Pictures and Update

Just a few pictures from recently...

Robert is very excited here to be looking through, sorting, and selecting his favorite coin specimens from all 500 pennies he had just scored from the bank. He loves the idea of stumbling upon a super rare coin, but he also just loves having a collection of money. He's lucky to have a Grandpa mentor in this effort.

Here's my typical quarantine look: glasses, haven't showered in who knows how long, surrounded by a gaggle of kids who follow me from room to room and outside. We are often within arm's length of one or more screens (there's a kindle in Alice's hands, and my phone in Matthew's hands taking this photo)...school, entertainment, information, communication with others...screens just seem more necessary these days.

Matthew's selfies crack me up. He needs a haircut pretty badly. All of the boys do. They hate haircuts. I usually just pick a day and muscle my way through it, but I have no oomph to put myself through that right now. Part of my lukewarm enthusiasm is because the task is difficult, it's a horrible mess to clean up (the room, the equipment, baths/showers for everyone) and it's a completely unappreciated act by 3 out of the 4 guys I trim. The rest of the reluctance stems from the fact that we're not really seeing anyone anymore. Taking their shaggy heads out in public used to embarrass me, like I was a neglectful mother. I imagined all the things other people might think about me or my family when they saw the boys' hair hanging over the tops of their ears. It's one thing to grow your hair out a little longer on purpose. Plenty of kids do that. But that's not what this looks like. Siiiiiiiiiiiigh. I've got issues, I know it. Anyway, without that self-induced social pressure, there's less motivation to make the cut.

The other day, Alice and Matthew were play fighting/wrestling against Robert. Matthew LOVES this kind of play because the older kids 1) never overdo it and 2) always let him be the strongest and fastest. In the game, Robert did something that triggered an attack from Alice and Matthew. Alice said something like, "C'mon, Matthew. Let's give him his punishment!" Matthew replied, "You mean his PUNCH-isment!" and he proceeded to pummel Robert repeatedly with his fists, which didn't hurt, and which everyone found hilarious. Cuteness is one of this kid's superpowers.

James built another fort in the front room. One right after the other! This morning, he taped and cut a couple of cardboard boxes into a train with three compartments. He also spent a good amount of time outside adventuring with Matthew, whacking a tree with a stick (a tree that supposedly hurt him yesterday when his whacking stick bounced back and scratched his arm), and using sticky mud from the garden to create statues and connect real garden hoses. I tell you, this kid cannot survive on inside alone. Thank goodness our isolation is happening in the spring and summer!

Alice has joined me this week on a couple morning walks. Friends and friendshipping are pretty tough for her right now. She says none of her CMS friends have communicated much with her since the quarantine. She's feeling like maybe she wasn't as important in their lives as they were in hers. Middle school is no picnic, wherever you go. Ugh. She definitely wants to go back to CMS for eighth grade, though. In other news, she's started writing sketch comedy. She's a big fan of Studio C these days and is often writing down funny ideas in her notebook and reading her drafts out loud to us. She decided to make it one of her personal goals to work on this year. Alice has also started watching Downtown Abbey with me and Erin. She saw the episode where Thomas intentionally gets himself shot in the hand in order to get an honorable release from the military in WWI. She was physically and mentally disturbed by that. She had a hard time falling asleep and doesn't want to watch any more of the show for a while. This is what I have yet to figure out about Alice: a guy getting shot in the hand is too much, but she didn't bat an eyelash at the vengeful maid who caused a woman to slip on a bar of soap, the miscarriage of a baby, or the sudden death of a young man by heart attack or stroke. What about all the other guys in the trench getting shot at and KILLED?! Not a big deal. But the hand thing *shudder*. I don't get it. Yet. Maybe she can explain it to me in a few years :)

We've had our share of meltdowns. We're together so often and so long that I'm beginning to lose compassion for the kids' freakouts. It's the same handful of offenses happening over and over and over again in slightly different forms. That's exhausting. And kinda numbing in a dangerous way. I'm slowly navigating them one by one, learning from each one, but I'm not out of the woods yet.

Even a 10-year-old can have a tantrum.

I wake up every morning wondering, "What day is it?" then quickly remember that it doesn't really matter except on farm days. And even then, it's only a few hours in the morning. The whole day lies before me punctuated only by meals and the kids' appointments at Erin's house. Every day is loosely structured, but it's not easy, and it's certainly not empty. It's hard to point a finger at exactly what happened any one day. They all feel the same. No end in sight.

I'm growing a liiiiiiiiittle bit weary.

Matthew and Alice are done with school. Robert and James have a week or so left, but their teachers aren't giving new assignments. I don't get it. It's change enough, though, that I can take down all the school things we had set up. I spent some time today transitioning the house back to the way it was before. That felt good :)