Lucy's Tap Dance Book

 Lucy's first grade class has been working on writing non-fiction. They get to choose their non-fiction subjects. She's already written a few about flowers and written a page or two about holidays. Lately she's been working on a book about tap dancing. Since she has been doing all of this through online school this year, she's been taking the liberty of making videos on Seesaw to send to her teacher. In fact, she's made so many videos that I told her to stop sending so many to her teacher, to respect Ms. N's time. Sometimes she'll make little audio comments along with the video post that say, "This is Version Two. If you don't remember Version One, then go back and watch the previous video." Ha ha! Hopefully Ms. N is amused by this submissions and not annoyed.

Here is one such video:

And here is the text of her book:

I don't know if she'll keep up with her tap dancing lessons, but I'm glad that she enjoys them and wants to write about them. She will always be my little Shirley Temple.

Evening Run

For the first time possibly in our entire marriage, J and I went on a run (well, jog) in the neighborhood together yesterday. It made me happy and I liked getting to just chat with him. We saw all of these birds flying and swimming by the lake, and I snapped this picture to show to the kids, but now I like looking at it and just thinking about this happy moment that J and I had together.

The Chili Party Recipe

When I was a teenager, my grandparents moved to Utah and they would have our families over for a Christmas chili party each year. Grandma told me once that they chose to serve chili because it would be easy to feed a large group of people. Grandpa would make the chili and Grandma would make plates of Christmas cookies to send home with each family. The cookies that I remember the most are the Peanut Butter Blossoms (with Hershey kisses) and M&M cookies with green and red candies.

I remember Grandma expressing how she wanted to find a way to celebrate with the families in the area, but they were also mindful that Christmas traditions had already been established before she and Grandpa moved to Utah, so this was an event that they hoped wouldn't "step on anyone's toes." But it wasn't difficult to incorporate this into our Christmas traditions at all: now I remember it being a memorable part of the Christmas holiday. The white elephant gift exchange that we held at the party was always memorable, too. There was one year that a Burl Ives CD was a hot ticket item that kept bouncing between the cousins.

 I got a copy of my Grandpa's chili recipe from my aunt this week, and it is even written in Grandpa's own handwriting! Even if we don't have a Christmas chili party, I hope that this can become a fall tradition for my own family. We are having it over Halloween weekend this year, and it seems appropriate to eat it in October as a way to remember Grandpa's birthday month.

Zoom's Influence on Film Criticism

The kids are watching “Lord of the Rings” and in one scene the camera repeatedly cuts between close-up views of the characters’ faces as they conversed. Lucy said, “This is just like a Zoom where it goes from person to person!” I guess that's the kind of reaction you have when you are doing online school and use Zoom for a few hours a day!

Lucy's Tip Toe Breaks

One of the cutest things about Lucy's online school during this pandemic is that she comes down the stairs at 10:00 every day for her ten-minute break during Zoom. She's anxious to quickly get her snack and chat with her friends via Zoom before the break ends, so she quickly tip toes down the stairs and does this little tip-toe run to the pantry, gets her snack and whispers a decline to my suggestion for a drink of water ("No, I'm okay") and tip-toe runs back upstairs. I'm not sure why she tip toes, but I think it is supposed to encapsulate her urgency and maybe also her independence as she gets her snack?

J pointed out that she sometimes holds up her Z-Bar as she tip toes away, saying, "I'm gonna eat this..." So maybe she also tip toes so that she thinks she'll escape notice and get away with her sweet snack choice? I don't always let her have those chocolate and iced-oatmeal bars as a regular snack, but I have been pretty lax about it since school started. Nonetheless, she keeps tip toeing, and it is really charming.

Unplanned Blustery Day

Today didn't go as I thought it would, largely due to the strong winds that we experienced today. Not long after the kids started their Zoom sessions, the power went out. They had enough battery life on their devices to keep their computers on, but we had to turn my phone into a hot spot so that they could get back online. We set it up in the hall, so they could both get reception from their different bedrooms. I needed to work too, so I huddled on the floor in the hall to try and grade midterm exams. It was a silly and uncomfortable way to perform an already tedious task.

I didn't get too much work done in the early afternoon, either, since I was helping Lucy with her schoolwork. I planned to get more work done while Lucy was on her last Zoom call of the day (with the Hazelwood "specialists": the P.E instructors, music instructor, and librarian). But not long after her call started, Sam came running inside to tell me that a portion of our maple tree had blown down in the wind.

I've really loved this maple tree over the past few years; it grew really quickly in the years after we bought our house and has become a nice source of shade. It looks like part of the trunk has rotted, though, so I'm not sure if we will be able to keep it. We are lucky that the tree didn't fall down a few more inches to the south, or it would have hit our cars in the driveway.

I'm sad that we have a big gash in our trunk and a big hole in the body of the tree boughs

The kids were really excited about cleaning up this project - this fallen tree is one of the most exciting things to happen during a pandemic, when you're staying at home all the time and all the days seem the same! They both wanted to help so I had to teach them a few tips about tool safety.

As we cleaned up the branches, I gathered a few of the leaves from the branches that had started to change color. I'm sad that most of the fallen leaves didn't get a chance to brilliantly ignite with autumn color one last time. And I'm sad that that portion of the tree won't have as much color anymore. Hopefully we can keep the tree - I'm not sure since it looks like there is some rot. But if we do get to keep it, I hope the tree boughs will fill in again so we can enjoy a rich palette of color in the years to come.

And even though this day didn't go as planned, a lot of good things happened. I'm glad that it wasn't raining when the tree fell down, and I'm grateful that the cars weren't damaged. We also had a really fun end to the day, where the kids made up this contest to make the weirdest face and the weirdest dance. We all participated in the contest, including me and J. It was nice to send the kids to bed on such a high note, after we all had a few belly-laugh-until-you-cry episodes.

Pandemic Favorites

 Tonight at dinner we began to compile a list of all of our favorite things that have happened as a result of the pandemic. These are the things we said thus far, and I'll add more to this list as they arise. I hope they an help us to keep a positive outlook about this pandemic, even as it wears on and things also seem hard:

Me:

• Not having to commute; getting to spend more time in the morning sleeping and exercising
• Not having to make school lunches for kids
• Getting the kids to learn how to ride bikes and going on family bike rides
• Getting to go on daytime hikes during the summertime, since J was home with the kids and I could leave
• More time together as a family
• More time to work in the garden
• Dad is home right after work and can cook dinner instead of me

J:

• Getting to have more game time as a family
• Getting to take breaks in the work day and be with his family or play piano
• Not having to be stuck in traffic for his commute
• Likes getting to make dinners (so he doesn't have to eat mine - although he was too nice to say this part out loud)

S:

• Getting to stay home all the time and never leave (he said this a little sarcastically, but he also kind of means it)

L:

• Likes that we get to play games as a family