moments from the week
Holy Week at home
Moments and images from the past week.
spring breakfast
climber's aides
communion
his latest riding outfit
hitting the trails with all the boys
moments from the week
it's above freezing!
Moments from the past week.
Easter morning
balance beam
farm pond
the best light for riding
pausing to cool feet
gardening
dinner our at grandparents'!
Holy Week and Easter week
We've had some times over the last couple weeks. Way back on the Thursday before Easter Leah asked me how I was doing; drowning in late-night work editing Holy Week videos I had only one answer: "This is my body, broken for you." Of course that was a little over-dramatic, but that was how I felt. We did some good work to make Holy Week a meaningful experience even in the pandemic, but it was hard work! Then on Friday before Easter something happened in our bubble school that caused an emotional blowup and ended the group for the foreseeable future. That was obviously tough: getting to see those wonderful people has been super important for us over the past few months (just look back at the pictures I've posted!). I still think they're wonderful and we'll still get to see them, but missing the regularity and consistency of school is hard.
this one looks findable
Even with that stress Easter itself was lovely. We had an egg hunt; Harvey found the golden egg, which only had one dollar in it because Leah doesn't deal with cash (and she didn't ask me). He really only wanted it for the glory, anyways, so he gave the dollar to Elijah who appreciates it more. We were able to have a few friends join us, which made the day feel more festive than last year, and also meant there was enough food to make everyone sick. Sick in a good, holiday way of course! Then over the past week we tried to figure out what a school-less schedule looks like, with mixed results. There were some good days, but they were not days that left me with time to write. We're still working on it this week. I'm meant to not be staying up late, but if I don't blog in over a week I start to get twitchy. So here we are.
can you miss people you see three times a week?
One thing that helped us survive a week without our bubble school friends was a chance to hang out with different friends for the first time in over a year. While we see lots of them over Zoom—the kids do things together online three or four times a week!—they have an immunocompromised family member so they've been quarantining hard since February 2020. But now the vaccine has opened their horizons a little bit and we were able to take an expedition with them on Thursday afternoon. We drove to their house and then biked all together to Great Brook Farm: a short ride for the sake of the youngest cyclist, new to her own two wheels, but one that gave us a new sort of challenge as we navigated the high speed auto traffic of Concord Road in Chelmsford. We survived! And then we were glad to take to the trails at Great Brook.
It wasn't all cycling though. We spent lots of time watching and chasing the bullfrog tadpoles in the pond and comparing notes with another aspiring zoologist, a boy who approached the kids looking to play—and who turned out to be a long-ago member of our church community group. That was like six or seven years ago and he's only eight, so it didn't really matter to their interaction, but it was still a fun coincidence. We also jumped onto and over some horse jumps for a surprisingly long time; and, most importantly, the nine-year-olds had time to wrestle a little bit. You can't do that over Zoom! We were masked up of course, but it was still a wonderful opportunity for connection that we were missing. The only problem was that it was so much fun I didn't take any pictures of the kids playing together! Oh well, we'll have to do it again soon.
foraging in the garden
It's starting to look like garden season around here. The office—the warmest spot in the house—is filling up with seedlings, the raspberries and blueberries are leafing out, and the kids' breath is heavily scented by chives and spring onions. But besides those alliums there's not a whole lot to eat out of the garden yet. But it's not nothing! I didn't pull the kale stalks in the fall (which the rabbits really appreciated, feeding on the insect-riddled leaves we left all winter long) and now the hard-working plants are putting out new bunches of leaves. And the paths between the beds, where I didn't cultivate in the fall, are popping up with volunteer arugula plants in between the weeds. Between those two things there were enough greens to make a little salad last night. Only, it was maybe a bit too little: Zion ate it all up himself. No worries: Harvey doesn't care for vinegar (balsamic is the only dressing for a baby kale and arugula salad!), and Elijah had a leaf or two which was all he wanted. As for me, I'll just keep on doing what I have been the last few days and browse straight off the plants!
moments from the week
mountain biking on our "mountain"
Moments from the past week.
he always has to climb these
transplanting his school project
rainy day painting
always climbing
it's blurry because we were moving
unexpected snow
quiet work time
April snow brings wet fun
On Friday morning when Harvey announced it was snowing Mama denied it without even looking. Yes it was chilly and rainy, but snow in mid April? Well, sure! It's happened before. And over the next half hour the big flakes mixing with the drizzle got more frequent until they took over completely and the snow started piling up. By lunchtime there was a couple inches on the ground—enough that we altered our plans to hike with our friends and went sledding instead.
spring in New England!
