school conference (online). We talked to her teacher until 4:29, then traded for Fiona and her 4:30 conference. Mike was in and out of F's conference because he was helping Dec. D's conference started at 4:50 and he joined it in full hockey gear. Mike and D hung in for most of the conference before they headed out for hockey practice. I finished the conference, hurried to make eggs for F, Q, and me, and then took Fiona to piano lessons. Before I walked out the door, I cracked the rest of the eggs into a pan and left Q to scramble them up for the boys.

[Mike said they were perfect and that Q had D's plate fully ready for him when he walked in the door - including a bagel with cream cheese on it. Fiona was scandalized. "You are leaving Quinn to cook? By herself?" Yep. That's where we are in 2020, Bugs]

The kids haven't had school the last three days as their amazing teachers plan the transition to distance. It's been back to Lord of the Flies because Mike and I have been bat crap crazy at work. Other than a Barbie/Hot Wheel hurricane, they've been really good and pretty cooperative. They are pretty used to us needing to work by this point ... you know, nine months into a pandemic. 

We have big plans to use the extra free time this weekend to set up five independent work stations so we can hit the ground running on Monday. [Remember how we want a new house because this house is too small for basic living. Watch us pull a rabbit out of our hat on this one. Rumor has it there will be a school desk in our bedroom. Sigh.]

With everyone home and the wide open schedule, we'll be back to our March/April tricks to get these kids out of the house for fresh air and energy burning. Quite the difference from the Tuesday sprint!

Three Things

On Monday, we got the news we knew was coming ... Hybrid school was transitioning to distance school after Thanksgiving due to exponential growth of covid cases in Minnesota. Today, we got an update. After Tuesday, the kids are out of school until at least January. [please let them go back after the holidays. We are literally begging the universe] We feel both more and less prepared for Homeschool: The Sequel than we did in March. At least we know what we are in for. Unfortunately, we also know what we are in for. 

So, instead of focusing on that - because we know there will be blog posts about yet another adventure in homeschooling - I'll tell you three fun things about each of the kids right now.

Fiona

1) Fiona has grown over an inch since her birthday (which was less than two months ago). She is shooting up at quite the rate. She's also such a skinny minnie that I cannot keep pants on this child. They are either two short (see growth spurt) or too big in the waist (see skinny). We are currently defaulting to too short - because pants falling down isn't ideal. I'm also quite proficient at sewing tabs into the waist bands to tighten things up. I think there is another growth spurt happening (or this one is still going) because she ate more than me at dinner tonight! She polished off three ribs and two helpings of potatoes.

2) It is so hard to be a Type B perfectionist! Fiona has a holiday piano recital in a month. We are working on her song and she's doing a really good job. But she still gets so frustrated when she doesn't immediately play it perfectly. We are discussing (a lot) about how someone can have a talent for something [Fiona really is a talented musician], but talent only goes so far. You have to put in the time and the practice. To demonstrate embracing our mistakes, I've been sitting down to play the piano a bit too. And boy am I rusty!

3) With covid restrictions in place, Fiona is getting ample opportunities to practice her independence. I feel like a taxi driver most of the time - and F is uninterested in being a taxi intern. So she's getting short bursts of solo time and is both proud and relieved to not spend half her life at the rink - or driving back and forth between home and the rink.

Quinn

1) Last Monday, Q was on her morning meeting and her teacher asked her to share the highlight of the weekend. She said "decorating for Thanksgiving with my mom." Quinn has really loved adding personal decorating touches lately. She rearranged the furniture in the basement, organized the dresser in the kids' room, and got up mid-book last night to straighten the pile of library books on the coffee table [that sounds random but I totally understand needing to straighten something right now].

2) Quinn is all in on hockey this season. She has both practice and a game on Saturday and cannot wait. She also gets to start dryland training this year, which apparently is the greatest thing ever. D can hardly wait for dryland and is so glad that Q can fill him in on it! I told her that I ordered myself a Shakopee Hockey quarter zip and got a full-on Q smile as a reward. She would love hockey anyway, but that fact that one of her coaches is Coach Dad ... that's just the cherry on top! [Q got called out in practice today to demonstrate backwards skating to the group. Mike told her afterwards that it's because she has the best form! She was incredibly proud.]

3) All Q wants for Christmas is a wheeled hockey bag. They are crazy expensive, so I've told her that if she really wants one, that will be the only present she gets from Mike and me. She's standing firm on her desire for the bag. If the fact that this child is perfectly okay with only having a hockey bag under the tree doesn't tell you she's all in, text me and I'll share her practice schedule. It's intense.

Declan

1) I made an official proclamation this weekend. Mike is allowed to let the kids watch his favorite Christmas movie .. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. I think we are finally at the point where D understands the difference between funny in a movie and appropriate in real life. And since they aren't in school, risk is low. Mike jokingly told me that Dec is probably not ready for his other favorite Christmas movie - Die Hard. 

I would agree with that, since Dec nearly had a stroke when we watched Race to Witch Mountain. ["I don't think Mom would want us to watch this. There's a lot of violence." Buddy, I picked it. "I think Dad would say 'no.'" Buddy, I'm right here. "You guys, there's more violence."] We've started calling him the Moral Compass. Which means he probably couldn't handle John McClane quite yet. 

2) Dec is obsessed with Dog Man books. Seriously obsessed. However, like Fiona, he is a voracious reader and can read that entire $10 book in a single day. Sigh. Luckily he'll happily read it over and over. Last night, Q pulled out a joke book. Dec took it over and reads all the jokes out loud. However, he does not pause in-between jokes. So there are some audio skills required to separate the punch line from the next joke.

3) Dec is also super excited about hockey and having Coach Dad at practice. He played goalie yesterday and was so disappointed that he didn't get to play it again today. I keep telling both hockey players that I do not want to have goalies. They don't seem to care. Although both are fast skaters - so I'm banking on their need for speed. With school going remote, I'm so glad Dec has hockey to help direct his energy in a positive direction. Or at least a direction less destructive to my furniture. 

Six Month Hole

In early-ish October (before it snowed multiple times), we squeezed in our annual family pictures. Just like last year, we combined with the Ps ... because somehow six children behave better than three. It defies logic, but we go with what works. We managed to fit it in between four children/two coaches hockey schedules ... and Mike hit the shower 25 minutes before we needed to hit the road. Luckily his hair dries in a hot second. Everyone had pre-approved their outfits and Dec and I had agreed finally upon a pair of "real" pants - which was legitimately the hardest part of the entire process. It was a beautiful day, everyone had big smiles, and we were able to keep our distance from each other (well, except the children. So much love!). 

It was very exciting a week or so later when the pictures arrived in Mike's Google Drive. Other than the kids looking so old, we love the pictures. It was also incredibly bittersweet to look through them. Because it is the first time ... ever ... that we've had a family picture that doesn't include our sweet Yogi. It's been just over six months since we said good-bye and we definitely have a puppy-sized hole in our hearts. We were sad all over again (sadder? Is it weird that we still find ourselves looking for him?) - and decided to leave last year's big family picture up. We aren't quite ready to showcase a photo without him!

The kids are firmly on the puppy train and Fiona was sure she had found the loophole. She decided they were going to ask Santa for a puppy. If all of them used their single Santa request, there would certainly be a puppy under the tree. What a disappointment when we told her that Santa verified all pets with parents!! Foiled again! 

The kids and I were watching a Hannah Montana episode last weekend and Miley's horse almost died. It resulted in a complete breakdown of three people missing their puppy ... and a Quinn watching the waterworks. Clearly our buddy is gone, but not forgotten! Someday, we'll be ready for a new puppy and we will love him (her? probably him) as hard as we loved our Yogi. Someday. But for now, we're getting used to slightly less fur* in the family pictures.

*There is still a lot of hair. Vanneste women are not lacking in the hair quantity department. And pictures happened on a super windy day. At one point Mike said, "whose hair is in my mouth?!?!" It was really anyone's guess ...

We WITCH You a WONDERful HALOween

As with everything in 2020, Halloween looked a little different this year. But guess what - it was still really great! Declan declared it his favorite Halloween ever and Fiona suggested we just celebrate like this every year. She was big fan of not covering blocks and blocks of houses for trick-or-treating! Further proof that sometimes the simplest things at home are the best [that said, Universe, we would really really really like to be able to see our family for Christmas. Pretty please.]

Without the pressure of being costume-ready by Baker Boo, I was way behind the game on costume selection and procurement. So when my Aunt Marti sent me an email that said she was sending costumes, it was such an unexpected blessing. She told me what she had picked for the kids, but I didn't tell them. All I said was that if they preferred a different costume once they saw the surprise, we could do that. **Spoiler alert: they were all delighted and I was off the hook. Literally everyone was happy. Major Halloween win!

Fiona's costume was a combination of Hermione and Harry Potter, complete with her own copy of the first book. Mike and I [mostly me] have been trying to convince her to start the series. Our hope is that this will spark enough interest to encourage her to tackle what she feels to be VERY LARGE books. Quinn's costume was Wonder Woman. She.was.thrilled. There was even a shield! D's costume was Master Chief from the video game Halo. We do not know anything about Halo in this house (my friend Adam had to tell me the character name) - but there was a cool costume, a weapon, AND a voice changer. This is spot on for a six-year-old boy!

Our celebration started on Friday night, when we finally got around the carving pumpkins. Since it was an at work and at school day - and I forget every dang year how long and messy pumpkin carving is - the kids were up late and we ended up having dinner downstairs at the bar. It was the start of the "different but great" theme for the weekend. It was such a pleasant change and the five of us spent the whole evening laughing together. 

All three kids helped a lot with the pumpkin gut removal (Quinn and Dec loved it. Fiona hates everything about it. But she was a trooper). They were great pumpkins and I ended up making about six cups of roasted pumpkin seeds. We tried a new system and added a "sweet and salty" variation to half of them. Huge success!

The Halloween-on-Saturday situation was amazing. I asked Quinn how we possibly ever are ready for a Halloween not on a weekend. Beside roasting seeds for what felt like half the day, Quinn and I spent the morning stuffing treat bags for our treasure chest. She pulled out most of the Milky Ways for me - and made a strong case to be a favorite child! A couple hockey practices and a few errands were also squeezed in. We had an early-ish dinner of our annual bats and cobwebs pasta and then costumed up for the evening!

We met our bubble neighbor families and the kids did piñatas in each of their yards. This was the highlight of Dec's night - beating things with a shovel. We'll pretend that's not alarming! Then we came back to our yard where Mike and I had put together a scavenger hunt of seven clues that the kids had to follow to find a treasure chest of treat bags. The six of them worked together really well to solve the clues and had a great time. Mike had grabbed mini bottles from the liquor store, so I also put together an adult treasure hunt. 

The rest of the night found us just enjoying each other's company, with the kids running around the yards and the adults standing in the driveway with beverages. It was a lovely day, but once the sun went down, it got chilly. Holy smokes was I cold by the time we came in! But it was exactly what we all needed. We put a big bowl of candy out on our front step for the kids that were trick-or-treating and there were only four pieces of candy left at the end of the night. To Mike's relief, the bowl was easily refilled with what the kids had got from the piñatas and scavenger hunt. Definitely a more manageable amount of candy than we have gotten the last couple years. Maybe this time, it won't last us until Easter!

We were all tired the next day (Halloween + Blue Moon + Daylight Savings will do that to a person), but so happy. Celebrating together with friends felt so good. And being able to do it outside and safely was such a gift.

Winter Prep

Mike and I hustled our buns when we got back from Fall Break and got all our leaves raked, the lawn moved, and mulched, and the trampoline put away. Our neighbor's field (where we dump the - at Mike's estimate - ten trailer loads of leaves) wasn't harvested yet, so we were stuck with an enormous leaf pile in our backyard. Then ... it snowed seven inches. 

On top of a not-ready-for-winter yard, Mike was stressing about his ground stakes. You see, Mike used our cabin fever and shared fear of a socially distant winter to his advantage and convinced me to approve the construction of a backyard ice rink. There was so much research before purchase, but all the supplies have been here for a few weeks. However, the ground stakes and boards are supposed to go in before the ground freezes ... because, you know, it is no fun to sink 40 stakes in frozen ground!

I'm pleased to report that despite Mike's initial fear, the snow has not stayed, the temps are back to normal, and the ground is not frozen. So the stakes and boards are in and the kids are beyond excited!! Mike picked up a used hockey net off Craigslist, which is hanging out in the rink and currently being used as a soccer net. 

And the leaf pile? Well, it's now two huge leaf piles under two tarps. With the need to rake the front yard again because of the crazy high winds on Halloween that deposited what seemed like half the neighborhood leaves back in our yard. Once we get rid of all those leaves, we just need to wait for the ground to freeze, so Mike can put in the liner and flood the rink. It will probably be another month or more before conditions are right - but there is great anticipation for that day. And plans for an inaugural puck drop!