I Love... Isolation Edition

I've been keeping notes of things I want to remember from this time of isolation. Today on a walk with Tesla I thought, why not do it in the form of an I Love post to share some things I'm loving about life right now. Things have been so different but there is so much about it that I absolutely love! There's so much sadness, unknown, and scariness right now, thinking of the positives is so important. So here's a list of things I'm loving about our slower life right now along with some things I want to remember. So I love...

Carter reading to his Oma and Opa in the evening. His principal is reading a chapter of Lemons live on Facebook each night. He decided he wanted to call his Oma and Opa on Facetime each night so he could read them a chapter of a Bad Guys book. He showed them all the books and let them pick which one he would read to them.

My dad took a picture of Carter FaceTiming with mom to read a chapter of his book.

Elise calling our homeschooling, "pretend school". In the evenings she asks me if we have pretend school the following day.

Bike rides. We went on a family bike ride and it was the first time I'd ridden a bike in probably 13 years. In college my bike was locked up outside our apartment while I was studying abroad in India. There was a huge ice storm while I was gone and my bike got destroyed. I never replaced my bike and hadn't ridden since. Ty has an extra bike that I rode. I'm hoping there are more family bike rides to come!

That Carter and Elise get along so well. They have been playing together nonstop and even want to sleep together at night. I love seeing them play outside together, explore together, and play with their Lego guys. The other day they were playing with Mega Blocks, making people out of solid colors. They talked about mixing colors and primary colors as they played. It was so cute!

Baking with Elise. Elise loves to cook and bake. Having more time to make things with her has been so much fun! I made homemade cinnamon rolls for the first time with her. We've also made rolls, cookies, and banana pancakes. So delicious and fun! Side note: Carter is now tall enough to help cook at the counter without a chair to stand on.

Making cinnamon rolls.

Riding bikes or walking to have a picnic lunch. Our favorite picnic spot right now is a large field next to the nursing home by our house. We get to see lots of butterflies and bugs and there are trees that are perfect for climbing.

Wearing leggings and a t-shirt every day. It's so comfortable!

Sleeping in until I wake up on my own! I haven't been setting an alarm and usually wake up on my own before the kids wake up. I use that time to lay in bed and read until the kids get up some days and other days get up and get ready to run while they are still sleeping. Sleeping until I wake up naturally is something I haven't experienced in so long and it is amazing. I definitely feel much better when I don't wake up to an alarm!

Outdoor yoga. Being able to enjoy the sunshine and warm weather outside while I do yoga is the best. It is so calming and relaxing. Most the time while I'm doing yoga the kids play in the backyard nicely without bothering me which is a huge improvement over the past few years.

Tesla heard a noise that concerned her so she joined me on my mat. Picture taken by Carter.

Math games. I spent so much time creating math games to use in our math tubs/math centers when I was teaching 1st grade. They have been a treasure trove during this time of "homeschooling"! Carter loves doing them and Elise always comes over while I'm playing them with him and wants to join in. She's picking up a lot of it which is very impressive to me! Along those lines, I'm also loving teaching 1st grade again. It really is the best.

Some things I want to remember:

One weekend morning I was heading out for an 8 mile run and Elise really wanted to run with me. I told her I'd take her for a little bit at the start of my run and then drop her back off at home. I figured she'd run up the hill and back or so but she ran a whole mile and finished it in 10:29! Carter came with us but took a few breaks while we ran up and back to him. She didn't want to go home yet at a mile but I wanted to go ahead and get going on my run so I told her I'd pick her up again at the end of my run and she and Carter ran about a quarter of a mile then.

Carter gets a little bored on his Zoom Meetings with his class sometimes and starts pushing buttons. One day I was working with Elise and heard his teacher saying, "Carter, Carter, no, Carter, mi amor," along with other words in Spanish I wasn't familiar with so don't remember them. I went over to check and he had accidentally shared his screen with the class so all everyone could see was his computer screen. After that I gave him a stress ball or Play Doh to squeeze during the parts where he was just sitting to keep his hands busy and off the keyboard!

We had our book club through Zoom this month. For fun one of our members made cosmo kits for us with all the ingredients to make a cosmo. She put them out on her porch when we texted we were on our way and we just picked them up off her porch. It was so nice! I got out an orange peeler and was peeling my lime to squeeze the juice into my drink and kept thinking I didn't remember peeling limes being so hard. Then I realized normally you just cut them in half and squeeze them. So I spent all this time peeling it and actually made it harder for myself. My friend who made the kits was so fancy. She put labels on them with a recipe card inside and put it all in a gift bag with tissue paper. It was so sweet and thoughtful and definitely lifted our spirirts!