Not that it was easy! Boots, mittens, and mufflers had all been misplaced since the last cold weather. And the sleds were way down in the back of the basement. But we made it happen, and were only ten minutes late (no worries; our friends had the same problem with their own gear). By the time we hit the slope the snow had changed back into drizzle, but that didn't mean it was warm. Quite the reverse, at least for the grown-up type people shivering at the top of the hill! For the kids the main issue was that the wet wet snow wasn't particularly fast, but it got better as they packed it down. And it was prime for making snowballs!
the first of many
It was lovely to be there at one of our favorite sledding spots—where we hadn't gone all winter because of our friends' careful quarantining. That said, we didn't actually manage to stay very long. After a little over an hour everyone was sopping wet and ready to go home, making it easily the shortest play time we've ever had with those friends. But it was lots of fun while it lasted! And now that it's sunny and springlike again we can look forward to running around barefoot with them later this week. Ah, the joy of an April snowstorm!
snow showers, snow flowers
not much of a holiday
In the past, Patriots Day has a been a big deal for us. Parades! Battles! Last year, of course, all the observances were cancelled, but we were still excited to follow along online. Then along came the second Patriots Day of the pandemic, and we put our trash out like it was any other Monday. What holiday?
Actually, while that is technically true, we didn't forget about the day completely. We watched the reenactment in the morning—the same reenactment we watched last year, since they haven't filmed any newer ones (does that make it a re-reenactment?). And Elijah wore a tricorn and carried a gun all morning. But it was hard to feel like it was any kind of a holiday. We even did school! Of course, in keeping with the day it was solidly Patriotic. Our poem for the day was Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride" and we started an overview unit on the American Revolution. The boys have research projects they're working on on Revolutionary topics of their choosing. Which is fun and all, but it can't really compete with a parade. Next year back to normal?
rides with boys
sunrise ride
The last couple weeks I've been trying to get out on rides with each of the boys separately. It's always fun to take adventures all together, but there's also something to be said for letting each of them ride at their own level. And also I appreciate having more chances to get out! For Elijah and Harvey, the best time is in the morning before breakfast. This past Monday it was Lijah's turn; he wasn't super enthusiastic, so I got Harvey to come with us. We did a couple miles on the paths around our house—delightful and relaxing for Harvey and me, reasonably challenging for Elijah (not too challenging because our neighborhood is dead flat: Strava tells us 0ft of elevation gain over 2.45 miles). Then Tuesday Harvey and I went to Landlocked Forest for a slightly shorter but rather harder ride on the hilly trails there. He, too, wasn't enthusiastic to begin with, but when he warmed up he was glad to be out. Both rides were under half an hour: what a fantastic use of time first thing in the morning! For Zion, though, first thing in the morning isn't really an option. He doesn't get up until second thing at the very earliest. So I need to find other moments. Like today after supper, when we rode up to town on an errand and then spent a half hour riding stairs and curbs around the high school together in the drizzly rain. I may make them do it, but at least I force them each into their favorite kind of riding!
a momentous day
In former times the library was pretty central to our lives. Both because we all love having a constant stream of new books to look at, and because it's great to have somewhere to go in any sort of weather that's a) not the house, b) inside, and c) free. As I've noted before the second biggest trauma at the start of this pandemic—after having to cancel our long anticipated co-op music day—was that the library closed down before we had a chance to lay in a big store of books. It was my fault; I thought of it on that fateful Friday the 13th but told myself that Saturday morning would be a fine time to browse. Nope: they closed that evening and haven't opened to the public since. Of course, books have been available since last May or so, but in order to get them you had to know what you wanted in advance, put a hold on it, reserve a pickup day and time, and then be there in the specific half hour you put in for. All of those steps are hard for me! Well, the procedure hasn't gotten any easier, but my desire for new books has reached a breaking point (and I've been properly shamed by friends who do regular library pickups) so I'm proud to report that, yesterday evening, we received our first library books in over 13 months.
library books at our house!
I was super excited to go and pick them up. In retrospect, I could have extended that excitement to the boys by requesting some books that would be particularly delightful to them; I didn't do that. Mostly it's picture book biographies of poets, since that's what I've been thinking about. Still, such is the demand for reading material around here that Harvey has now read every word of all of them (he accomplished the feat in just slightly under 24 hours). Good thing there are more coming! Including some requests from the boys. What I need now is some way for them to access the library website and put in their own holds when they want something... any chance I can manage that before the library reopens for real?
what a day!
