Mid March when I dropped my kids off at daycare I was told they were shutting down the next day. I spent the day at work racking my brain about childcare plans when I was told by my work we were shutting down. Trading texts with my husband I discovered he was told the same thing. At least we didn’t have to worry about childcare… we came home to find a late bill (8 months late!) from the hospital for Kaden’s birth… $2,000. A memorable day to say the least.

Within days everything in Seattle had shut down and everyone was told to stay home (“stay home, stay safe”).

We spent the next couple weeks scrambling to get life back on track (any track) between our different obligations and eventually found a routine (or in-routine). Of course this routine had to be changed again after three weeks when my clinic started doing teletherapy, and then going back to work a few weeks later, but we very much lived one day at a time (now, in August we’re more at two weeks at a time).

Every moment we could was spent outdoors and together.

We live close to a cemetery so that was an easy green space to visit regularly without a tempting playground nearby.

I know many people have been using video calls through Zoom, FaceTime, etc. but we didn’t do that too frequently with the kids because it was a bit confusing to a three and one year old. Every once in a while we did though, in addition to lots of texting between the adults.

Kaya got a scooter for her birthday and became very proficient during stay at home orders. We were out daily and at one point Kaya was even riding her scooter from the kitchen to the bathroom (she got very good at tight turns).

For some reason this patch of grass down the street became the place to run / dance / listen to Elmo’s dance party.

Kaden went from sitting to crawling to walking (first with a little assistance from big sister). He started walking at ten months (Kaya was exactly one year) to try to catch up to big sister).

We started a bunch of plants indoors, taking them outside every morning and taking back in every night (I transplanted them later and we now have a flourishing garden and have been eating from it all summer).

The kids had a definite need for climbing that wasn’t being met by playgrounds but we thankfully have some big rocks in the front yard for climbing.

I had already been trying to learn to cook from scratch but being home allowed me to accelerate learning (for me and for Kaya… learning some letters anyway).

We also quarantined with our friends, the family next door. None of us were going into work so we knew it was a really low risk with high reward to let the kids play (and a nice perk for us to socialize too).