the squibix family blog

Then today we got to celebrate in person in real life with our bubble school friends. Which basically looked like a regular day of playing and learning together—which is so wonderful it's like a birthday party every day we do it! Treats are also pretty usual in our school day, but today one had a candle in it, so that was different. More to the point, the friends came with presents! Lijah was delighted to open gifts containing stuffed animals, notebooks, and a playdough candy factory, plus a lego set sent over by one of the Zoom party attendees. And those were on top of the amazing things he got from his parents and grandparents on Saturday: a new bike, a new helmet, and a matching stuffed bunny and fur cloak handmade by Mama! It was a hard birthday in some ways—in our house it marked one full year of pandemic life, as Lijah's 6th birthday was the last open social event we held before the world shut down just a couple days after. But I think even with that we did a fine job, and our little boy feels properly celebrated.

One way I did under-perform, though, was in the picture-taking department. I was too busy having fun. But here's an image of him riding his new bike wearing his new cloak early Saturday morning. Isn't it delightful!

Leah did most of the prep on our family's end—for the rest of us December 10th was a little early in the month to be ready for anything! But she was on top of it. Zion did have time to make a beautiful card, and Harvey outdid himself with the creation of a beautiful little model guitar for Grandpa. I helped him some, but the idea and the drive to make it happen was all his. It came out great; I hope it inspires him to try some more miniature woodworking!

There's lots more Hanukah to come—we've got the link for seven more evenings of Zoom meetings. And then when it's done there's only a week until Christmas. Yikes! All the celebrating sure is stressful!

The boys had firm ideas of what they wanted to be a couple weeks ago, if not before, but nobody started any real work on getting the pieces together until a couple days ago. Mama got them some new clothes—a green shirt for Harvey, black sweatpants for Zion—and Harvey and Elijah used cloaks from previous costumes. Leah did a little sewing to make Harvey belts for his potions and knife. I worked on the weapons.

Candy-eating got started early, when Grandma came over with a bag for each boy. They went through enough that lunch was pretty small. Mid afternoon we headed to church for a costume parade, photo-op, and candy pick-up. It was a delightful, lively event; I only wish it hadn't been limited to 40 people, because there were more people who would have come if they could have; it could have been even more lively! The boys were disappointed none of their friends were there, but they still participated with enough enthusiasm to earn their next hit of candy.

Just after that event we headed to a friend's house for a social-distanced backyard celebration with a couple other families. The kids played, we all had pizza (one pizza per family, over 12 feet apart), then we set up trick-or-treating stations around the yard and rationed out the candy. It was actually super fun; I'd almost rather do that than regular trick-or-treating, especially if we could lose the social-distancing part.

The only problem was the cold—the very cold—which cut the proceedings a little short (grim precedent for social-distanced gatherings this winter!). We needed a fire! So on the way home we stopped by another friends' house, where there was one. And one more chance to trick-or-treat!

It was good. And best of all (from an ancient parent's perspective) it was all over by 6:30! So were able to get to bed early and both maximize our extra time-change sleep and get ourselves well-adapted to the new time. I was glad for the extra sleep because the morning's sugar crash was hard enough as it was... but that's another story!

We walked in the Nashoba Brook Conservation Area; we'd never been there before but will definitely be going back. The river itself is the best part, with bridges and rocky pools and marshy segments making the walk along it endlessly interesting. But it had some competition in a man-made cave. I would have guessed it was a root cellar, except it was a little more complicated than you would really need for that; I understand that it has a mysterious reputation in local lore. In any case we had fun exploring it.

The whole family came along—a pandemic bonus! Leah enjoyed talking with Kelley, but not as much as Scout and Blue liked playing with our friends' dog. We walked two miles; the three dogs must have covered five or six.

The kids got plenty of exercise too: when he has friends to run with, even Lijah can cover some distance without complaining! And I exercised my socialization muscles. A great morning all around.

Then this morning the birthday proper kicked off with a birthday breakfast of french toast with candles stuck in. After breakfast I frosted the cake (chocolate chocolate) while the boys relaxed—Harvey free for the day from his job of clearing the table. His party was at 11:00 (appropriate for his new age!) and consisted of three hours of screensharing Minecraft with his friends over Zoom. I wouldn't have thought that was fun, but he reports that everyone had a great time.

They probably would have gone even longer, but at 2:00 Harvey and his brothers needed to head out to an ice-cream-and-shoe-shopping date with the other set of grandparents before coming back home for the birthday cookout. They didn't really need more ice cream—it was the fourth serving in three days!—but they definitely needed new sandals. It's hot here! Just right to celebrate our midsummer boy.

Besides eating lunch in a shady spot by the pond, the boys splashed in the water and caught some tadpoles. Then after 30 or 40 minutes we got back in the car. That was it. In former days, that would have been supremely disappointing as an adventure; or at least not worth mentioning. But over the past few months our standards have slipped! So we were all utterly charmed by the outing.

It helps that we left baking hot weather at home and found it cool and comfortable at the farm. There were almost no other people around, so we were able to take our masks off (the boys had been wondering how we would manage a picnic while masked!). And the water was full of fish, tadpoles, and frogs. We wondered if they were all feeling pretty relaxed, having seen so few people all spring; certainly they were quite comfortable hanging around by the shore (and the fish at least were hungry for bread crusts).

Nobody caught any fish though—they were much too fast and too jumpy. No frogs either, ditto. But the tadpoles were easy enough, even with only sandwich tupperwares as nets. We could even have brought some home if we wanted to, but we didn't. Because, you know, social distancing.