It’s been nearly a month since we last posted on our hip, happening pandemic lives. The kids have been growing a few plants and herbs in the back yard. They have the “coolapeno” we photographed last month. Maya has an Italian parsley plant, and Ian is trying his hand at mint (which he would yank out of our friend Holly’s garden and eat as if it were a kebab last summer). There are some flowers here and there, and even though the area isn’t very sunny, we’re gamely trying our hand at a pumpkin and a few sunflowers as well.

Soup ingredients

Since the first coolapeno developed, Maya had soup on the brain. She wanted to make an all-herb soup plus add the coolapeno … and lime … and ancho chile powder because she dug through the spice drawer and it smelled good. And it should be creamy. She also had been on a mission to develop a recipe entirely on her own. Every time she caught me poking around the web looking for herby soups, she fussed that she didn’t want to make someone else’s recipe; she wanted to make her own. I gently pushed her toward a thai-ish recipe using coconut milk for its base. She wouldn’t let me thin it out with chicken broth, so it was REALLY thick. She added every herb she could think of. Parsley and mint, of course, but also garlic chives, cilantro, and rosemary (because Maya loves rosemary). She added lime. And tasted. And added more lime. And tasted. And added more lime. Then with a flourish, she threw in the peppers and the ancho powder and called it good.

To me, it tasted very limey and too thick for its own good. Otherwise though, it was fine. She ate nearly a whole bowl of it. We discussed how we might change the recipe for next time and she seemed into it at the time, but hasn’t mentioned the soup again.

Our kids are handling the home all the time life pretty well, most of the time. Ian did get angry with me the other day (probably because I wanted him to pick up his crap). A moment later, I overheard him working to convince Maya that they should really go live with Grammy and Grandpa instead because they are so much nicer. He just needed to get his magic wand working since that’s how they were going to travel – by magic. I warned my parents that they may get surprise company, but Ian has yet to materialize in Missouri.

Maya-style

Maya went on a tear for a couple of days trying to fix her hair using what looked like every single hair clip in the drawer. Since we haven’t been getting haircuts, her hair is getting in her eyes (and developing more tangles than she feels like dealing with). She seems to be over her self-styling now and mostly just lets me install a couple or three utilitarian clips to keep her hair out of her way.

Check out that beach-ready hairdo

We had a 95-degree day on the 24th of April, so I drug out the inflatable pool and let the kids play. Predictably, Ian put a foot in and declared the water too cold, while Maya was laying in the water the moment enough of it had collected in the pool to form a decent puddle. Later on I turned on a little sprinkler and they ran back and forth through that as well. Maya dug worms out of the mud and Ian tried to build structures out of sticks and leaves. There was a baby worm named “Wiggly” hanging out for a while, but I think it may have accidentally met its end in the swimming pool.

We have managed a bit of social time finally as well. Sean had a happy hour with his coworkers via Zoom. I crashed the party while the kids had too much screen time. We had FaceTime and Zoom calls with a few of our friends and caught up a bit. It dawned on me recently that this would be a not terrible way to stay in touch with our out of state friends as well. I’m not sure why it’s taken this long for me to work that out. Or why we still haven’t tried it out yet.

Snail on the sandbox

The kids have been spending a ton of time out in the yard, and we’ve been seeing all kinds of critters. We found a big, weird hornworm of some kind crawling on a lawn refuse bag. We saw a green anole (we think) hiding out in a stand of neglected cast iron plants. He could have been a brown anole, but the green ones can change color and appear brown as well, and we thought we had seen a bright green one in the front yard a few weeks before.

We found a brown polka-dotted lady bug that Maya named Cookie. Ian named the aforementioned anole Brownie. The hornworm (wisely) vacated the premises before anyone could think up a name for it. The kids went shrieking the other day because what they thought was mild-mannered dirt turned out to be a largish spider. We’re guessing maybe it was a wolf spider, but who knows.

The kids had been begging to ride their scooters in the driveway and on our sidewalk. Sean backed out the cars and let them go for it. The first day was innocuous enough. The next day, Friday the 1st of May, it didn’t go so well. Ian was zooming super fast down the driveway and along the sidewalk leading from the driveway to the front door and slowing to a stop in the yard. He did it over and over again. I was sitting on the porch drinking water and dorking with my phone, letting them run out their energy.

Then I heard a thunk; a loud one. Up like a flash, and there was Ian laid out and crying on the sidewalk, scooter dumped forward on its front. He had a big bloody knee, so I scooped him up and hauled him to the bathroom to inspect the damage and clean up what we could. Then we noticed his forehead. The nose parts of his plastic-framed glasses had apparently sliced upward into his forehead when he landed on his poor little face, making deep cuts.

Ian’s THIRD trip to the ER.

It was clear pretty quickly that one or both of those cuts was going to need stitches. I called our pediatrician, but they don’t do stitches there, so we really had no choice but to take him to the hospital. Maya was panicking about the idea of someone actually sewing (SEWING) her little brother, and her panic was amplifying his panic. It was a little hard to think through all that upheaval.

We decided it was best to not send all of us into the hospital during the coronavirus mess, so we loaded Ian up with icepacks and cloth diapers to hold on his head, belted him into his car seat crying and very upset, and Sean hauled him over to the hospital.

The children’s hospital took good care of Ian, by all accounts, but they were still there for something like 4 hours. They determined that he likely had no brain injury, though we had to keep an eye out for it. He wound up with Dermabond on one of his cuts, around 4 stitches on the other cut, a few scraped knuckles, a very scraped knee, a scraped up nose and upper lip, and one loose tooth. And he had his helmet on.

The difference between kids getting stitches now and Sean and I having gotten stitches as a kid is dramatic. Ian had some sort of topical anesthetic applied to his wound before stitching. No pesky needles to the face. They also gave him an inhalant for anxiety (Versed). Evidently, it went well beyond relieving anxiety; it made the little dude straight up loopy. Sean facetimed me so I could chat with Versed-drunk Ian. What I saw was Ian basically shoving whole Oreos in his mouth like a reverse PEZ dispenser, talking (or trying to talk around Oreo) a mile a minute. I wish Sean would tell this part of the story, but apparently Ian was completely unaware of getting stitched, trying to say “ow” at what he thought were the right parts and failing.

Sean and Ian interacted with only two people in all at the hospital, both of whom had been wearing masks. Sean was wearing a mask. They took temperatures at the hospital. It’s been a couple weeks now since their ER visit and so far, no one has gotten noticeably sick. Ian’s injuries appear to have healed up without incident, though he is kind of upset about the notion of having scars.

Pink Turk’s Cap

My friend Holly and I had gone in on a plant delivery from The Natural Gardener. It was a special thing they were doing while their store was shut down, but Sean and I live too far away for them to deliver to our house, so we had it delivered to Chris and Holly’s instead. The order showed up the day Ian had his scooter accident, so we weren’t able to drive out there to pick up the plants till the next day. We worked it out that we’d leave our kids belted into their seats in the car, and their kids could come out and say hello, social distancing style. It worked out well enough, though Maya and Ian were really sad they couldn’t get out and play with their friends.

Since I’ve been overhauling our neglected back yard and The Natural Gardener is so good for native plants, I placed a kind of huge order with them. I mostly finished preparing the beds throughout the week and put a few of the plants into the ground, but ultimately, I spent most of my Mother’s Day pulling weeds, spreading dirt and mulch, and planting so many plants amongst the rocks and tree roots in our back yard.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Sean and the kids gave me a cookbook and had ordered a birdbath (that finally showed up this weekend). The kids made me little animal keychains out of pony beads, and per my wishes, tried really, really hard not to fight with each other. We had video calls with Lolly and Pop and with Grammy and Grandpa. As a treat to myself, I made sausage rolls for lunch. Otherwise, the day was about like any other. I normally try to make a point of spending Mother’s Day with the kids, but these days we’re around each other all day, every day, so it was with only a little bit of guilt that I basically spent the day on my own, getting things accomplished.

Tonga Toast

I don’t even remember how we got on the subject, but Sean at some point mentioned really wanting to have Tonga Toast while at Disney World. I happened upon a copycat recipe that he confirmed looked pretty accurate, and since we are all kind of intermittently nursing our canceled vacation wounds, we decided to give it a shot. We bought a loaf of brioche and sliced it into very thick chunks – I’d guess in the neighborhood of 2.5-3 inches, stuffed those with banana slices, dipped each bread chunk in a heavy-cream-based egg mixture, fried it, and then tossed it in cinnamon sugar. Oh, and we made a strawberry sauce to pour over the top – that was probably my favorite part. Ian wouldn’t touch it. Maya was in love. Sean and I split a piece, because WOW.

While businesses have been opening up more starting May 1st, we have continued to stay home as much as possible. To that end, we continue to partake of our curbside pickup for  groceries each week. This has lead to a few hilarious mishaps, since we aren’t the ones choosing items and making substitutions as needed. My favorite by far was the week I ordered one shallot and two heads of garlic. The heads of garlic were so tiny that if I had been shopping, I probably wouldn’t have bothered. Whereas the frickin’ shallot was so huge, I initially mistook it for an onion.

Holy shallot, Batman!

Every month during the school year, Maya’s school featured a spotlight artist. All the kids can enter facts about the artist and for each fact they enter, their name goes into a drawing for free art supplies. They decided to continue these even throughout our stay at home distance learning. We spent an afternoon looking up facts and submitting them on March’s featured artist, Vincent Van Gogh, and lo and behold, Maya’s name was among those drawn! She selected a package of white, brown, orange, and black clay from a list and it was delivered to our house within the week. Maya shared some of her clay with Ian. With the rest she made dragons, dragon islands, dragon fire, clouds to place around her dragon island. And she made a lizard that was meant to be similar to the anole in the back yard. Ian for his part, was more into mixing the clay to see what sort of color variations he could create.

Spring school photo – Maya, age 7

By the way, back in February, Maya had school photos. Shit has gotten so weird since then, that I keep forgetting about them. They were sent to us only a few weeks ago. They’re her first professional photos with her glasses. She looks so grown up!

Since it’s been about a month, I think I’m just going to compare the coronavirus numbers at the end of our last post with today’s numbers. On April 19th, we had 774 confirmed cases and 19 deaths in Travis County. This evening, we’re at 2,459 cases and 77 deaths. Texas was at 19,408 cases and 500 deaths back on April 19th. Now, we’re at 48,396 cases and 1,343 deaths. The US was at 764,177 cases and 40,591 deaths on 4/19, and now we’re at 1,516,343 and 89,932 deaths. Worldwide, we had 2,402,076 cases and 165,106 deaths on 4/19, and this evening we have 4,710,614 cases and 315,023 deaths.

Here’s our roundup for the past couple weeks. I’m writing this on Sunday, but probably won’t get photos added till Monday. Maya started distance learning on April 6th. The teachers have organized a grid for each week. In each of five subjects, there is a “must-do” lesson and several “can-do” lessons. I’m rapidly learning which subjects Maya loves and which are met with indifference. She also has weekly assignments to complete from her art teacher and her music teacher (and possibly her PE teacher? Idunno. All this has been kinda vague.)

Maya also has a Zoom meeting with her whole class on Monday. And then we schedule her for a small-group Zoom meeting sometime during the week. So far, we’ve only been late for one meeting, so I guess we’re doing ok for two adults who are trying to do their full-time jobs while caring for the kids. Thank goodness those kids have each other. Sure, they fight a lot, but they also spend a lot of time playing together.

If you look closely, you can see a little beak poking out the birdhouse doorway.

We spend some time doing non-school-related things as well. We had one of the most amazing experiences week before last. As you may remember, Maya painted and built a little birdhouse a few years ago, and we hung it off our back porch rafters, not really expecting much to come of it. Earlier this year, two little birds were busily loading it up with all kinds of small sticks and dried grass and things, clearly working on nesting. We tried to identify them using a Cornell Lab bird app on my phone and believe them to be Bewick’s Wrens. Starting in March (I think), they started bringing all manner of bugs and worms to the birdhouse, presumably feeding their newly hatched babies.

Where this birdhouse is positioned, we can see it really well from our kitchen table. We had started seeing the little birds poking their beaks out of the “front door” of the birdhouse to receive the creatures their parents brought them to eat. One day during lunch, I warned the kids that probably those birds were going to leave their nest soon. Maya was convinced that she had seen one of the babies on a stone wall behind the birdhouse. She justified her assertion by explaining that she even saw some gooky stuff from the egg on its feathers. I figured this was wishful thinking and proceeded to explain to her and Ian that the odds of us being in the kitchen at the same time the little birds left the nest was pretty unlikely.

And then, right as we were watching, one of the little birds moved tentatively out onto the perch by the doorway of the birdhouse. It half-fell/half-flew down to the floor below. We watched for several minutes as it wobbled around and tested out its wings with hesitant little 2- and 3-foot high flights before it finally found a low enough spot on the stone wall that it could fly up and wander away. And Maya was right; it did look like the bird had a bit of leftover egg crud on its feathers. We watched one more wobble out onto the perch and fall/fly over to the stone wall before I had to give up and get on a call for work.

If the kids had been in school, they’d have missed seeing these baby birds, which had hatched in *their* back yard, fly for the very first time. Heck, I’d have missed it too – I usually eat at my desk. I’m not sure that’s worth a pandemic, but it’s better than nothing.

Apparently, we have a John Prine mural in Austin.

Then John Prine died on April 7th – the same day we saw the baby birds leave the nest. I knew he had been diagnosed with COVID-19 in late March. I knew he was an older gentleman and a two-time cancer survivor to boot, and that probably the outlook was grim. I was still heartbroken when it actually happened.

I can remember being maybe eight or nine years old. Dad and Carol had given me a little boombox type radio as a gift, and I loved it. It was the only thing we had in Mom’s house that would play cassettes, and I had a great deal of fun recording my favorite songs from the radio. At that point, my brother Jade and I were visiting Dad every other weekend, and Mom had asked if I’d record some of the John Prine records to cassette so we could listen to them at her house.

Dad showed me how to operate his stereo for recording. Showed me how to carefully clean and handle the records. Again, I loved it. Loved flipping through all the albums, looking at the covers, checking out the track lists. He had a handful of Prine records. I suspect I went in with a list of Mom’s preferred tracks and did my best to record those particular albums. While I’m sure I’d heard them before and certainly would have heard Mom singing some of the songs around the house, I’d never really listened to them before I had hunkered down in the basement of Dad and Carol’s house setting those albums to cassette.

He was twangy, which I didn’t care for since I was certain I didn’t like country music. His voice was memorable in the way that Bob Dylan’s or Tom Petty’s voices were – not traditionally crowd-pleasing perhaps, but certainly able to deliver on an emotional level. His words though. The man had a brilliant way with words. His unfussy lyrics could bring tears to my eyes and have me chuckling all in the same song, even as a kid. He had a way of sneaking in nuggets of universal truth into the story-songs he spun. I’m not sure I had ever heard (or noticed) such raw and honest verses before.

Anyway, I promised myself I wouldn’t go on and on. It’s just hit me so much harder than I expected it to. Maybe with everything else going on, the loss just carries more weight than it should.

About the time that Maya was lamenting the fact that the Bewick’s wren babies had left and the parent birds seemed to be through with her birdhouse, a hummingbird came to our feeder. We think we’ve identified it as a female Black-chinned Hummingbird, though it’s tough to tell – they move pretty quickly.

One of the things that seemed to sustain the kids through all they have had to give up for this coronavirus mess was the upcoming Easter holiday. Grammy and Grandpa sent them each some legos to work on (which is PERFECT), and Lolli and Pop send them these cute headphones that are built into soft headband type things. They’re called Cozy Phones and especially Ian loves them.

Decorating Easter eggs!

Sean was smart and had bought all the easter candy, eggs, and egg decorating things pretty early, so we had a respectable supply. The kids had a great deal of fun dying eggs. He had also bought some chalk eggs and it seemed like they enjoyed prettying those up as well. We left everything on the front porch for the Easter Bunny to hide, as we do every year. Then Sean and I surreptitiously loaded up plastic eggs with candy and Sean assembled their baskets.

The kids had taken some pains to make sure E. Bunny knew which basket belonged to whom. And Sean chose egg colors and whatnot that would match the correct kid’s preferences. Then Ian promptly woke up the next morning and chose the wrong basket!

Sean Easter-bunnied outside in the sprinkling rain, while I ran interference with Ian. Maya has almost fully adapted to her later schedule since she no longer has to be at school at 7:45 in the morning, so Ian had to actually wake her up to tell her excitedly about the Easter baskets. She was just as thrilled as he was with the candy and stickers in hers.

Don’t they look pleased to be having their photo taken before they’re allowed to hunt eggs???

We had them get dressed up for the egg hunt, because when else are they gonna dress up right now. And then they went outside and happily hunted for their eggs. The black chalked eggs were particularly devilish to locate, but all in all, their baskets were full and they seemed to be very happy.

I had promised the kids we’d try to make chocolate-flavored roll-and-cut cookies, so Easter afternoon, we decorated those. I let them have full reign over all the decorations we had in the house from rainbow sprinkles, to colored sugars, to miniature chocolate chips. They took their time and carefully decorated their cookies, often coaxing eyes and feathers and fur out of the various creatures they had cut from the cookie dough.

Maya and Ian arranged for the parents to have an Easter egg hunt that evening. They had spent all week stuffing eggs and stockpiling them in their rooms so they’d be ready for the big moment. I love it that they were thinking about us!

Coolapeno – a jalapeno without the heat. I personally don’t get it, but the kids seem happy.

The next week, we were delighted to find that our “coolapeno” plant had already produced a pepper! Way before everything was locked down, we had made a run with the kids to Home Depot to buy some flowers and herbs to plant in the back yard. I don’t remember which kid, but one of they seemed really excited about this plant that was supposedly going to produce peppers that were jalapeno-flavored, but without the heat – coolapenos, see?

Anyhow, Maya now has an elaborate plan for some kind of soup that will use every herb she can think of plus the coolpeno pepper. I’m a solid recipe-preparer, but not much of a recipe developer, so we’ll see how it goes.

Sometime during this past week, we learned that Texas schools would be closed through the end of the school year. Good thing too, since we had no intention of sending Maya back to school even if it opened. I hear talk of them slowly “opening things back up” here in Texas. People have been allowed back to beaches in Florida. Photos have been popping up in the news of happy beach-goers basking in the sun, mask-free and in close proximity. I guess we’ll start to see how all that pans out in 2-3 weeks.

Folks have been protesting the closure of businesses and whatnot with our shelter-in-place, social distancing mandates. Given that Austin is the capitol of a very independent-spirited state, it’s not surprising that there are protests here too. I guess from the rarified air that I breathe, where I am “stuck” at my comfortable house with my healthy spouse and two healthy children working my not-yet-erased job, I can’t fully understand the situation. On the other hand, I see photos of people crowded together demanding to work, some of them wearing their N95 masks, and I can’t help but wonder where the disconnect is. I get that we’re choosing between two shitty options. Cause economic strain and hopefully control the spread of this virus or let people go to work and presumably allow it to spread more freely, sicken (and kill) more people, overwhelm the hospitals. But with the virus still spreading so freely (and with such a death rate) and no vaccine available yet, staying home seems to be the most logical choice.

The kids looking a little disheveled after having to sit for an entire music recital via Zoom.

Just this past Saturday, the kids had their first Zoom music recital. It actually went better than expected, in my opinion. I was worried they wouldn’t take it as seriously since we were just in our house like always, but they both did great. Everyone was respectful, and while the sound quality may not have been the best ever, we were able to hear everyone perform their pieces.

I’m not going to comment on the numbers today, just lay them out so I have them recorded. For Travis County, last Sunday we had 774 confirmed cases and 19 deaths. This Sunday, we have 1108 cases and 25 deaths. For Texas, last Sunday we had 13,748 cases and 286 deaths. This Sunday, we have 19,408 cases and 500 deaths. For the United States, last Sunday, we had 559,409 cases and 22,071 deaths. This Sunday, we have 764,177 cases and 40,591 deaths. And hey, I don’t think I’ve noted worldwide numbers yet. Why not complete the horror. Last Sunday, we were at 1,846,680 confirmed cases and 114,090 deaths. This Sunday, we have 2,402,076 cases and 165,106 deaths.

There’s something about Sunday nights, especially now with all the quarantining and home schooling and so on. I’ve always been annoyed with myself because I have a hard time enjoying Sundays because they really always feel more like pre-Mondays to me. I’m wasting half the weekend dreading the coming week.

Ian and his much-beloved new rainbow sheets.

Anyway, all that to say, my week-in-review is again coming during the following week. Last week was kind of a doozy. It started off innocently enough on Monday. Ian proudly made crowns for both himself and Maya from an activity in one of his High Five magazines. “I made coronas,” he said, because corona means crown in Latin. Both the kids seemed proud of their coronas.

The kids and their “coronas”

Wednesday was a shit show. Sean wound up having meetings all day, so it was nearly impossible for me to make any progress at work. There were repair folks here in the morning working on our AC (yes, in Texas, that constitutes an essential repair). When it was time to pay up, the guy left his clipboard on the truck along with a pen and a pair of disposable gloves and walked away. I put on the gloves, signed the paperwork, and read my credit card information to him from several paces away.

That same morning, Nox the cat started vomiting. First it was just pile after pile of clear spittle barf. Then it turned bloody. Given the situation, we hesitated to take her to the vet right away. We were hoping it was just irritation from repeated vomiting, and so we decided to wait and see. After it happened twice more, I scheduled her visit for that afternoon.

She is super-thrilled to be at the vet’s office

In the vet’s office, I did my best to touch as little as possible. I didn’t sit down on the furniture. I kept my hands clasped in front of me so I wouldn’t touch my face. (I am sooo bad at not touching my face; seriously, I am one giant fidget.) I tried to stay back from people as much as I could, but it just wasn’t possible. The vet wanted to show me the x-rays (which were thankfully clear). I needed to pass the cat back and forth to the veterinary staff. I had to hand my credit card to the person behind the desk. After getting out to the car but before loading up, I swabbed down with hand sanitizer as best I could.

Nox has been doing great. They gave her a steroid and some medicine to suppress her urge to vomit. She’s back to eating and drinking and playing. She regularly sits in the kitchen, stalking birds through the windows, making a chattering/chuffing kind of noise. The kids think she’s hilarious.

The meow wolf and the cat-o-pus are playing chess

Sean has decided to teach the kids how to play chess. Individually though, because otherwise, they’ll just fight. By all indications, the kids are enjoying their lessons so far. I keep finding the chess board set up and various stuffed animals sitting around it getting ready to play.

Groceries have been … confusing. But attainable! We have a curbside pickup scheduled with our local HEB grocery store for April 11th. I spent some time Friday putting together a theoretical list so we could put in another pickup order for April 18th. Pickup schedules had been so full that we were trying as hard as we could to schedule them well in advance. Shortly after I put my list together, Sean noticed that they had just opened up a bunch of pickup times for the very next day. So, I quickly assembled a tide-us-over list to cover some of our fresh food requirements until we could get our pickup on the 11th.

Sean didn’t like his picture with the makeshift mask

By this point, the CDC had finally bitten the bullet and recommended wearing a mask. Save the N95 masks for the healthcare workers, but for the love of Pete, cover your face when you can’t maintain social distancing standards. Sean had two options for his curbside pickup: 1 – use an old N95 rated mask that he had purchased years ago (I think) to snake some oogy pipes or 2 – wear one of my old bandanas which could be fashioned into a mask with the help of a couple of pony-tail holders. I joked that he could choose between looking like Darth Vader or Jessie James. He chose the latter.