I've heard from people that they're just easing into in-person meetups with friends—both because of ongoing virus fears, and because being with people is hard sometimes! I haven't really thought about it, but certainly to judge by the fruits this week we're not going that route. This morning we went over to our bubble friends' house and did some work together, then went on a bike ride. From there we headed directly to a hike with some other friends, and walked and played in the woods with them for a couple hours. When we got home there was just time for dinner before we started up the Zoom meeting for our weekly church community group meeting. Ok, that one's not an in-person meeting, but if you count it anyways the boys and I were with other people for nine hours today!
And that's on top of another 2+ hour hike with different friends yesterday, and a dinnertime fire-pit gathering on Tuesday. It's like it's not even a pandemic here!
moments from the week
mountain bike picnic stop
Moments from the past week.
homeschool seed-starting madness
did we get a drone? no, it's just a steep cliff!
the spirit of the tree
park riding
my boys were too cautious to try
this joke never gets old to me
last week's adventures
out and about with friends
As I mentioned, last week we got to go on a couple hikes with friends. First up was the Fells in Stoneham. I admit that, when I heard the invitation, I wondered why we should be driving 25 minutes—on the highway!—to walk in the woods, when we have plenty of woods around here. But just a couple minutes into the hike I understood. They have rocks! (I guess that's why they call it Stoneham...) We all had a great time mountaineering on the various crags.
a rest on the rocks
It was also lots of fun not to be in charge of operation. Andrew, a veteran of many Fells walks and runs, led us to all the best spots. The coolest was maybe this gorge, which at some point in the early 19th century had been dammed for mills, which as some point in the early 20th century were repurposed into decorative features. It was just like one of those decorative streams in a garden, but 20 times bigger!
water feature
The outing was also made even more exciting by the weather. I'd been out to walk the dogs before we left so I was able to tell the boys to prepare for wintery conditions—and "wintery" wasn't an exaggeration! It wasn't that much above freezing, and with the considerable wind felt well below. Of course the boys complained when they were working hard in sheltered spots and got warm, but we sure wanted those coats and mittens when we got up into the wind! There was even a little snow on the last leg of the expedition.
It was considerably milder, though still breezy, on Friday when we visited Greenough Land in Carlisle with different friends. Unfortunately not quite mild enough to want to go into the water—which otherwise was very inviting!
they wished it was a swimming time!
Our friends had been there before but hadn't explored exhaustively, so they let me push on to the next fun spot and the next until we were all the way around the sizeable pond (not what they had anticipated maybe). But there's so much to see! Besides the amazing old barn—amazing for it's suburban teenage graffiti as well as it's size, complexity, and slate roof—we enjoyed the pond at several spots. The best was the dam outlet where the pond drains down towards the Concord River. We've never been there in the spring before; there was some water running!
I wish I could share the sound too
All in all, it was a lovely two days of expeditions with many miles walked. Good thing we got a weekend to recover!
had the new jab
Leah and I got our first covid vaccine shot yesterday. I had expected challenges in getting an appointment—challenges that Leah would face, since she does the communicating with medical professionals in this household—but as it happened her parents' health care place had tons of vaccines to give out, so we got in just about two weeks after Leah first thought to look. And the appointment was really quick and easy too. Plus the shot hardly hurt a bit! Although it did make Leah feel a little sick, and leave us both with sore arms today. We got the Moderna vaccine, so we have to wait a month for our second dose; then we'll all vaccinated on June 10th. Pretty good!
(The title from this post is a reference to a song on Youtube by the Marsh Family: it's really good, you should check it out if by some remote chance you haven't heard it already.)
entertainment
I was going to write something this evening after everyone else went to bed, but instead I just watched all the other videos from the Marsh Family. My mom clued me in about them a couple months ago, but aside from watching one on her phone I didn't get into them... my loss, because they're all really delightful! We spent some today working on our own rendition of "Have the New Jab"... we've got a way to go to reach their level of talent, but Zion can belt it out like Tess and Ella and in Harvey we've got a banjo-bass double threat. Is viral video stardom in our future? Well, probably not, because none of the boys actually want to be on camera. But we're looking forward to lots more fun listening to, and playing, these songs!