Our Week - The One with Quarantine, Week 8 (ENT, Field Day, and Mother’s Day)

Today would have been Olivia's kindergarten graduation ceremony, but instead of spending the day sad that the 'Rona took it away from us, we're going to be happy and focus on celebrating our sweet girl!!  She completely rocked kindergarten and we are just so incredibly proud of her!

Anyway, I'm coming at you late yet again for a weekly recap post, but OH WELL!  Quarantine has most definitely messed up my entire content calendar so I’m just rolling with it.  What can ya do, right?  I’m still behind on my weekly recaps, so today I’m finally recapping the week leading up to Mother’s Day!  We actually had several appointments and places to go that week, so it felt somewhat normal at times…

Monday, May 4 (Day 52 of Quarantine)

Monday morning I left the house bright and early to head to the dentist.  You may remember that I chipped a front bottom tooth a couple of weeks ago, so it was finally time to get it fixed.  Dentist offices have been closed in Georgia aside from emergencies, and since my chipped tooth wasn’t considered an emergency, I had to wait until they reopened for regularly scheduled practices. 

Monday was that day, and my dentist had snagged the very first appointment for me.  I was pretty nervous about going to the dentist of all places since I couldn’t wear a mask, and two people would literally be right in my face, so it was comforting to know that I would be their first patient after their reopening. 

I wore my mask inside, had my temp taken immediately upon entry, was directed straight to the bathroom to wash my hands, and then I only had to sit in the waiting room for about 2-3 minutes before they called me back.  All chairs in the waiting room were spaced at least six feet apart, and there were only two other people in there besides me.  Whew.

The dentist and his assistant were able to repair my tooth very easily, without having to numb anything, and it didn’t hurt at all, so it was a huge success.  You can’t even tell it was ever chipped!!

By the time I arrived back at home, B had gotten the kids started on schoolwork for the day and I spent the rest of the morning facilitating that as well as working on teacher appreciation week gifts for the kids’ amazing teachers.  They have truly been incredible during this weird distance learning that none of us knew how to do, so they deserve the world more than ever now!

I met with my therapist after lunch via video conference and the kids finished the 1,000 piece NYC puzzle that we’ve been working on for the last couple of weeks.  The afternoon was spent movie-ing and working as usual, and then after our homecooked dinner, we all went for a walk around the neighborhood.  Jacob did “Flat Stanley” earlier this school year, and since his teacher couldn’t be with the kids for the rest of the year, she sent a flat version of herself to all of the kids in the class so they could take her on their adventures for the rest of the year.  We’ve all been taking her around with us and she’s been posting pictures of all of her adventures with all of the kids on the class website.  The kids wanted to take her to the dirt pile since it’s their favorite place as of late, and they posed for this picture with her before playing their little hearts out. 

When we got back home, Jacob helped me sort through the giant pack of stickers that had arrived for his third grade class, and we decided which stickers to send to each kid in his class.  Since school was canceled, we weren’t able to celebrate March – July class birthdays, so we’re having a Zoom shindig on the last day of school this coming week.  Each of the kids are getting some happy mail to open for the party and the stickers are part of the happy mail.  :o)  #RoomMomThings

Tuesday, May 5 (Day 53 of Quarantine)

Tuesday morning, we got the kids started on schoolwork, and then Olivia and I left mid-morning to take her for her thyroid check-up at the ENT… finally!!!!  Before the pandemic, the doctor had moved her from quarterly to semi-annually, and then right when she was due for her semi-annual appointment, everything shut down for the ‘rona.  They opened back up the first week of May, and Olivia was one of their first appointments. 

Her doctor (who we absolutely ADORE and would follow anywhere) also moved his practice to another facility during the last few months, so we had to go to a totally new office and weren’t sure what to expect.  We were both required to wear masks, and we don’t have masks for the kids since we don’t let them go anywhere, so we had to rig B’s giant mask to stay on Olivia’s tiny face.  They took our temps before entering the office and then once we were in, we shared a chair since they only had single chairs around the room and all others had been taped off. 