Had we not ordered beer, he probably wouldn’t have needed the mask at all. He pulled into a parking spot, texted the number for his parking spot to let them know he’d arrived, and they brought the stuff out and loaded it into our trunk. He had to sign to verify he was over 21 since we had added beer to our order. Otherwise, it would have been a completely touch-less handoff.

We were issued one notice from our school district this past week (I think) that schools would stay closed till May 4th. And then we were issued another notice that said they would be closed “indefinitely.” It’s still up for debate how they plan to handle grades for the remainder of the school year.

Things continue to look grim. Adam Schlesinger died from COVID-19. He was in a band (Fountains of Wayne) that was part of my 90s teenage years, but only tangentially. John Prine has been hospitalized with COVID-19 complications. This one hits much harder. He’s inextricably part of growing up for me, between Dad’s records and Mom’s singing. His funny and sad songs have always hit me just so. Plus, he always reminds me of my mom.

As of screen captures I took on Sunday night, Travis county had 484 reported cases (6 deaths). Texas had 7231 cases (138 deaths). And the United States had 336,958 cases and 9,626 deaths. I keep thinking it might be smarter to stop looking at the numbers so closely. Stories of overrun hospitals compete with stories of better and faster testing becoming available. There are so many places trying to get ventilators manufactured to meet this new overwhelming demand.

In the mean time, the economy is a wreck. New jobless claims were 6.6 million this past week. The week before they were around 3.3 million. The previous record had been in the 600k range. Around 10 million new jobless claims in two weeks and the news reports indicate that people are still having a hard time getting through overtaxed systems to make their claims, so those numbers seem likely to continue increasing.

Finding “Stephanie’s chicken”

There’s a lady who lives in our neighborhood that I used to work with. She and her husband live just around the corner from us, essentially. She has started leaving this ornamental chicken sculpture in various places in her yard so the kids can try and find it when they walk past. The kids LOVE IT. We’ve been by twice now and they’ve been happy to locate “Stephanie’s chicken” whenever they walk by.

The wren babies in the birdhouse in the backyard seem to be growing up. We now see their beaks poking out trying to grab at the worms and bugs their parents bring them nearly non-stop throughout the day. Sean has placed a large, thin corrugated cardboard box beneath the birdhouse just to soften the blow in case some of the babies have trouble with their flying lessons, once those happen. That concrete would make for a rough landing.

I meant to write this post over the weekend, but I just couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. Even today, I’m having trouble. Trying to convert the stew of amazement, fear, anxiety, anger, uncertainty, etc. simmering in my head into a set of words that makes sense has seemed impossible. This post title implies a humor that I’m having trouble hanging onto.

With the increase in COVID-19 cases, we’ve been working toward further decreasing our time going out and about even for basic errands. I made a quick run early last week to pick up Ian’s new glasses from the eye doctor. They were doing curbside pick-up only. When I pulled into the parking lot, I called the folks inside and requested his glasses. I hung up the phone, rolled down my window, and sanitized my hands (after all, I don’t want to make them sick either). An employee came out and with gloved hands, handed me the bag holding Ian’s glasses. With my head turned slightly away from her, I smiled and thanked her, and that was that.

Ian, in his new purple glasses, has befriended a slug.

Ever since Maya got her big kid glasses last year, Ian has been wanting to ditch the rubber-like, strapped glasses that he wears in favor of his own big-kid glasses. Sean has helped both kids choose glasses frames, and he’s really good at it. Ian has some really cute dark purple frames that he absolutely loves.

Sean and I had started back to work on the 23rd, and so we told the kids they were starting back to school. During our spring break week, Sean had bought Ian a bunch of kindergarten workbooks and a bunch of 1st and 2nd grade books for Maya. We’re still waiting for a few of them to ship, but for the most part, the kids have enough variety to keep them occupied for small stretches of time. Sean and I kind of trade off throughout the day so we can each work for a good chunk of time in relative peace. I start my workday now at 6a to try and get a jump on things. We try to get the kids to work on some worksheets, do a few online lessons from Scholastic. For Maya, we try to get her to do a bit of writing work and some book reading.

Maya is working hard.

We’ve had a really loose art period a couple times. Other times, I’ll just let them spend an hour dorking around in the back yard. Maya has been big into bug catching lately. We got a net and a little bug house for her to capture them and observe them. We generally release the creatures at the end of the day, even though she makes sure to provide them with food and water.

On Tuesday the 24th, Austin and Travis County were issued a shelter in place order (they called it Stay at Home – Work Safe) through at least April 13th. Given that we had already ratcheted down our out-and-about activities, it meant very little to us. AISD, our school district, extended their closure to coincide. We start distance learning next week, whatever that winds up meaning for a first grader.

Ian likes doing school like his sister, but I think the novelty wears of faster for him.

We took the step of withdrawing Ian from preschool. There are essential employees who must have their children at day care, so I understand why they’ve chosen to remain open. For us, it doesn’t make sense though. We already have Maya home; there is no point in sending Ian to school. Our gut feeling is that AISD will not resume this school year, and we had always planned to send them kids to a different childcare place over the summer, since Maya is now too old to go to Ian’s school. With any luck, maybe we’ll get to regret our choice if Maya winds up getting to go back to school in May.

On Wednesday, the kids had their piano and guitar lessons via Zoom. Other than the sound quality being pretty terrible, it worked out well enough. Earlier in the day, Maya had gotten to FaceTime with her 1st grade teacher, and she seemed to enjoy that also. On Saturday, the kids each had group music lessons via Zoom too. It was hard to wrangle Maya, as usual, but I suspect it was good for the kids to see faces other than ours for a change.

Maya, catching bugs in the yard.

Grocery shopping has been … strange. Sean had gone once earlier in the week and found very little. Some of our basic supplies were starting to dwindle, and while we weren’t yet worried, we were certainly casting around for reliable solutions. We formulated a plan. Sean would do a round on Sunday morning at HEB, Target, and Costco, and from then on we would try to curbside as many of our groceries as possible (again, to limit exposure). We hit the jackpot. We got flour, baking soda, eggs. We even scored paper towels and TP. It’s astonishing how relieved all that made me feel.

The bug house.

After his very successful run, we set up a curbside pickup at HEB – our first ever. We booked it on Sunday and the earliest pickup we could get was April 12th. It isn’t even our usual HEB (which had no pickup times available). We did a whole lotta guessing about the kinds of stuff we’d need in two weeks, and we’ll see how much of it is actually available on that day.

Over the weekend, the United States took top ranking in quantity of COVID-19 cases. I screen captured a couple sources from yesterday evening. By one source, the United States had 142,402 confirmed cases and 2,497 deaths at that time. More locally, Travis county had reported 200 confirmed cases and 1 death as of Sunday evening. Poor New York City is drowning – about half of the US’s cases are in New York. Will they have enough ventilators when things worsen? Will the curve finally flatten? Much of my telecom job’s work has all but ceased in the NYC area due to quarantining and site access restrictions.

Our kids finally kind of lost it on Saturday. They’ve been remarkably resilient through this whole time. Disney World postponed? Ok, they understand. Can’t go back to school? Cool, we’ll do work at home with Mom and Dad. Can’t go to the playground? Fine, we’ll invent a playground oasis for birds in the back yard. But I think finally after two weeks, whether they really understand or not, they’ve had enough. Maya was emotionally fragile all weekend. There were crying fits and amplified sadness over the mildest of insults or injuries. Ian has been begging to play with some of his friends and has repeatedly asked me for the past couple days when coronavirus is going to be over. They’ve even incorporated coronavirus as a weapon in some of their good guy / bad guy games.

