life with jack

jack turned twenty months on this 20th day of october, so i declared it to be his mini golden birthday. to celebrate, we thought we'd document a few of the fun things we're loving about jack right now:

• he loves playing with balls...footballs, basketballs, any kind of ball. and he excitedly yells "ball ball!" anytime he sees one.

• whenever he spots the chiefs logo or a football game on tv [which happens a lot at our house] he puts his arms up and says "touchdoooown chieeeefs!"

• he has loads of hilarious faces and expressions: the sneaky, innocent look when he is trying to get something that's off limits; his big eyes when he runs across a room; the squinty eyes when he's copying daddy; the surprised face he makes just for fun; and the big, toothy grin when he sees a phone and says "cheeeese!"

• the awesome bouncy dance moves he breaks into almost every time he hears music.

• he's still an embarrassingly good sleeper and our quarantine rhythm has him sleeping in L. A. T. E. 

• the sing-song way he signs and says please, which sounds exactly like "peas." it's one of my favorite sounds. 

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that pandemic life

we've been living the pandemic life for about six months now, and while our pace of life is a little slower, in a lot of ways things aren't all that different from before. donald works at the hospital two or three nights a week, and jack and i spend most of our days hanging out at home. while we would certainly prefer to be going on adventures and spending more time with friends, overall being at home still feels pretty normal.

but there are many things we've become accustomed to over these past six months that are decidedly not normal. we wear masks everywhere we go and everywhere you look there are signs and floor stickers reminding us to stay six feet apart. grocery stores are well stocked again, but paying with cash isn't always an option due to a national coin shortage. we can't visit the library in person, so we reserve our books online and pick them up curbside. getting takeout food doesn't feel as risky as it once did, but actually eating inside of a restaurant is a rarity for us.

schools are a mixed bag. many districts have some form of in person learning, while others remain fully virtual. churches are able to hold services, and we've been a handful of times, but it isn't at all what we're used to. while there is some comfort in actually sitting in the sanctuary as opposed to watching online, and a welcome feeling of community with those we see on a sunday morning, things are very obviously not as they should be. the lights in the lobby are dim. there is no nursery or toddler room for jack to explore. there are many faces we don't get to see and our beloved lakeland lunches have been confined to zoom or the occasional socially distanced park visit.

there are stretches when we're at home for so many days in a row that i kind of forget how different everything is [except when all the pools were closed this summer...that i always remembered]. but there is no arguing that we are living in strange times. 

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the one where we were all in quarantine

these are certainly strange times. our little family was already adjusting to a temporary new normal as we were spending much of our time in st. louis helping my mom through chemo, and then everything changed. for a time the news was shifting significantly hour by hour. schools and universities were closing. professional and collegiate sports cancelled. the number of people permitted to gather in one place started dropping and didn't stop. it all happened so fast. 

we didn't know what we were getting into. no one did. i was especially nervous about my mom contracting covid with her weakened immune system. we didn't eat any outside food for two solid months, not even takeout. we wore masks to the grocery store, where we sometimes had to wait in line to get in. many shelves were empty and the toilet paper aisle was always bare. methodically wiping down each grocery item as it was unpacked was a chore. we went exactly nowhere else.

time had almost no meaning as the days blurred together, but there was still good. there were things that brought joy in the midst of so much uncertainty. these are some of those things:

• daily walks with jack [and in an ideal spot no less]

• lakeland lunch zooms

• lots of jigsaw puzzles

• jack's falling off the chair video

• lakeland's easter benediction

• donald playing with jack over facetime

• the parks & rec special

• mom's birthday parade

• the marco polo app

• colt clark & the quarantine kids

• a family size package of original chips ahoy cookies

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