When I went to sign the paperwork (because – new office), they asked me to use my own pen, and for the first time probably in my life, I didn’t have one with me.  They let me use one of theirs and then they told me to keep it because they didn’t want to risk germs.  This time we’re living in is just nuts, y’all.  Nuts.

We ended up having to wait a long time to see the doc (in our own room, though, fortunately,) so Olivia was able to take off her mask.  I was so proud of how well she did with the mask, though.  I thought she’d complain nonstop, but she wore it like a boss for a good hour before she asked if she could take it off. 

Her checkup went well.  The nodule on her thyroid has increased in size slightly, but the doctor said the growth is proportionate to her growth since it had been more than eight months since we’d seen him.  Since it’s still pretty stable, we are staying on the semi-annual checkup schedule, so we don’t have to go back to see him until November.  He also told us that we’ll probably aim to have her surgery for removal around the age of 11 or 12, so we still have a few more years of checkup/ultrasounds to go before they can remove it once and for all.  They’ll have to remove a good chunk of her actual thyroid in order to remove the entire nodule, so the doctor wants to wait until she reaches puberty first since the thyroid regulates so much of that.

By the time we left the doctor’s office, it was lunchtime, so we swung through the Chick-Fil-A drive-through to pick up some chicken-y goodness for lunch.  After lunch, the kiddos finished up with school, and then we worked on the third grade birthday happy mail a little longer before the kids had their screen time.

Tuesday was Cinco de Mayo, and since we couldn’t partake at one of our favorite restaurants, we had a little celebration at home.  I made one of our favorite Mexican dishes, and B and I busted out the premixed margs again.  I turned on some mariachi music on Pandora and we had a festive little time right at home. 

Restaurants were allowed to reopen for dine-in here in Georgia last week (as long as they abide by the social distancing rules), but a lot of our local favorites have chosen to continue with take-out only for the time being until the safety of the patrons can be guaranteed.  I fully respect and love that, too, because in my opinion, it’s just too soon to be sitting in a closed up restaurant with other people.  Have you seen the articles about how fast the virus spreads and how long it stays in the air in confined spaces?  It’s so gross.  So until things change a little more, we’ll be sticking with take-out.  And we’re huge foodies and we loooove and adore going out to eat (during normal times we eat out at least 2-3 times per week) so this is killing us.  But it’s better to be safe than sorry.

After dinner, the kids called B and me upstairs because they had planned a whole Lego Movie 2 party for us.  Haha.  We had to do a little relay race, we had a Lego building competition, and then we had a dance party to the Lego Movie 2 soundtrack.  I just love their festive hearts!

I did a YouTube yoga video after that was over, and then we got the kids in the bed and B and I ended the evening with TV and frozen yogurt on the couch like we do pretty much every night.  I never get tired of that.

Wednesday, May 6 (Day 54 of Quarantine)

Wednesday was learning at home followed by lunch, and more yoga for me.  I used to absolutely hate yoga but I’ve really taken to it in quarantine.  I feel like I’m finally understanding what it’s all about!

After my workout, Jacob’s teaching assistant called to check in with us and see how we’re doing, and then the rest of the day was spent hanging out and working.  Wednesday was pretty uneventful. 

We had breakfast for dinner as we do at least once a week, and then I filmed a quick rollerball how-to video for my oils Instagram account.  Wednesday evenings, our friars have been doing the live bedtime stories followed by “friarside” chats to let us know everything going on with our church and school family, so we spent the evening watching that.  Those guys are so dang funny and it’s become one of my favorite hours of the whole week!

Thursday, May 7 (Day 55 of Quarantine)

Thursday was school and lunch, and then Olivia did her Spanish lesson outside on the back porch because the weather was just awesome.  Thursday was pretty routine (read: mundane and not very blog-worthy) but I’m still going to keep on posting since that’s our reality right now!  One of these days we’ll go back to exploring our city, eating at local restaurants, going to concerts, traveling, and being interesting, but that time isn’t now.  Haha. 

