COVID Academy

It was about a week into the shutdown that Norm founded COVID Academy. He took the lead when it came to activities in the mornings and keeping the kids engaged. I was just the after school teacher that let them do whatever. 

Norm actually facilitated circle time, centers, small groups with some sort of themed worksheets, show and tell, and the most favorite of all - outdoor play! 

Some of those days were long. Some hours were never ending. And just like that, right at around the 2 month mark, COVID Academy has come to an end and back to their regular school the boys go. 

We are going to miss them.... Norm actually teared up the other day (don't tell him I told you), as we were discussing the kids returning to their regular school. 

So here is a snapshot of the things that took place during this once-in-a-lifetime (hopefully) season.

Health & Hygene

Boy have we been washing our hands... a lot... all day long.

We haven't had the need for the kids to go out in public wearing masks, but we are ready for when the moment comes!

Considering we were going to be stuck at home for a couple of weeks (so we were told back in mid-March), we tackled potty training for Nico. After little progress we had to resort to bribery with chocolate cheerios - two for peeing in the potty and four for pooping in the potty. 

Art

We did some type of art every single day. We also took advantage of various music classes that people did live. It was super fun (also read as a big mess) to get all the music instruments out to play along. 

This day we did water paint... as in plain water and brushes on the hot driveway

Nico got ahold of the scissors one day and took off cutting the paper! He did so great!

Dramatic Play

Fashion

They love wearing their matching shirts. One day they went to the kitchen with Norm to pick up things so we said they were on field trip wearing matching uniform!

The day their flip flos arrived was quite glorious. 

Horticulture

We planted parsley, basil and tomatoes (that we grew from seeds!)

Benjamin learning how to use the blower

We went on a field trip to visit a farm and harvest strawberries

Culinary

The boys sure acquired a good bit of culinary skills. Even if it involved licking butter from the knife. We made milkshakes!

They made me chocolate chip cookies from scratch for Mother's Day. They insisted in decorating them... so, why not?

Outside Play

Boy did we do a whole lot of outside play. The main activity was riding bikes. Benjamin got pedals on his balance bike for his birthday (about halway point of COVID Academy's existance). He picked it up right away!

We went on family walks around our neighborhood

Washed the cars...

One afternoon they had soccer class with Norm... notice them so proper sitting on their soccer balls paying attention..

Randomly it got hot, so we inflated the inflatable pool and had water day!

Business

This picture was taken the weekend before the shutdown... we had to stop by Sam's to pickup salmon for a Mighty Meal - they insisted on helping

They would ride along with us to do deliveries as a way to get them out of the house (and give the other parent some time to get some work done)

Benjamin lives for pushing the kitchen cart... notice the cart is stacked literally twice as high as he is tall. I am pretty sure this is not OSHA compliant... neither are the flip flops.

One day when he is 15 we will show him this video as proof that he liked sweeping the Mighty Meals kitchen...

S.T.E.M

Benjamin took the initiative to reuse items from the recycling bin to create this robot. We named him Robbie.

They looked for dinosaur fossils in this little kit. They finally found all the bones and put together the dinoaur that quickly ended up with no tail.

Reading the instructions to put together the inflatable pool... goggles and all.

Deductive Reasoning

One afternoon I taught Benjamin how to play tic-tac-toe. He got the hang rather quickly and on this one he actually beat me (see the score) on his own... I am not that mom that always lets them win.. they have to figure it out and earn it!

These are just a peek into the ins and outs of COVID Academy... our days also involved coffee, snacks, naps, quiet time, all kinds of field trips thanks to these people in South Florida, learning how things work, silly dances and songs, a fair share of 3-year old meltdowns and lots of brotherly love (both ends of the spectrum), coffee.

It's been intense. It's been a lot. This strange season is not over yet, we are just adapting to a new way of life. School next week is going to be different than the school they left back in March. 

Altough we juggled all the things and some of them were ocassionally dropped, like patience, COVID Academy has been fulfilling and we have all learned from it.

It is going to be so quiet here next week. Maybe I'll finally get to cleaning the toilets...

Wild Things

This afternoon I was getting the boys ready to go in the pool in the backyard (we got an inflatable pool). Benji took off all his clothes and put his bathing suit in the bathroom after he used the bathroom.

Then it was Nico’s turn. He refused to use the bathroom and before I knew it, he was running around the backyard naked. 

So we went in the house and put his bathing suit on. As I gathered his clothes, I could not find his underwear. 

I looked everywhere.. in the bathroom, at the bottom of the stairs, on the couch, on the back patio... no success. I finally gave up.

A little while later, I walked by and saw this:

Nico’s underwear was on one of the plant’s leaves... I have no idea how does happened. I can’t even wrap my head around it.

Brother

Same path. Same brothers. Different season.

The Things They Say #83

When Nico gets mad at Benji, he calls him “BenjiMAN” with a serious face and all his might. It takes everything in us to not bust out laughing... 

April Birthdays

Under normal circumstances (non-COVID-19 life), I'd say something like "April sure came and went", however, April came and stayed for a million days. April lasted forever. To the point that it seems like Benjamin should already be 5.5 years old by now. 

I came to the realization that celebrating a child's birthday during quarentine takes parenting to a new level, we should get a badge "Celebrate a Quarentine birthday for child younger than 7 years old". We kept the hype up leading up to each day and talked up birthday every day. For Benjamin we even counted down each day until we got to April 10. We got decorations and decorated the house the night before and baked a cake of sorts for each of them. Due to various factors, one being financial and the other one being Amazon being on a ridiculous delay to ship items, the theme for both was PJ Masks... Benji's day was blue for Catboy and Nico's day was green for Gekko! 

The whole experience for each day was emotionally taxing. Knowing that these kids look forward to their birthday party all year long (yes, they are already talking about turning 6 and 4) and us, as parents, are still tasked with making them feel special and be excited about their day - even if they can't celebrate the way they have been talking about for the past 363 days.

We had a virtual happy birthday singing with family on the video on the phone!

Then he got serenaded from the sidewalk by Natasha, Izzy and Lulu!

Nico's birthday came 19 days later and it was a challenge to make a point to decorate the house differently enough AND find a different PJ Mask mylar balloon (note: Kroger only has 1 option for PJ Mask balloon).

 

For his birthday, we were joined by the live version of the family - Michelle dropped by later with a huge #3 balloon!

I just love the way
Benji is looking at Nico 
in this picture! 

And there we have it folks, may we never have to celebrate little kids birthdays during a pandemic quarentine. But at least we can now say we've done it and survived it. Been there. Got the t-shirt.