All in all, we’re doing well enough though. Sean’s and my work for our jobs is kind of getting done. The kids are sort of maintaining a bit of an education. They’re getting too much screen time, and none of us are getting enough activity, but we’re working to adapt. One bright spot: we appear to be sheltering a Bewick’s Wren family in our back yard. Years ago now, Maya painted and glued together a little birdhouse, and we hung it in our back yard not really expecting much to come of it. Earlier in the spring, we watched the tiny little wrens bring all manner of grassy material into the house. This past week or so, we’ve watched them over and over and over again flying up to the house with bugs and worms clutched in their beaks. We don’t want to disturb them, so we haven’t peeked in and checked, but we’re assuming they have hungry babies in there. It’s a small thing, I realize, but that and the prospect of Easter in a couple weeks seem to be helping boost the kids’ spirits during such an indescribably strange time.

I am, by nature, a skeptic. I have commented to Sean before that I’ll miss the boat on preparing for a disaster because my first reaction is always skepticism. When the first case of coronavirus was reported in the United States back in January, I didn’t give it much weight. It came from folks traveling. It *seemed* to be contained. I felt obliquely sad about things that were happening in other parts of the world, but I wasn’t yet worried about my own family and friends.

At one point, seemingly long ago now, one of our worries had been whether the bluebonnets would last till we got back from Florida.

It started its rapid spread throughout the country, and I started to wonder if our spring break travel plans would be affected. Then in early March, I started to worry that we were being irresponsible for considering traveling at all. Our intention had been to take the kids to Disney World for the very first time. Sean lives and breathes Disney; he had been planning this trip for months, waking early in the morning to get his preferred meal reservations and fast pass times, making spreadsheets for scheduling. He’d been finding fun ways for the kids to experience this place that he so totally loves: autograph books, laniards and pins for trading, special t-shirts and shoes.

Ian, age 5.

Then, on March 6th, our city made the unprecedented decision to cancel the SXSW festival. Hundreds of thousands of people would now *not* be congregating and possibly spreading an as-yet-not-well-understood disease. They would also not be dropping billions of dollars in local clubs, bars, restaurants, hotels, etc. I never thought it would happen. How cynical am I that it caught me off guard that human health would be chosen over the almighty dollar? That’s the day the magnitude of the crisis sunk in for me.

Maya, age 7. Note the lack of teeth.

My brain at that point was split. We were still going to go to Disney for our trip of a lifetime (largely because our trip insurance didn’t cover pandemics). We were so prepared for the trip and the kids were so, SO excited. Sheesh, Maya had even managed to extract all THREE of her loose teeth before we left so I wouldn’t have to keep track of them at Disney World. But half of me was wishing they’d close the parks so we could do the responsible thing and stay the fuck home. We were supposed to leave on Saturday, the 14th. On Thursday the 12th, they announced park closure. Very early in the morning on the 13th, the first case of coronavirus was reported in Austin. Only slightly less early on the 13th, they announced that Maya’s school was closing a day early for spring break.

We let ourselves feel disappointment on Thursday and maybe a little Friday morning. But I think Sean and I were both just relieved. He spent most of his Friday rescheduling the Disney trip. After many hours on hold, that was largely dealt with. The kids were a little mopey for a bit, but we had already been explaining about coronavirus and how diseases are spread and the extra precautions we were taking, so I’m not sure they were even too surprised. At least so far, they’ve handled the whole thing with grace.

A clue, Watson.

Sean was smart. Because we had been planning on being gone for a week, we had cleared our refrigerator of most of the produce and fresh foods, so we really had nothing much to feed our family of four for the week we were now largely going to be staying in the house. He had gone to Costco earlier in the week on a normal restock run and had seen the bare shelves and had been able to purchase very little. At the time, we assumed we’d just have to deal with it once we were back from our trip. Now, with our fridge bare and knowing there was a coronavirus case in Austin that would set off fresh new alarm bells, he woke early on Friday the 13th, to get our normal run of groceries. He said it wasn’t bad when he got there at 7a, but by the time he left, it was apparently a madhouse. And it has stayed that way ever since.

Over the coming days, we watched as the NBA cancelled everything, Broadway theaters shut down, international travel was restricted, and a national state of emergency was declared. More locally, Maya’s school closure has extended through early April, the restaurants shifted to carry-out and delivery only, the movie theaters closed. The infection count is rising, the stock market is tumbling. Predictions run the gamut from bleak to downright scary. It’s a weird time we’re living in.

My first thought after the Disney cancellation, had been to try and find something unpopulated and outdoors to do for a few days instead. Unfortunately, Maya had gotten vomity sick on Saturday. She sprouted a low-grade fever that was gone within a day, and since then she’s had a lingering cough. If we had had any thoughts of salvaging spring break by planning a camping trip or some other equally people-avoiding endeavor, they were abandoned with her illness.

Luckily, our house is filled to the brim with silly

We’ve been trying to keep busy though. On Sunday, we dressed in some of our new Disney shirts and took the kids out for our annual bluebonnet photos. Other than the kids freaking out over bees (I had to piggyback our 65 lb daughter to our photo spot), it was nice enough. There were no other people out and the weather was beautiful.

Our back yard, which has been neglected ever since I became pregnant with Maya, is finally seeing some slow but steady action. I’m clearing weeds, adding dirt back where it has eroded away over the years, laying mulch. The kids have had fun choosing and planting a few plants, and we’ve started seeds for a few food crops and a few Texas native shade plants that I’m hoping will survive the tough conditions in our back yard. I also cleaned out their semi-neglected sandbox and Ian has spent hours installing sticks, shells, rocks, leaves, and flowers to make a special place for birds that he has dubbed Bird Land.

Getting ready to make cookies

Maya’s cough had finally died down enough that on Tuesday, the kids and I made roll-and-cut cookies. The kids LOVE using their vast collection of cutters and decorating the cookies with colorful icing. They both wound up having to wash their hands multiple times throughout the process for infractions such as coughing and fiddling with nostrils.

We had bought everyone fun Disney shirts for St Patrick’s since we were originally going to be celebrating in the House of Mouse. We even got some for Lolli and Pop, who had planned to be there with us for a few days. Once our trip fell apart, Sean had the foresight to send their shirts to them quickly enough that they’d get them in time. And they sent us a photo (and later on, a line dance video) of them in their St Pat’s shirts.

Lolli and Pop!

Finally yesterday, we all got out of the house for a hike. Sean has been the only one going out and purchasing needed items. He is very careful and doesn’t get easily stressed out. He takes hand sanitizer with him. So far, it has been ok. But the weather is (allegedly) supposed to turn rainy (we’ve been hearing that story all damn week), so we took our chances and all went on a roughly 2.5 mile hike on the Turkey Creek Trail, which is only about a 20-minute drive away from us. When we told them we were going, the kids whined about being too tired to go on a hike, but once they were there, it was clear they were excited to be out and doing something different. It was 80 degrees and overcast – perfect hiking weather. We saw lots of other people and their dogs, but with gentle reminders to the kids to keep their hands to theirselves, it seemed to be ok. Ian was sad he couldn’t pet all the dogs, but we thought it best if he avoided it.

Toward the end of the Turkey Creek trail

Sean’s job has mandated that he work from home. I have, of course, worked from home for nearly ten years now. Maya and Ian will both be home for AT LEAST the next couple weeks. We are not hiring a parade of sitters to come into the house (that seems counter-productive to all the social distancing measures our city, state, and country have taken). This week has been semi-manageable since we had taken the spring break week off. For the couple weeks following, we are trying to work out a schedule where we can both get our work done but still keep the kids occupied and possibly even slightly educated. Both of us expect the closure to go on longer.

One source says the coronavirus case count in Austin is now 41. That’s just shy of double what it was posted as yesterday. We are discussing limiting our errands even further than we already have. Soon enough, those limits may become mandates. Until then, we’ll use our best judgement and try not to get on each other’s nerves … too much.

During December, whilst browsing the time-suck known as Facebook, I noticed our friend Holly posting about her “experiences not stuff” Christmas. It’s a beautiful idea, one that I wish we could figure out how to get around to. But what really caught my eye was that one of her family’s experiences was going to be visiting a nearby elephant preserve. What? I didn’t know we had a nearby elephant preserve. Then once they went, she posted photos. If I wasn’t already itching to go, those photos sealed the deal.