I pulled some leftovers out of the freezer for a quick and easy dinner, and then we went for a family walk around the neighborhood to the dirt pile.  As we walked, B and I discussed how it’s probably a little weird that we’ve been married for 12 years and we still have our wedding photo hanging over the mantle as the focal point in our living room.  Is that weird, y’all?  I’ve been playing with the idea of hanging something new over the mantle to change it up, and we were trying to figure out what to do with the wedding photo. 

My suggestion is to hang it over our bed since we currently have nothing there, so when we got home, we tested it out.  The frame is black to match the décor downstairs, but our bedroom furniture is dark brown, so if we do decide to go this route, we’re going to have to do something about the frame.  I’m convinced that I can hand paint it (distressed silver) to make it look good, but I don’t want to mess it up.  What do y’all think about that going over our bed if the frame is different?  I’m a little worried that it’s too tall and not quite wide enough for the space, but I just don’t know… maybe it needs to hang slightly lower?  We hung it on the nails that were still there from the previous artwork, so we didn’t actually measure and hang those nails specifically for this.  Let me know your thoughts if you have any.

Friday, May 8 (Day 56 of Quarantine)

Friday was national field day, and our school decided to participate, so the kids had no schoolwork.  We slept in a little, had breakfast, and then got started on our day.  Our school had sent us a list of games you can easily do with things you have on hand at home as well as a score card, so we spent the whole morning playing Paper Plane Cornhole, Sock-er Skee-Ball, Backboard Bank It, Bowl Ball, and If the Shoe Fits.  The kids loved it and we had a lot of fun!

Just after lunch, we received the email from our little league that the rest of this spring season is officially canceled.  They have been holding out hope that we could somehow salvage the season, even asking if everyone last week if we would be willing and available to play in June (it normally ends in May).  I was not feeling particularly comfortable with that since we’re not seeing anyone outside our family of four, but everyone else seemed to be on board, so I was a little relieved that the league canceled it.  I didn’t want to let the team down if they did end up playing and I didn’t want to have to hold Jacob back from playing, so this made it easier for us.  It was yet another punch to the gut, though, knowing that Jacob was robbed of his last coach pitch season.  Sigh.

The rest of the day was chilly and a little bit rainy here and there, so we spent the afternoon indoors.  I did squeeze in a quick 2 mile run before the rain, and I managed to pull off my best time yet since I started running again a couple of months ago.  Unfortunately, my SI joints and knees have been SCREAMING ever since, and my childbirth pain that I worked so hard to get rid of is rearing its ugly head again, so I think I’m going to give it up.  Womp womp.

My new shower curtain came in from Target that day, so I got it ironed and hung in our guest bath downstairs.  We’ve had the same black and white damask shower curtain in there for the last ten years, but since damask went out of style 7 or 8 years ago, it was long overdue for it to go.  The new white one is STUNNING and I just cannot believe how well-made it is.  It’s from Target so it was only $19.99 (plus we get an extra 5% off with our Red Card) and it completely transformed the whole bathroom.  Look at the difference! 

BEFORE

AFTER

That room is now almost done… all I need now is to take down the towel bar (since nobody ever showers in there) and to hang some new artwork.  Woop woop!  Sloooowly checking things off of the master to do list!

The kids did some origami while I worked on the house projects and they are just loving it.  They’ve both made so many creations and now I have no freaking clue where to store all of them.  Because obviously, they don’t want to get rid of anything.  Haha.

Later in the afternoon the kids watched a couple of shows and I talked to one of my old coworkers on the phone for a good hour.  I hadn’t talked to him in a couple of months, so we had a lot to catch up on… even though we really haven’t even been doing that much around these parts!  Ha!

B headed to our favorite pub down the street from our church to pick up dinner, and then afterward, we watched Monster’s University with the kids.  After they went to bed, B and I watched the new Adam Sandler/Jennifer Aniston movie Murder Mystery on Netflix and it was pretty good.  Not great or anything, but it held my attention.

