After a few days I started numbering our days of social distancing/quarantine and started from this day, as it was the first day it really impacted us:
So late last night Carly got a text message from the school saying that someone with coronavirus had been on campus and that school was cancelled for Tuesday. A little later she found out that it was someone who had just been on campus briefly, so they were planning to reopen Wednesday, but were just taking Tuesday off to be safe. It was the best possible situation for us, as suddenly Carly had August’s birthday off.
He woke up around 7:45. I greeted him upstairs and sang a funny happy birthday song to him. We went downstairs and he asked Carly why she was off today. He didn’t buy her answer that it was because of his birthday, and knew it wasn’t a weekend. I read some Ben Braver to him, then he played piano. He made up a song and said, “I figured out the chord that goes with it…I figured out the root.”
We played Minecraft, starting in yet another world, for some reason. He watched a couple of Jospeh’s Machines videos (room clean up and taking out the compost) while I made oatmeal and we ate. We started listening to a What If World, but he decided he wanted to play piano for alone time. He played a little on his own, then did Piano Maestro, mainly working on Hag Havila (sp?). It’s really working on his timing and sight reading. He practices the little bits over and over though, wanting to get them perfect. Timing of 98% wasn’t enough for him; he wanted a 100%. “98% is probably enou—“ “No.”
He did alone time on the piano, then we played Minecraft. I think he had an educational video, but at the end didn’t want to give it up. Frustrated, he flopped on the couch, and accidentally knocked my iPad off the end. I caught it partially, but the corner it and it cracked the screen, mostly at the corner, but two cracks go all the way across. Really annoying, as I later found out it is a 600 dollar repair, but most movie watching and use you can’t see the cracks at all, unless you are at an angle, and you only see the cracks down in the corner all the time. So hard to decide if it is worth it to fix.
As I was up brushing my teeth, Carly then got an email saying that the exposure involved a cafeteria worker, and that an email would be coming in the next couple of hours regarding quarantines. Since we had all been in the cafeteria last week we didn’t know what to expect. We cancelled going out for lunch, and Carly made a shopping list and went shopping, in case we soon found out we were all in quarantine.
She went to the store and August spent time searching Google for Minecraft images, then I made the good tuna sandwiches for lunch and he had pickles. Carly got home and he played piano, creating a cool song with chords. I gave him the last half of a cupcake from his birthday cupcakes, and Carly explained the virus to him and what’s going on with the school.
I was trying to get him to go somewhere. But first there was a game with Brother meeting Millie for the first time and Baby Sister going in time machines machine. That led to a discussion of war and the Civil War and pondering how things would have been different if the South had won. While he was getting dressed he said, “My underwear needs a friend.” Meaning he needed his pants.
Carly walked into town for a couple things and we took our time in getting going. He talked about wanting to know how to move his fingers on the piano. We left at 1:30 as Carly was getting home. She was talking to Vivian and Cassie on her phone as she walked up and August went back inside for a minute to show them his piano playing.
We then got going. He talked about how cool emergence is as we got in the car. We them listened to the season 2 finale of Story Pirates. We drove up to the Ms. Shani park. He climbed in the climbing structure there and talked about it being a Minecraft base. He told me to be a zombie, and I was bonking against it. I wasn’t actually doing much, but he said, “That’s actually really scary.”
As we played around he asked about CB radio talk, which had come up in something we had read. He decided his radio name would be LMNO and then was pretending to talk on a radio: “Hey Honeybear, it’s LMNO…” “I’m just calling PeanutButterToast”. I read him How To as he was in the swings and after he’d moved over to a spinning thing. Heat shield and debris field were words of the day. We did lots of Brother games. Then one had August explaining the future (computers, etc.) to a Roman.
Carly called to ask when we had been at school last week. It turns out the exposure was actually a cafeteria worker, back from Spain, who had been there for five hours on Tuesday. Anyone who had been in the cafeteria for 15 minutes or longer was supposed to home quarantine until Tuesday, the 17th (the 14 day mark). I checked, and luckily it was Wednesday that August and I had spent an hour there after school. And Carly hadn’t eaten in the cafeteria at all that day.
We were home at 3:45. He spent time showing Carly photos of Minecraft builds that he searched fore, then did alone time while playing Piano Maestro. He then played Minecraft with Carly outside. Carly had wrapped presents while we were gone, and August finally noticed them sitting on the floor when Carly was talking to Cherie. So he opened presents. It was a gift from us (microscope slides and slicer thing) and the presents from Cherie and Chuck: Marble Drop puzzle game, math clock, Juna’s Jar, My First Book of Astrophysics, and the cool water bottle with the spray top. Cherie mentioned having to get all the cousins the same water bottle as they would be jealous, and August agreed about that.
We played the first few levels of the puzzle game. Carly had made mac and cheese and we had it and broccoli for dinner. They then read the Comic Science book. August wanted a video, and we agreed on StoryBots and he watched the video about how music is made. Carly made a strawberry smoothie. He then showed Carly photos and a vide of Minecraft builds, trying to make her jealous. He then spent a long time just playing around with the marble puzzle and showing off what he was able to build.
We did some Brother and Sister games, then he had a cupcake and milk before going up for a bath. I found a story on a different podcast called “The Magic birthday candles” and listened to it, as it was about a girl on her sixth birthday. Canopy, nook, and culvert were words of the day. I apologized that his birthday wasn’t too exciting, but he was fine. He repeated his line, which he’d been using all day, that his birthday had already happened on Sunday. So that made me feel better. We listened to a Bedtime Explorers and he was asleep some time around 10:30.
Song of the day with chords:
Chords and melody:
Spinning the swing:
Song in the swing:
First birthday present:
Presents 2:
Rest of the presents:
Gravity Maze:
