Ashton turns 9!

Along came August 3rd, 2020 (argh yes I'm so behind!) and all of a sudden, our first born was NINE YEARS OLD. Half of this past year he's basically been in isolation with the exception of one or two friends, which is crazy to say. But it has not affected his energy, curiosity or sweetness. He's just the best and he's an amazing older brother. The night of his actual birthday was pretty minimal since we had already had a couple mini family celebrations in New York and Vermont. So we got cupcakes and he got to open a few more presents, one of which was a video camera for making "Youtube videos" ;) 

I had asked the parents of his friends and classmates to make him friendship bracelets and cards and he got a TON of birthday mail as a result (mainly from girls ;) ). It was really wonderful. But well Alex freaked out, he was SO upset, kept saying it wasn't fair, etc. etc. He cried and cried and generally had a really hard time that it was Ashton's birthday and not his. See his face? Grainy picture, but aw.

But then Ashton was Ashton and gave Alex a candle for his cupcake and shared his balloon. 

That really worked out because Alex actually is 6.

Now, without further ado, ASHTON'S STATS!! 

Height: 4 feet 8 inches (!!)

Weight: 72 pounds (!!!)
Vision: 20/20

Clothes size: Boys/Youth M or a 10 (preferably anything Under Armour)

Shoe size: Youth 3 (!!!!) 

Hair: Blond (although in all these pictures, it's blue -> see Favorite Movie)

Eyes: Blue

Cavities: None. At his cleaning a couple weeks ago the dentist came out and was a bit bewildered. He said "So, Ashton's teeth are, um, really white. Like, shockingly white for his age." And when I tell you that comment was the biggest feather I've put in my motherhood hat, well you don't even know lol. Last spring I got one of these and I've used it on the boys several times a week since then. I didn't know when we would ever go back to the dentist! But now we have and Alex came out of the same appointment and announced  "My teeth are so white, I make MILK jealous!" 

Allergies: Eggs, sesame, environmental (dogs, dust mites). This is a bit perplexing I admit. He had his adenoids out last year and he's on twice daily Rx nasal spray and Claritin and his nose is annoyingly, frustratingly, ALWAYS stuffy. He can never breathe through it without serious effort. His pedi just suggested trying Singulair as even though it's for asthma, it's shown to have some benefit for allergies. The only other thing left is immunotherapy and shots. Luckily he doesn't know the difference but it's difficult :(

No fail dinner food: stromboli

Favorite Movie(s): Descendants 1, 2 and 3. These are teeny bopper Disney movies and it pains me to admit, the soundtracks are painfully catchy. And all the characters look like this, hence the boys' hues.

Favorite Song: Bad Guy by Billie Eilish (obviously he has no idea what she's saying or what the song means). Also Yummy by Justin Bieber ("He has a really good singing voice Mommy doesn't he." But same comment applies luckily haha)

Sports: Under COVID-safe guidelines, he is playing on a flag football team in Newton which he loves so far and he made Squirt C in hockey. 

Religion: Catholic by force but not really very much. CCD is online this year (I am teaching again) and his first communion was postponed from last spring and coming up October 31. Yes that's Halloween but everything is already such a circus on that day anyway, why not add a sacrament?

How he spends his time: Ashton does love the iPad. He loves to watch Dude Perfect, Lego tutorials and people solving Rubik's cubes at blistering and unrealistic paces. He wants to have a channel on YouTube Kids (so does Alex, hence the trouble with the camera above) but really what Ashton is best at is digging into things. He'll have a day where is is totally into paper airplanes. It's all he'll do and they will go through 75 sheets of paper, test fly them, color them, time them, talk about why a particular one is so cool, etc. "WATCH HOW FAR THIS ONE FLIES MOMMY!!! WATCH!!!"

Then the next day it will be a yo-yo. He'll search for videos of tricks, spend the day practicing, obsessing over the string ("Can you please untie this knot again? I can't yo-yo with a knot!") and of course complain he needs a new one because the one he has is "for kids". 

The day after that, Pokemon. Neighborhood boys will come over, there will be trading frenzies, he will file the new ones in his binder, look them up, talk about their power and of course ask me to go buy more. 

The funny thing here is that while these are often one-day fads, he is SO into it that I almost DO go get him a new yo-yo, or a fresh Pokemon pack, or a book on how to fold 15 different kinds of paper airplanes. That's Ashton - he's interested and curious and will dive deep. And all his friends (and his brother) follow suit. If the activity of the day is a Nerf war, guess what - he will have every kid in the neighborhood showing up with their guns. He's a very natural leader but doesn't intend to be. He just likes what he likes and when he thinks things are SO COOL, it's so authentic that it's hard not to agree :) 

Final word: Ashton is silly, sweet, and so good. It's what we always say about him. He's a genuinely good boy. He doesn't lie and he doesn't understand injustice or why anyone would ever be mean. You tell him things and he listens - he hears you and absorbs it. He works hard to understand things he sees or hears that he don't look or sound right. He cries when he's frustrated. But after all that, you know he knows, and you can see the wheels turning as he files it away. 

