A New Normal

Well, it's safe to say our week has been anything but normal!  Like most of you, we were given the news on Sunday that Minnesota schools would be closing this week, most no later than Wednesday, because of Covid-19.  Our school district decided to close effective Monday.  When I heard that news I knew we'd have to come up with a plan fast.  I had also found out that Charlie's therapies were being canceled indefinitely too.  A recipe for disaster, I tell ya.

Charlie thrives on routine and completely melts down if there is too much unstructured time.  So, Sunday I developed a schedule for my boys to keep them on track each day.  Charlie has been carrying the schedule around most days and checks in with it almost hourly.  He NEEDS to know what is coming.  He needs to know what is ahead and what he can expect.  There have been times we've had to tweak the schedule a bit because I am also working from home along with keeping them busy.

We wanted to keep the time educational- an unofficial homeschool.  We don't do school work ALL day and most of the time it doesn't feel like school at all.  But they are learning all the while.  Monday they did great, Tuesday was a little rough, Wednesday was just ok and today was actually pretty great.  I don't expect us to have amazing days every day, but just proud that we've done pretty darn good for our first week cooped up together.  We haven't left the house in 6 days except to take walks and play outside.

Here's a little taste of what we've done this week:

We've had lazy mornings with no demands of having anywhere to be.  Charlie loves this especially because he is not a morning person.  Instead, he can have as many Sunny snuggles as he needs in order to wake up for the day.

We've done science lessons online and visit the Cincinnati Zoo (virtually) where we learn about a new animal every day.  We do a lot of reading- individually and mom reads out loud to everyone. Sometimes their reading is as simple as positive affirmations about themselves that I've written out for them.  We incorporate living skills (cooking, baking, laundry, dishes, making beds, etc) that they need to learn anyway so might as well work on them now!

We have a lot of outdoor time every day to get our wiggles out and get fresh air.  Today was rainy and cold all day so we opted for rock climbing in the living room instead and yoga to stretch our muscles.  

We have online art classes every day where we learn to draw something new or learn a new art technique we haven't tried yet.  The boys especially love art time.  

We do science experiments and explore different topics the boys said they wanted to learn more about (volcanoes, frogs, how things work, etc).  We sit together and have great conversations along with lots and lots of snuggle time.

The boys have a small amount of screen time during the day and when they do they often do games together.  

Today's fun was learning about jellyfish and then making their own bioluminescent jelly fish!  The boys loved telling dad all the cool things they learned today from their jellyfish lesson and their visit to Cincinnati Zoo where they got some cool facts on Sloths.  

Along with the change of no school and no therapies is the change of mom working strictly from home and still expected to get a heavy workload done with three crazy boys as new co-workers.  Tyler's work schedule has also changed and so we are all trying to adjust to that as well.  

Sure, we've had intense moments.  There has been arguing, fighting, meltdowns and crying, but I'd be surprised if there wasn't any of that.  We are all dealing with a lot of change in a short amount of time for an indefinite period of time.  Who knows, maybe we'll come out of all of this a little stronger.