Maya and Ian snuggling Tai the elephant

I didn’t make the decision right away, but maybe a week before my birthday in February, I happened to notice that the weather the following weekend was going to be great – the kind of 70-degree winter weekend that makes me like living in Texas. I got the impression that no one else in the house had really given much thought to it, so I just did what I wanted and let everyone know. I reserved a visit time at Enchanted Rock State Natural Area. I booked a night at a hotel in Fredericksburg that had a heated outdoor pool and a slide for the kids to enjoy. And I purchased our family a slot to experience the elephants at The Preserve.

We had group music classes that morning, and because I asked her so nicely and it was my birthday weekend, Maya tried extra hard to behave in her classes (it’s a challenge). After that, we hastily took music things into the house and brought trip things out to the car and set off to Enchanted Rock.

Watching fairy shrimp at Enchanted Rock

The kids, who are highly interested in the magical properties of things (wands, beans, confetti, etc) quizzed me at length about what exactly made this rock so enchanted. The magic is that we made it to the damn top without anyone dying. Or maybe the real magic is that we made it back down again with only one skinned knee (Maya). Enchanted Rock is a giant granite dome poking out of the Texas hill country. The hike up was a bit tough on us two pudgy office types, but we did it. The kids, other than minor (and easily ignored) complaining did great. We made it to the top and had a little snack and a drink of water and watched the fairy shrimp dart around in the seasonal pools left in hollows in the granite. Maya brought her camera along and snapped away every few feet all the way up. Once we stopped hiking, it was a bit chilly in the breeze, but the day was gorgeous.

We headed into Fredericksburg after that, checked into our hotel, and wandered into town for a walk and some dinner. We stopped by a candy shop for the kids. We visited the Fredericksburg Winery for the grown-ups. And after an unremarkable dinner, we headed back to the hotel to suit up for a swim. The water was very nice, as long as you stayed in it. Otherwise, the night was pretty brisk. The kids – especially Maya who I’m not sure even feels the cold before hypothermia sets in – climbed out of the pool and went down the slide over and over again. It was so, so much fun.

Move over Rockettes

The next morning, we had an excellent breakfast taco and chocolate muffin breakfast before heading out to meet the elephants. Five Asian elephants paraded down, trunk-to-tail, to where we were sitting. They were beautiful and so full of character. We learned their names and unique features. Rosie, Tai, Kitty, Dixie, and Becky – yes, all female – lined up and showed us what they could do. Tai made lots of racket whacking her trunk against building’s cross-beam. Rosie did lots of honking and trumpeting. All of them raised their trunks and feet and waggled their heads.

It was Becky’s turn to get a bath that day, so we all took turns giving her tough hide and wiry hair a good scrubbing. Ian was in love. I’m pretty sure he would have just laid down on her and hugged her if we had let him. Maya was having fun taking gobs of photos. She took a delightful one of an elephant’s rear end, of which she was very proud (not included below – you’re welcome).

Giving Becky a bath

We got to snuggle up to Tai to have our photos taken. Surprising no one, we had to remind the kids that this was a living creature who could squash them beneath one foot if they kept running under her trunk where she couldn’t keep an eye on them.

We got to watch the elephants’ feet get a bit of a trimming. Apparently in the wild, an elephant’s weight and general walking about are enough to keep the dead skin and build-up cleaned from their feet. But not at The Preserve. There the elephant’s don’t have to work too hard to find their next meal or drink of water, so their feet need to be “manicured” every so often to keep them healthy.

The elephants!

The elephants were wonderful. We got to see them paint, work a hula hoop, pick up a person. We got to watch as they ate carrots. Their mouths are so strange to look at in action. At the end, much to the kids’ delight, they called all the birthday people to the front and the elephants serenaded us with their own version of happy birthday.

We lined up for our family photo with all five of those glorious elephants before buying a few souvenirs and hopping in the car to head home. I suspect it will make very little difference, but I hope that I showed the kids that experiences do make really fantastic gifts. We all had a really nice time. And I certainly don’t need any more stuff.

The same day Lolli and Pop left to head back home from their Thanksgiving visit, we went to pick out our Christmas tree. It was sweaty warm outside, but that did nothing to dampen the kids’ spirits. Maya straight up insisted that we get a 9-foot tree this year. Our house is plenty tall enough for it, and we managed to get it home tied to the roof of the Prius, so I guess it worked out okay.

Yeah, this is often appropriate winter attire for the Austin climate.

We managed to cram Sean’s birthday in a few days later. We had dinner at Jack Allen’s Kitchen, which wound up being a pretty good option for both happy parents and appeased kids. Then we came home and had birthday cake.

Here’s the thing. Everything from late October through early January happens in a catch-as-catch-can fashion. I don’t remember when I baked Sean’s cake, but I’m sure I had to shoe-horn it in between other activities (tree decorating, Ian birthday prep, sleeping). I remember carefully putting the lid on the cake container, verifying ahead of time there was space for it, and then … nearly dropping the damned thing on my way to the refrigerator. Alas, everything looked fine, so I went about my business feeling happy that I had dodged that particular bullet because I wasn’t sure I had it in me to make another cake.

At least the cake *tasted* good.

Fast-forward to the evening of Sean’s birthday. I brought out the cake and lifted the lid and could do nothing but laugh. The butter-rich icing had been pretty soft when I iced the cake. My near-cake-death episode caused the top layer to slide a bit sideways from the bottom layer. And then the buttery icing hardened up once it was cooled in the fridge. Sean’s cake resembled some sort of modern architecture, except badly frosted. Anyway, it tasted good.

Ian had his Christmas program at school. He had been singing all the songs for what felt like weeks, and so it was no surprise that he sang along like a boss during his program.

Somebody enjoyed his birthday party!

Ian had been asking to go to Catch Air for his birthday since Maya’s birthday party there last year. Its name has changed to Playmazing, but otherwise it’s the same place he has always loved (or at least it was this past December). We were sweating it a little. We sent his paper invitations to school right after Thanksgiving. By the week or so before his party, we had only a couple or three responses, so we sent a second note to school basically begging people to go. We managed to work ourselves into one of the largest party rooms they have, and seating was still tight. Thank you parents for bringing your kids to Ian’s birthday even though the holidays are SO BUSY!

Santa!

We took the kids to the fancy outdoor mall to chat with Santa. The kids both made Christmas lists to leave with him. Maya’s list reflected her love of vehicles … ALL THE VEHICLES … airplane, submarine, school bus, compost truck – you name it! Ian decided to shoot his shot, reality be damned. He dictated and I typed; all ideas on that list were 100% his own. Here’s a sample: magic wand that works, wings that can really fly, baby chick that’s in a cage so it doesn’t fly away, remote control dump truck, wind-up chick – three of them, snow globe – princesses. See what I mean?

Hand-sewn ornaments.

Maya has been a sewing fiend throughout 2019 and decided that she’d like to sew felt Christmas ornaments for gifts this year. She sewed decorations onto the felt, and then stitched together and stuffed the ornament body. I had planned to have Ian do something similar but with hot glue instead, but he insisted on trying to sew. We compromised. We glued on his decorations, but he sewed the front and back of the ornaments together. Honestly, he did pretty well, though he runs out of interest faster than Maya does.

Ian and his bicycle.

We managed to have a relaxed family Christmas in Austin before the travel craziness. We ran out of time to make Santa cookies and I didn’t realize the kids would want to leave carrots for the reindeer, so we wound up leaving a cookie-cuttered brownie and some broccoli. Maya felt bad and left Santa an apology note … which Santa responded to! The kids were thrilled.

The big deal gifts this year were: a bike for Ian (which he’s been wanting since Maya’s really started riding hers this summer) and a digital camera for our photo-crazy daughter. Because it’s Texas and hardly ever really cold, we’ve been able to take Ian out on his bike a few times, and while he’s still rocking the training wheels, he does seem very proud to ride it. Maya is a prolific photographer. There are few things that escape her interest when a camera is in her hand.

There we are.