Also, he eats a TON - someone send grocery money.

God Ashton we love you so much!!! Happy 9th honey XOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

July 4th

Still in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic here. Most notable in today's news is that yesterday, Tuesday, July 16, 2020, the US recorded 61,000 new cases, which is the largest single day total seen so far. That beat the largest single day total record that was Monday, which beat Sunday, and so on. People in the midwest and South don't want to wear masks and it's so unbelievably, infuriatingly obvious where this is going.

For us though, I feel like we are in the eye of the storm. We have excellent numbers and downward trends right now, but I'm expecting that the virus will circulate and come back to the Northeast. In the meantime, we have made some small decisions to enjoy the summer as safely as possible, which started with a trip to visit Jason's family, as we usually do on July 4/July 6, for America's birthday and Jason's birthday, respectively.

A couple days at the beach...

A couple dinners...

 

A couple dips in the pool...

A couple fireworks on the 4th...

And one 43rd birthday :)

Alex painstakingly made Jason a little holder for his iPhone at night while it is charging. Out of Legos. He was SO proud:

It almost felt normal! The ferries were empty and every other table was X'ed off, and of course we didn't go out for cocktails or shopping or anything. But seeing family we hadn't seen in months and months was so wonderful. I'm headed to Vermont tomorrow to do the same thing and I can't wait!

COVID-19: Month 1

Monster post warning.

So the first couple weeks were overwhelming. When would this end? How was I supposed to work all day with the kids constantly interrupting? Was the house ever NOT going to be a mess? Is school...over? Is life...over? I admit, my stress level was really high and if you've ever had tension headaches, you know that they laugh at any OTC meds and then persist. I had some bad days. My sister put it the best way and I love how spot on her points were. She said the problem is, any moment of the day could be spent on one of 4 things:

1)  House needs - dishes, laundry, mopping, general tidying. The constant flow of stuff and things that need to be cleaned and put away. I personally can't function is a messy and disorganized house but fighting this, when you have four people that share four walls, 24 hours a day, often seems futile.
2) Work (like, our actual jobs that pay us)
3) Our children: engaging them, playing with them, giving them our undivided attention whilst thinking about numbers 1 and 2
4) Self-care (exercising, quiet time, or anything that is focused on ourselves. It is #4 on this list for a reason because it almost always comes last, even though it's critical)

Once the struggle was defined in those terms, I learned to let go pretty quickly because you can't do those 4 things at one time. No one can, and no one is asking you to except yourself. So there was that. And I'll also admit, there was an underlying ease in the fact that we were not supposed to be anywhere, see anyone, do anything. We were home, and then home, and then home some more. And so was everyone else. There was no fear of missing out, no "everyone else has plans, is out doing XYZ, being productive/having fun/whatever." Pretty much everyone we knew took the stay at home order very seriously, so there were no hard feelings about not seeing neighbors or friends. We were all in the same boat. Or actually, all in separate boats on the same ocean. ?. Whatever. It looked like this.

Month 1: March 13 - April 13, 2020

I'll preface this by saying, I did what the experts told me to do and made up a nice daily schedule. Just because we were all home didn't mean everything was going down the tubes. No no, we would be civilized. There would be a set time for snack, screen time, forced outdoor exercise, and designated periods for reading and other wholesome activities like workbooks. I even printed it and put it on the fridge.

It was great, I was great, everything was great. We totally did it and made it all the way to the halfway mark on Day 1. If you refer to the above, the boys got the iPads at 1:30 pm and that proved to be my demise. I needed that time to actually work, they were so quiet, so we skipped reading and then ran late and before I knew it, buh bye Daily Schedule. 

In its place though, a lot of fine things happened :) Besides Alex turning 6 which was right away (already documented, thankssss), there was some:

50% shirtless Lego building

Family fitness

Hopscotch (before playgrounds closed)

50% shirtless mini billiards

Ninja training

Acorn crafts

I'll let you caption this one: 

Like, what the.

But then, more hopscotch

Tennis (before they took the nets down)

Cornhole

More Legos

Slot cars

Chess, lots of it! In these first ones they are playing a friend via Facetime :)

More tennis (after the nets were taken down) 

 Some learning

Puzzles 

 And it randomly snowed. 

I hit my 200th ride on my Peloton

We explored the woods around our house on a few separate occasions

Became pen pals

 And generally, things to keep us busy. Games, old Halloween costumes, stuff with wheels, house and tree work, and eventually we got so bored we started walking the neighbor's dog.

 

On March 25, Natick launched remote learning/online school. It was huge - it gave the kids their teachers back and little did they know, they would not see their classmates in person again for the rest of the year.

And so began 9 weeks of Zoom and Google Meets and Google Hangouts and Google Classroom and Facetime and Seesaw and Epic and Raz Kids and Freckle and all the electronic and online platforms and apps. 

Month 2 up next...