Joshua fell asleep on Ben's lap during church. They often sit together, but Joshua hasn't fallen asleep before.
Afterwards they trapped Ben. Those boys do love to trap us. Zoom church does have a few perks...we can stay in pajamas being one of them.
Isaac got his writing back yesterday. It was a lot better than the last one. I think it helped that we had parent-teacher conferences in between the two and so I felt a bit better about helping him a little bit more.
I did errands today. Errands have changed in these pandemic times, and it pretty much looks like driving around in the car and barely getting out. Ben was working from home today, so I didn't have to bring the kids. I had six places to stop and did it all in just over an hour. Google estimated 45 minutes of driving, and all the stops had my stuff out promptly!
The thoughts while driving included the blog as a time capsule. It would be a great primary resource! I know there are a lot of blogs and digital information out there though, so I don't know if it would actually be useful. It's updated very regularly, but it's only about an upper middle class white family...I'm not sure any future people would be interested unless they're family. I'll probably never know and that's ok. I mainly write so that I remember what's happened.
Usually I don't post about current events, unless it directly impacts us (i.e., the pandemic), and even then you might not see all the impacts. How we're still doing karate from home, how Ben is working from home every other week, how the kids barely get out of the house anymore, and how we've barely seen any friends lately.
The blog doesn't show I watched the election results roll in Wednesday morning every half hour and was so relieved when Michigan went for Biden. It doesn't show my disgust with how President Trump has been handling most things, but especially the post election. While I also fully believe that he thinks he won the election, I don't understand how he can brain-wash so many other people. The blog doesn't show how I watched with horror last night when I finally realized what was going on at the capital as it was invaded by a mob, and how I was saddened at the Facebook posts that said, "If these were people of color, they would be dead" and how true that was. The blog doesn't show how I hope they remove Trump from office because he can do some serious damage on his way out, even though there's just a few days left. The blog doesn't show that I'm disappointed that he won't be going to the inauguration, although I also am glad; he is the guest that no one really wants around.
Maybe once the boys get older I'll write about a larger array of topics because I won't be with them all the time and I'll need something to write about.
I got a new flour container for Christmas. Normally this would be nothing to comment about, but it is replacing some that I took that were Mom's. (Dad moved out the same time Ben and I needed stuff, so we got a lot of stuff from the pantry.) It's a bit sad since they've been around for a very long time and were reminders of her, but not really that sad. The plastic top cracked and I felt that it had been well used. I also have a few other containers from growing up, so there's that.
I also got a new hairbrush! I decided that mine had finally died. All of my hairbrushes lose their handles after a year or two, but the bristles are still good so I just use it without a handle for a while. This handle ended up in the play-doh box because it has a neat handle, so maybe four years ago? The bristle tops are now mostly gone, so it's time for a new one. (But really, I'm curious if anyone else has this persistent problem.) (I'm also documenting it so I know how long this brush handle lasts.)
I came to Monday with mixed feelings. It'd be really nice to keep the boys occupied a bit more with school and have more routine. But...it's been rather nice not having a routine too. Since I can't stop time though, school came without really giving me a choice.
As expected, it went fine. It was nice to be able to do some of my chores while they were doing school work instead of pretending to fit them in here and there.
Then the boys had dentist appointments in the afternoon. We went to a new, closer dentist. The closeness was nice and everything went fine. Isaac needs to go back to get some fillings fixed and they had time tomorrow. Tomorrow! I'm not sure I've ever had a dentist be able to do the work so quickly, so that was nice. The old dentist was months out.
I know I haven't posted lately, but it's mainly because I wanted to post about New Year's Eve and kept not doing it. Now I only remember what I have in pictures.
The kids had a fun time in a zoom party, and it involved a lot of minute-to-win-it games.
Keep a balloon in the air with one hand. Isaac's plan was a bunch of little small taps, Joshua's plan was few huge taps. Isaac did better, but it could be due to the age difference.
We got a little bit of snow before some rain this morning. I shoveled some of the driveway and mentioned to the boys that it was good snowman snow. Isaac was out immediately, because he was prepared for this!
We started our winter cookies this afternoon.
Isaac made a creation, took a picture, printed it out, and put it in his creation. Repeat a few times...
While I was making dinner tonight Isaac talked my ear off about "the most rare fruit" that he made out of Lego. Oh my goodness, he wouldn't stop talking about it. To my credit though, when we were talking about it right before dinner I was able to give a really, really good review of everything he had said and could show that I was listening. Phew.
Peace.
This Christmas, as the Prince of Peace appeared to the world, my heart was peaceful. I'm sure the things around me contributed: snow on the ground, not going anywhere, and a happy family. But there was a deeper peace too. The world is rather crazy right now, but God is not.
Anyway, the boys had to do two things today before we opened presents: play outside and play with Mario Kart before the floor got messy. Joshua wasn't really excited about either, but then finally started to enjoy sledding...until he tipped over to not hit a tree and face planted in the snow. Isaac proceeded to actually hit the tree a minute later, but there were no real issues. Isaac and I stayed out a little longer and cracked a bunch of ice. There were many air bubbles under the ice and I wasn't expecting that. We let a whole bunch go free.
Isaac made some more Christmas decorations. I was quite impressed.
It snowed! We're going to have a white Christmas! I feel like it's been quite a while since we've had a white Christmas. There have been a few white Thanksgivings, but no white Christmases. A bird finally found the bird feeder that Isaac built in cadets last year.
We also watched Into the Spiderverse with the boys. Ben and I remembered the movie as being more scary that we thought it was this viewing. The boys really liked it.
I found a 29 year old letter while I was looking through my stationary that had never been mailed. Since I finished it and kept it this long I finally mailed it. She just got it yesterday. Oh! The date was even perfect. I didn't do that on purpose.
Isaac wrote a spirograph program. Oh! It changed. It's still a spirograph program but he experimented with different colors and sizes. https://studio.code.org/projects/artist/ejF24xBP8BZqXdDp9a6Q-cXwC7nn76OwQ0WDpyuUeUk
I had several bad dreams today. (The second involved Ben putting broken Rock Band guitars in the toilet and then wondering why I was mad. Then Liz told me their new mask wearing plan, which didn't really work at all. Something like if they were exposed to the virus they waited two days before wearing a mask because they weren't contagious yet, wore a mask for one day, and decided they weren't contagious on day four.) (I have a lot of dreams about mask wearing.) Anyway, Joshua made me this rocket with rockets to keep the bad dreams away. The whole thing spins.
The boys did an awesome job today, but I still found myself done at 4pm. I think it might have been the assumption that I wanted to play one too many make-believe games. I said "later" several times, but it annoys me. (I annoy myself and I'm annoyed by the games.) I finally played one with Joshua right before karate. It wasn't bad as Joshua tends to progress the games along much better than Isaac, but it was also nice to have a firm stopping point.