Christmas travel was, as I recall, uneventful this year. In Missouri, we got to see all our many, many cousins and most of their parents (poor Aunt Katie was sick). As usual, we made sure we took the kids to see Great Grandma. We went to the Stueve family Christmas, where I’m pretty sure the kids had a dinner of soda, chips, and various desserts. We had a day that was warm enough that the kids got to go play at the creek.

Merry Christmas!

We went to Aunt Darci, Uncle Will, AP, and Steele’s house in northern Virginia this year for the Woods family Christmas this year. The kids got to play Mario Cart with their cousins, ride the Metro into DC, and see a bit of the Natural History museum. They had fun spotting the Washington Monument both when our flight landed and as we were traveling around. Maya tried to wear out the button on her new digital camera, so much was she happily snap-snap-snapping away.

Oreo cookie “gingerbread” house. Constructed in January, after the hubbub had died down.

Back in Austin, we let the kids stay up late enough to ring in the new year on the 31st. And since I never managed to work it in throughout the holidays, they had fun putting together a pre-packaged Oreo cookie house a few days later. We survived the holidays!

Maya had been having headaches off and on this year, some severe enough to cause her to vomit. We had the idea that she might be needing glasses, or at very least, it was something we should rule out before taking her to the doctor. Back in November, Sean took her to the eye doctor, and sure enough, she needed very slight vision correction. They negotiated over glasses frames and eventually settled on a snazzy blue-green polka dotted pair. I think they really suit her, and better still, they seem to have helped with the headaches.

Cute in her glasses! Also, DIMPLE!!!!!!!

The Maya girl had been eagerly planning and anticipating her birthday party for weeks, deciding early on that she wanted an under-the-sea theme. She continues to be obsessed with goodie bags, so we purchased and filled those. She requested to have a heart-shaped cake with pink icing (you know, to go with her under-the-sea theme). Because SO MANY kids were coming, I made a couple dozen chocolate cupcakes as well.

Trampoline fun at Maya’s 7th birthday party!

You may recall that Maya is not fond of the smell of fire. We made a deal with her, which she agreed to: we would get a single “7” shaped candle instead of lighting seven individual candles. When it came down to it though, she cried real tears and discovered she was unable to extinguish the candle while pinching her nose shut. Luckily, her friends stepped in to help.

Ian had fun at Maya’s birthday too!

We decided on Tumble Tech since she had been to a friend’s birthday there and really loved it. The kids spent about an hour in the gymnastics area and seemed to have a ton of fun.  We hastily had snacks and cake in the party room, which was not well organized, especially for such a large group of kids. Then ended their afternoon in the parkour area of the facility.

After packing up the leftover food and all the gifts, we hurried home to open said gifts and then loaded up the car for a trip to Dallas. Why would we drive all the way to Dallas after a frenetic day of party prep and partying execution and party aftermath? Cats.

Our two fancy cats

Over the summer, I had gotten the bright idea to introduce the kids to the songs from the Cats musical. They really latched onto it, singing along and asking questions about what some of the lyrics meant. We knew the traveling show was coming through Austin, and Sean had been watching for tickets. They day they went on sale was a rough work day for both of us, and so we didn’t get to check into tickets till that evening. Sure enough, by then they were essentially sold out of any seat we might have wanted. He very quickly made the decision to buy tickets for the Dallas show instead; it just so happened it was on the logical weekend for Maya’s birthday celebration. And so, we drove to Dallas Saturday night for wonderful seats at the Sunday afternoon performance of Cats.

The kids did great. They were fidgety, but they really loved it. We were sooooo close to the stage. We could see the expressions on the performers’ faces, the detail of their make-up, and maybe a bit more of their anatomy than we had bargained for given their tight-fitting costumes. Ian in particular has already asked to see it again. Go figure, since he regularly tells us he wants to be a singing dancer when he grows up.

Coupla hams, these two!

The weekend before Thanksgiving, we were scheduled to take the kids to see Frozen II at an Alamo Drafthouse family party. Maya and Ian dressed up, Maya in her snowflake dress, Ian in his Anna costume. They made snowflake wands and reindeer hats. They decorated snowman cookies. They participated in a singalong. Heck, they even watched the movie. I think they had fun, but both of them had a tough time sitting through the entire show.

Fruit turkeys!

Lolli and Pop made the long drive to Austin to spend Thanksgiving with us. We had to work it in pretty early thanks to variable fall weather, but Maya got to take her long-awaited bicycle ride with Pop. Lolli had a cute craft prepared for the kids; they built turkeys out of halved pears and other various fruits, toothpicks, and googly eyes. They chilled out and watched Lolli’s favorite movie, A Christmas Story, which the kids hadn’t seen before.

Well, I think *one* of them is comfortable.

I had the benefit of working my Thanksgiving dinner prep in at a leisurely pace. We had ordered brisket ahead of time from Franklin Barbecue. I tried out deep-frying some turkey legs for the smoke-averse daughterling and anyone else who preferred turkey over brisket. (Who *are* you people???) Between Holly and I, we made six pies for four kids and six grown-ups. There was dressing, green bean salad, mashed potatoes, hasselback sweet potatoes, creamed Brussels sprouts, and store-bought yeast rolls. I think those dumb rolls were the only dud in the bunch – everything else was straight-up tasty.

On Friday, the kids put up their little Christmas tree and spent time with their grandparents. And then on Saturday, Lolli and Pop started their long journey back home.

In early October, we snuck in our second-ever visit to the Texas State Fair. We’d have liked to wait for cooler weather, but it just wasn’t an option this year. I kid you not, on both Saturday and Sunday, it was 100 degrees outside. I had spent most of the summer reminding Sean that we hadn’t turned on our sprinklers till July, that we hadn’t had that many 100-degree days, that for Texas this summer really wasn’t so bad. Well, I take back all the nice things I’ve said. Our September felt like a second August that happened to bleed over into October. It was horrible.

Sweating amongst the fall pumpkins at the Dallas Arboretum

We thought we’d do the fair on Saturday and then visit the Dallas Arboretum on Sunday morning. After circling the entire fairgrounds and finding zero parking (at least none that wasn’t in some dude’s driveway or in some business’s lot), we decided to reverse our plans. And that is how we found ourselves wandering the incredible grounds of the Dallas Arboretum, fully bedecked in its fall finery, on a sweltering October afternoon.

The sheer quantity of pumpkins and gourds was staggering, the colorful variety providing a beautiful autumn palette that clashed mightily with the sweat rolling down our faces. The theme was, “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” and the sculptures, topiaries, and pumpkin buildings did not disappoint. We spent a good amount of time in the area running through mazes, hiding in pumpkin-festooned fields, and pretending to play Schroeder’s piano. We ventured beyond the fall festivities as well. The Children’s Garden in particular was really fun for both kids and grown-ups.

Knowing how hot it was going to be, Sean had made sure to find a hotel with a pool, and I think we were all looking forward to being in the nice cool water after that blistering afternoon walk through the gardens. Alas, that hotel pool was *really* cold. Maya, being Maya, didn’t care at all. Ian on the other hand had bluish lips and a distinct chatter when he told us over and over again he wanted to keep swimming. We thought we might warm up a bit in the hot tub, but wrong again! It was so hot that none of us were willing to actually get in it. Oh well, the swim was refreshing and the kids seemed to have a lot of fun.

Maya is right up front. Ian and I are about four cars back.

We got to Fair Park the next morning right as things started opening up. Last year, we had learned that the kids’ favorite part had been the rides, so we tried to front-load our visit with those activities before the lines got too long. Sean was collecting some data on how well the kids tolerated various kinds of rides in preparation for our spring break trip to Disney World. At least back in October, Ian was unsure about rollercoasters that moved at any pace beyond a pleasant chug. Maya (surprise) was all in, even daring to ride by herself on one of them.

Maya and Ian had fun going through the children’s farm exhibit. They got to put on aprons and pretend to be farmers for a little while. We visited lots of different animas and fed many of them. We even got to see a kangaroo with a little joey in its pouch. A lot of the animals looked stressed or just plain miserable. It could be that a pen at the state fair is not their favorite place to be.

