Busy and "Watchy"

Life has been a whirlwind here to say the least. We visited family and friends for baptisms and first communions. Kids started school. Olivia started daycare for the first time (no crying by day 6!) The garden is coming in and demanding to be dealt with. (Anyone need peppers?) Coronavirus officially hit 2 houses on our block.

Teaching for me was delayed a week because of coronavirus. With the extra time, I have been over-prepping my Spanish classes. The internet is a blessing and a curse when it comes to ideas for teaching. It's basically like going into one of those ice cream shops with 58 flavors and unlimited samples. So many good ideas! I'll start with this one. No, this one. No, that one. I have redone my first week lesson plans 3 times this week. I really need to remind myself to just take it one day at a time. Especially given we never know what the next day will bring with this pandemic.

Maybe I will find time to fill more details of our life later but for now, I really just hopped on to share one great quote from Frankie.

Picking him up from daycare yesterday, I asked him if he was hungry. He said, "Yeah. And watchy."

"Watchy?"

"Yeah."

"What's 'watchy?'"

"It's when you want to watch a show."

And not to leave you hanging - in no particular order - here are some pictures.

Charlie on a horse named Charlie.

Making big waves in Sorensens' pool.

Cuteness.

Gabby's baptism!

Us (You can't imagine how much work it took to get us all corralled for this picture).

Fun with friends at the lake!

Day trip!

Here are a few pictures from a day-trip we took to Ortonville last month. The plan was to take a boat out to an island on Big Stone Lake but it started to storm about 30 seconds after we pulled up to the lake. Also, Olivia really hates boat rides. That's way too much time confined to one spot for her. 

So instead we went to a wildlife reserve and climbed a big rocky hill. Saw some goats. Had a great time after all. 

Elena was not thrilled to have Charlie join in on the sisters picture:

Trying times

 At age 4, Frankie can be as sweet as apple pie. He can also throw a major tantrum over the littlest thing. 

Yesterday was a rough day for him. In the morning he decided he wanted a certain dragon toy to play with. The problem was that he decided to get rid of that particular toy about a year ago so we donated it to the thrift store. Try as I may to explain that it would be impossible to track it down, he insisted I find it and get it for him. "You gave it away! You can go and get it."

Not long after, he asked me to play a song on Alexa. Only he didn't know the name of the song. Or any of the lyrics. His specific request was, "Play that song that you played once when I was probably 3." When I told him I had no idea what song he was referring to, he kept insisting "Mom! You know the song. You have played it before and I liked it!" 

After more helpful details like, "It has a lot of boys" and "It goes kind of like this: da-da-da-da" I wasn't much closer to guessing. At one point I asked if it was a Beatles song, and he replied with a groan and a completely exasperated voice, "Mom! Why are you messing up your life???!!"

I finally scrolled through my history on amazon and played some songs that had been played in the last couple of months. And we found it! It was "Wipe Out." (which I had actually guessed when he said the "da-da-da-da" but he said, "NO! Not that one!") I'm not sure how he thought it had lots of boys since there are no voices, but whatever. 

1 out of 2 crises averted isn't bad. He was still upset about the missing dragon at bedtime.

Maybe he just needs to spend more time in meditation: