Month One of COVID-19

The framework is a bit out the window since we're all at home all the time now. Zach asks, "Who's going to have me today?" He's always very excited when we "both have him," which means we are all together as a family, not splitting the day as on week days, where Frank has him in the morning and me in the afternoon. Very cute. 

The Fordams. All photos here.

• I created a schedule breaking the day into 1/2 hour increments. We don't really adhere to the original schedule, but Frank and I have a good split for the day. In general, I work in the morning, and Frank works in the afternoon. 
• I love eating all meals together. I love being together in such close proximity. I love that the virus has required us to pull together some resources and routines that will help with Zach in the future in general. 
• Frank and Zach are doing lessons via ABC Mouse. They play with his toys, Legos, trains, Hot Wheels. Sometimes, they have circle time. Zachary bear has participated as well as other animals. We are building items as part of a Lego challenge. 
  
• He and I do Alphablocks and letter tracing. I work on Spanish (with colleagues and family sometimes too!), dance, music/singing, art, and podcast stories. We've tried a lot of things and some have worked and some have not. See my blog post for work here.
  
• On Fridays, we do show and share with some of my work colleagues. Frank and Zach do soccer on Fridays too. 
  
• In week four, Mr. Ben started Zoom piano lessons
• Video chats are a huge hit. Zach has had video chats with Lizzy, Merrick, and Darshan. The family chats have been good: Francisco and family, Shaheepkys, and Lola, Eva, Agatha and FL. They read to Zach! We've only had one epic fail. 
• We got a lawn bowling set and badminton. The badminton has been more popular. 
• We took walks around the neighborhood looking for animals in the windows, and he got into tree climbing for a couple weeks!
• He decided he must have a "The Flash" costume, and he wanted us in on the super hero thing too, so I'm Wonder Woman, and Frank is Batman.
• He gets out on his scooter; he and Frank adventure somewhere new each week. Week 1, they watched the demolition of the Reston Fire Station. He has a "hideout" in the Lake Fairfax Park, and "hideout" starts with "H." In week 2, he started getting out on his bike, and he's a pro now, so in week 3, he and I started going out to bike and roller blade daily. Very fun. 
• We take family hikes on Sundays. 
• Easter was a blast with and indoor Easter egg hunt (he got a treat for every five eggs!) and books from the Easter bunny. Oh, and we got 12 GIANT bunny buns. We shared with Auntie Em, Sigga, and Mike & Mary.
  

Zach's Words & Songs

• Books: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and renewed enjoyment of I Met A Moose in Maine One Day. New books Piggie and Elephant by Mo Willems, Michael Sowa art book, Winne the Pooh, the Wednesday Witch, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, and the Dr. Seuss Mulberry Street book
• Singing the Rescue Rider song quietly to himself
• At the end of Meet the Robinson's, there is a Rob Thomas song. He knows who Rob Thomas is!
• We forgot to mention that in NY, John, who ran the ski school had a "Step away from the cookie jar" cookie jar just like the house in NH from skiing 2019
• “Let’s rock it out, people," Zach and Hance said this to each other when they saw each other briefly for the Uber Ladies Zoom HH
• Zach said, "This is the best day ever!" on the day we got pizza for first time from Killer Tomato. We all remarked on how good the pizza smelled on the way home. Yummy dinner!
• Zach says he wants to “transform” the nail clippers. 
• We are now all familiar with the concept of being "hangry."
  

Movie Weekends: Frozen, Meet the Robinson's, Winnie the Pooh, Sound of Music

Sleep Update: Sleep has been fine and sometimes really not okay. These changes have impacted him. I mean, he has been going to CT since he was 3 months old, so this is a big change!

• He seems overly concerned about where we are. 
• When it's time to sleep he comes to check on us and make sure we're nearby. This wasn't really a thing before. It's almost like he needs a monitor showing him where we are at night!
• He has regressed and when he wakes up at night, he comes to find me. :( But as I read back over everything, it seems like things were much worse in the first two weeks he was out of school...and things are improving/leveling out now.

Good Food

• Zach and I made strawberry muffins
• Rick and Susan gave us more ramps, and I made a mushroom cream sauce
• Ongoing: scones from Great Harvest
• Delicious cardamom banana muffin from Sigga and Auntie Em's banana cherry walnut bread and cranberry pound cake
• Ordering out: Weekly Tacos and More and spreading the love out with MOD Pizza, Killer Tomato Pizza and Old Ox, Paisano's (buffalo chicken pizza, white pizza with chicken, and mac & cheese), CAVA, Territory meals, Thai, Founding Farmers' tortilla chips, queso, and pimento cheese
• Loving Amy's spicy chili
• Washington Green Grocer weekly deliveries
• Auntie Em picks up items at the store for us when she goes, and we have gotten Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods delivered. 
• To date, we have not been in a grocery store since I went to Trader Joe's on March 13 and picked up a prescription for Emily from Harris Teeter the week of March 16.

Visits (via Zoom or the phone) with

• Kathleen
• Mary Kay, Kathleen, and Kate happy hour on Zoom
• Caught up with Adrienne
• Katie
• Emily R.
• The regular calls with friends were going well, but they've sort of dropped off.... 
• Actual walks with Auntie Em

Fun and Not So Fun Stuff (Personal and Professional)

• Walking, walking, walking - usually 60-90 minutes/day
• Zumba on Zoom. Thanks, Kate! 
  
• Concerts on the internet (Indigo Girls, Wade Bowen, Josh Ritter)
• AMP and All Hands are good, helpful and getting my head out of day-to-day nuttiness!
• Bye, bye Lindsey. Sniff.
• Overdid it with the Fitness Challenge - over 20,000 steps every day for a week for a total of 163,735 for one week!
• Auntie Em had her surgery, so now she's down three, one to go! She's amazing!
• Love, love, love Brene Brown's Unlocking Us podcast
• Parent podcast advice: Eliminate words: don't, stop. Put in positive. Please take smaller bites, use your napkin. I really love watching you do this…
• Marcus Buckingham's StandOut Assessment
• Option B resources
• Enjoyed Virgin River and am now watching Atypical and Unorthodox
• I love the idea of taking him in an RV on a road trip!
• Quotes: 
• Anne LaMott quote, "I have known hell, and I have also known love. Love was bigger."
• This quote from Tasha Eurich: Albert Camus once said that “in the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” Since this deep winter began, I’ve searched for my invincible summer. This is where I think our true invincible summer exists. To discover that our worth is not determined by what we get done during the pandemic. To know that getting through it is enough. To know that we are doing enough. That we are enough.

Zach asked if we could take a picnic here.