2020 :: week 19

May 3

We have been spending a lot of time outside lately. Sunday afternoon Lauren and I sat on the driveway and read for a bit. I recently realized that I am not much more evolved than my baby. When Miles is grumpy I often take him outside for a few minutes to distract him from whatever is bothering him. We check the mail, walk around the yard, stop to smell whatever flowers are blooming and look for wildlife (squirrels, rabbits, birds, etc.). When I am grumpy heading outdoors helps me feel better too.

May 4

Monday afternoon the kids and I made a large batch of cookies. We made belated May day baskets and then delivered them to the women I am assigned to minister to in our ward as well as a new family who recently moved into our ward. To keep things safe we texted each family as we arrived and I left the basket of goodies on their porches. They came out and talked to us while we stayed in our car. Everyone seemed very happy to chat. The new family moved in right as the COVID-related stay-at-home order went into place and has yet to make new friends, so we decided to spread some cheer and welcome them to the ward. They live in an apartment so Anthony, Lauren and Elliott walked to cookies up to their doorway while the rest of us stayed in the car. It was a fun way to spend a rainy evening.

May 5

When we get up and leave for our morning walk by 9am the day goes really well. Tuesday was the only day that happened this week, oops. It was cold and rainy off and on all week, and my productivity directly correlated with the amount of sunshine. Tuesday was a very productive day. It is so strange to walk along Quivira these days. Quivira is a busy road and I usually avoid walking on it with all the kids because cars drive by at 45+mph. It is perfectly safe on the sidewalk, but the fast cars whizzing by make me a little nervous and it is harder for the kids to hear me if I call to them. Lately we are only seeing a few cars and are enjoying the smooth sidewalks.

May 6

This week the kids got really into climbing trees and Will and Lauren let me know that the trees in our yard are "terrible for climbing." The Japanese Maple in our front yard is only sufficient for the under 40 pounders, like Elliott. Several times during the week they walked over to the park together to climb the much better trees there. One day they came running back to the house to let me know that a cat got up in the tree that Will was climbing in and attacked him! He had scratches on his arm and leg, but seemed more proud about "surviving" the attack than he was upset about the incident.

May 7

Lauren has started making parts of breakfast for all the kids. She scrambles four eggs that she, Miles and Will share, and while they are cooking she prepares cinnamon toast for Elliott. I supervise and help her finish cooking the eggs on the stove, mainly because she is busy setting the table or working on the toast and is still learning how to tell when they are done. It is fun to see her take initiative and then following through.

May 8

It had been awhile since we had an "official" family movie night, so on Friday we started the tradition up again by watching Heavyweights on Disney+. It had just enough potty humor to make all three of our older kids laugh.

May 9

Saturday afternoon I worked on making our deck more Miles friendly. First, I cleaned up the remaining leaves, sticks, acorns and catkins that have fallen from our tree lately. Then I got out our deck scrubber, hosed off the deck and attempted to clean the dirt that was underneath the aforementioned tree debris. I found our old sand table and cleaned off the dust and put it out back with a few cars from our toy box. When I finally took Miles out back he was so excited! We found out this week that our neighborhood pool won't be open this summer (I am definitely crying very hard on the inside about this), so I am anticipating spending more time than usual in our backyard.