Texas Longhorn – ready to gore the less than diligent fair patron

Naturally, we partook of a few of the deep-fried delicacies on offer. Our favorite was the fried fettuccini alfredo. Another standout was some kind of “burnt ends” enchilada / taco situation. The kids had (sigh) chicken fingers. After a run through to play a few games and to ride just a couple more rides, we loaded up in the car and made the long and somewhat sweaty drive back to Austin.

Maya skating

Not long after the fair, the kids had skate night at the local rink. I don’t know how to skate, so I watched as Sean took the kids out in turns to tool around the rink with their “skate mates.” Not wanting to miss out the next time we had a skate night, on our next date night, I requested that we go back so Sean could teach me. By the end of the night, I could haltingly make it around the rink, but of course this wasn’t achieved without a few falls. On the way home, my right wrist was hurting a bit, but I assumed I had just sprained it and went on my merry way.

Ian skating

When it had swollen noticeably and started to turn weird colors, I thought maybe an x-ray was in order. Sure enough, I had fractured a bone in my wrist (to this day, I cannot tell you which one). The first doctor I saw at the urgent care clinic was jovial enough about the whole thing. At one point, I shrugged and said something like, “They tried to tell me not to reach my arms out if I fell backward, but i just couldn’t avoid it.” She explained to me that probably my body was reacting whether I wanted it to or not. It happens so often, in fact, that they have a name for it: FOOSH or Falling On OutStretched Hands.

I didn’t ever have to wear a cast, just a brace, but it was my right wrist that I’d broken and I am right-handed, so our whole world had to slow down for a while. The first brace I wore (only for a few days, thankfully) actually immobilized my thumb. I have a cushy desk job, and I still found it nearly impossible to work like that. In our current January timeframe, I am brace-free but far from pain-free. The orthopedist warned me it could be six months or a year till my arm felt normal again, so I’m trying not to worry.

Ian – Fall 2019 – Age 4

During October, each kid had their school photos made. Maya still struggles with making the fake smile for a yearbook photo look natural, but I think she did a passable job this year. Plus she was super proud of her fancy dress. Ian is Ian and just can’t help but look cute in his photos.

Maya – Fall 2019 – Age 6

We ended the month with Halloween. Maya and Ian had had their costumes chosen for weeks (in Maya’s case, months), and bonus: I was able to order them from Amazon! The legs in Ian’s wound up being vastly too long. With my dumb broken wrist, I was unable to alter them, and when I suggested that we just cut off the feet (and a few inches of leg), I was met with two teary eyes and a big quivering lip, so I was essentially forced to come up with a solution. Luckily, a friend was able to make the alterations quickly. Unluckily, that friend was sick and wound up sewing the feet on backward. Whoops! The kids thought it was a total crack-up. I was thinking it was still ok; I could find a professional to just turn the feet around. I had plenty of time before actual trick or treating. Unfortunately, Ian wanted to wear his costume to his fall carnival, which was a few days earlier. We were fortunate to find one kind-hearted seamstress who rushed us in and got his costume fixed.

Ian at his carnival

We had amazing weather for the Saturday that featured both the fall carnival at Ian’s preschool and Dolphin Fest at Maya’s elementary school. At the carnival, Maya and Ian met reptiles, got their faces painted and hair colored, and they bounce-bounce-bounced through castles and slides and obstacle courses. At Dolphin Fest, they played games and redeemed their tickets for prizes.

Maya, at Ian’s carnival

Anna and the kids drew the jack-o-lanterns. Maya wanted a scary one and Ian wanted a happy one. Thanks to my dumb broken wrist, I didn’t really get to participate at all. Sean wound up gutting and carving the pumpkins for a change.

These two!

On Halloween night, poor Maya came home from school feeling headachy and nauseated. She managed to pull it together though for about an hour of trick-or-treating. A surprise package from Grammy and Grandpa supplied them with glow-in-the-dark swords for our perilous journey through the suburbs of Austin. Maya and Ian pulled in a giant haul of candy and seemed to have a lot of fun complimenting the neighbors on their beautiful houses. Next year though, we’ll have to have a talk about waiting outside on the doorstep instead of wandering right on in to people’s living rooms.

After our action-packed May, June, and early July, we purposefully kept the rest of the summer as unscheduled as possible. Chilling out around the house. Working through some of the Kiwi Crates that Santa had brought the kids for Christmas. In general, recuperating.

Ian and his unparalleled sense of style

Sean bequeathed all his boxes of Transformers to the kids over the summer, and they were hooked. To this day, when they remember they have them, they can easily while away a full hour or more playing with those Transformers. Some of them have suffered a bit at the kids’ hands, but so far, I don’t think it’s hurting Dad too much.

We had a couple of fun water outings with the McKee-Starling clan. We met them at Typhoon Texas one afternoon. Ian was pretty content to just putz around in the water, but once Maya got past her initial apprehension about the water slides, we could hardly get her to leave.

Ian and Mom at Typhoon Texas

The very next weekend, we hung out with them at their community pool for an afternoon. In Texas the pool water can sometimes get kinda warm and bath-like. It’s a little gross, but it’s still better than standing out in the unforgiving sun.

Snow cone at the pool

Also, toward the end of summer, Maya put aside her skateboard for a bit and learned to ride her bike. It’s really hilly around our house, and it’s hard for her to ride much there, so she’s largely learned in a nearby park.

As the start of school approached, we attended the ice cream social to meet Maya’s teacher for the first time and find her new classroom. We were stunned to find out that she’d be part of a co-teaching classroom. Two teachers and 37 students are all in a giant room. It’s not the environment I had imagined when I filled out the class-placement survey and explained Maya was very smart and capable, but had trouble sitting still and was easily distracted.

Ian told me it was an alien. I wondered if the alien’s name was Mr. Hanky.

The kids also went early and decorated the sidewalks leading into school with sidewalk chalk. I guess the nebulous octopuses that Maya drew and turd-shaped aliens that Ian created weren’t part of the program because the sidewalks had been washed clean by Maya’s first day of school. I have photographic evidence though :-)

Maya on her first day of first grade

And then school started. Maya was brimming with excitement and maybe a few nervous butterflies. Kindergarten had been such a positive experience for her, as far as we could tell, and she was looking forward to going back to school. The transition to first grade has been a tough one though. There’s a more rigid routine and the expectations are greater. Maya describes her teachers as strict. She is expected to follow instructions. She is expected to sit still in her seat and comply. These aren’t things that come naturally to our girl though, and she’s been struggling. We regularly get notes home about various behavioral issues; it has been stressful for all of us.

Luckily, she still tells us she enjoys going to school and says she likes her teacher. Fingers crossed that we can carry that through to the end of the school year.

Maya has been doing a lot of sewing. It started with a pre-formed, pre-holed animal sewing kit and progressed to a more free-form breakfast foods kit. I still cut the felt out for her, but she largely does the sewing herself these days. Nearly all of her creations go to Ian. For Maya, the joy appears to be in the creating of the item rather than the item itself.

Throughout the late summer and early fall, Ian had been on a notebook bender. He’d create little notebooks out of stapled together pieces of paper and then fill them with his name and Maya’s name. He eventually added Mom and Dad in there too. Occasionally, he’d ask us how to spell another word (“moon,” for example) and then that would make regular appearances for a few days before slipping back into Ian’s mental ether to be randomly called upon at some future time.

Ian and Maya at the baseball game, complete with rainbow

In September, we got to go to a Round Rock Express game, courtesy of Sean’s company. They rent a suite, offer up a bunch of food and drinks, and then let us relax and watch a baseball game. Maya LOVES it. Ian loves the food part, for sure, but I truly believe Maya is interested in the game. By the end of our time there, she had a basic comprehension of the rules and kept good track of the score. It was a double-header and one of the games was rain-delayed, so we had to leave without seeing it finish. Maya made sure to check on the score when she woke up the next morning to see whether her team had won.