Saturday, May 9 (Day 57 of Quarantine)

Saturday morning, we slept in and then I made homemade strawberry waffles with the strawberries we’d picked the weekend before that.  I liked them, but B and the kids weren’t that impressed.  They all said they just prefer the usual chocolate chip waffles that I always make instead. 

I also snapped a quick picture of Olivia's wish list that she'd written the night before... y'all, I DIE!  Is this not precious?!

After breakfast, I did another yoga video, and then I spent some time at the kitchen table drawing with Olivia.  She loves for us to create masterpieces together in her sketch pad now, so I’m not going to say no to that!

We did a huge house-tidying after that, and then we had lunch.  It was another beautiful day, so the kids and I spent the next couple of hours outside while B mowed the front yard, and then I went in to shower and work in my office for a bit while B and the kids played video games.  I think we’re all adapting to this quarantine life pretty well, y’all.

My entire extended fam on my mom’s side has been doing weekly 5 PM Saturday Zoom sessions, so I joined again and spent 40 minutes catching up with them.  B went out to grab Five Guys for dinner, and then after the kiddos went to bed, we watched the movie Sleeping with Other People on Netflix.  It was a cute movie, but not super fantastic or anything. 

Sunday, May 10 (Day 58 of Quarantine)

Sunday was Mother’s Day, so B ventured out for donuts first thing.  Apparently every other person in town decided to do the same thing and the trip that should have taken 20 minutes almost took an hour!  I did a yoga workout while the kids played, and by the time B got home we were all starving.  Unfortunately, because they were so busy, Krispy Kreme had run out of blueberry donuts (our favorite!) as well as the special lemon glaze donuts that they were doing for a limited time.  I’m not known to turn down a donut, though, so I was perfectly content with my two glazed.  :o)

After breakfast I opened my cards and gifts from my favorites, and then we all watched church together.  B and the kids baked homemade chocolate chip cookies for me to have later for dessert, and then we all got ready and had a quick lunch at home before heading out. 

We stopped at my mother-in-law’s house first (around the same time we’d normally be having Sunday lunch with them!!) so it almost felt like a pre-quarantine Sunday.  We hung out in the back yard and got the tour of her summer garden and it was so freaking nice to be over there again.  We literally hadn’t been to her house in two whole months prior to that!  We’ve seen her as she’s come to our house a couple of times for quick stops, but we hadn’t been over there in forever.  That’s a long time considering we usually go every week!

My sister-in-law and brother-in-law also came over, along with my two nephews and that was the first time we’d seen them in OVER two months.  I’ve grown so accustomed to taking my oldest nephew to school every day, so it’s been really weird not seeing him at all. 

We didn’t get to enjoy my MIL’s delicious cooking, and we didn’t even set foot inside the house, but it felt so good to get that usual Sunday feeling!!

We made a quick stop home after that to grab my mom’s Mother’s Day flowers, and then we headed to my grandmother’s house to hang with my whole extended family.  Everyone was seated in a big circle in the back yard, each family in their own unit and staying six feet away from the other family units.  Fortunately, the weather was amazing (not too hot and not humid at all) and the shade from the huge trees in my grandmother’s back yard kept us perfectly comfortable.  We all got to visit and almost be normal for over an hour and it was just the best feeling!!  I don’t feel like I’ve ever really taken for granted being able to hang with my extended family, and I can guarantee you I never will after all this crap we’ve been through!!  I sure miss getting together with them every Saturday evening after church like we usually do. 

My one Mother’s Day wish was to visit the new mural in town, so B and the kids and I headed downtown after we left my grandmother’s house.  The sun was beating down on it at an odd angle, so we didn’t get the best pictures, but I was just happy to finally see it in person!  So pretty!

After that, we headed home and B made homemade pizza for dinner, complete with fresh basil from our garden.  We poured some wine and turned on some twinkle lights and good tunes, and we spent the rest of the evening on the back porch.

After the kids went to bed, B and I watched TV and he rubbed my feet (heaven!!) and I think this was one of my favorite Mother’s Days of all!

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