It’s 2020 and we are 8 months into the COVID-19 pandemic. Daniel is turning 10. What does that look like during a pandemic? Well, for us it meant 3 short, outdoor, and socially distanced playdates. Rather than have a party, Daniel chose 3 friends to come spend time with him individually and have birthday celebrations.
He was very sad that his best friend wasn’t able to come at all. His family had recently gone through a COVID scare and they were buckling down for awhile.
First, his neighbor friend came over and they spent time outside playing in the treehouse and in the street. We actually managed to set up his favorite video games with a big screen in the treehouse so they could play! He planned a favorite lunch to share with that friend and got to have a candle on a cupcake to blow out with him.
The first friend left after a couple of hours, and another friend came over. They spent time playing video games and jumping on the trampoline. We had a buffet of some favorite snack foods and another candle on another cupcake to share with this friend.
His final friend came over after the second friend left and they were able to have LOTS of outside dark video game time, a dinner of Daniel’s favorite seafoods including mussels and oysters, and ANOTHER candle on another cupcake to blow out.
This time has not been easy. Raising kids during a pandemic can be tricky and often a little sad, but we’ve been so fortunate and are trying to benefit from the positive side of things. Daniel and I are doing homeschool which had been the plan even before we knew about COVID and in some ways our relationship is improving. He doesn’t complain much about doing math even though we are struggling to finish all of the school work I hope for.
With so many free and easy mornings, he has become one of our family chefs and is learning all the ways to make eggs. He is making breakfast for us most mornings now and is really good at it! He even cleans up after himself.
He is getting more responsibilities around the house which he does PLENTY of very loud complaining about, but often completes the tasks well.
He gets to see kids a few times a week at wilderness school and soccer practices which has been SO appreciated. The outdoor time and getting to be a kid with other kids is vital for this little boy. He is such an extrovert and thrives when he gets to be around other kids more.
He is also improving at getting on his sister’s nerves, or maybe it’s just more obvious because we are all home together so much.
He loves his puppies and is working on training Angel to jump through hoops and do obstacle courses. He is also starting to trust our parrot, Petrie, a little more and is developing a bond by spending so much time in Petrie’s space playing legos and listening to audiobooks. He has also discovered podcasts and will sometimes listen for HOURS!
He is reading the Harry Potter books and we have agreed to watch the movies together as a family as he finishes the books. He reads SO MUCH now and is really enjoying it.
He is so good at soccer and loves playing it. He wishes he could go to practice every day. He also has been learning a lot more this year at wilderness school and will talk endlessly about his instructors there and how to carve sticks, identify edible plants, make fires, and basically survive in the wilderness. We did a short homeschool theme piece about survivalists which led us into a conversation about the cold war and bunkers and he got SO into it. He’s pretty sure he could survive in the wilderness alone if he needed to. We even made our own toilet paper to see if we could. That was right after there were a lot of toilet paper shortages due to COVID. The toilet paper did not look like something anyone would actually want to wipe with, but it was fun making it!
He is getting so big, but can still give the best snuggles and hugs.
He turned an old kitchen table into a ping pong table and begs us to play constantly. He’s actually getting pretty good at it. He’s still hell on wheels, preferring those to feet a lot of the time….hoverboards, rollerblades, skateboards……
He is a good friend, athlete, foodie, kitchen helper, and caretaker. I’m so proud of his strengths and accomplishments and am looking forward to watching him grow more every year!
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