Year: 2020

Nothing like waiting until MLK Day to post about Thanksgiving. Heh. Truth be told, I was several paragraphs into my Christmas post and then realized I had completely missed it (and only because I was scrolling through my photos and saw the turkey). That’s just how things are going.

And the skilled child labor we employed for the apple peeling. I won’t tell you how many times the apples “slipped” into the trash. “OOPS Mommy. Still good, right? Right?”

We turned on the Macy’s Day Parade (well, this year’s version – still festive!) and filled the day by cooking of course.

I did the turkey burn Peloton ride with more than 40,000 other people!

Bloody Mary’s and shrimp and Phase 10:

Um, then whiskey sours…

And then dinner.

We all said what we were thankful for and in the end, talked about how we have so very much. Our plates and hearts were full and these two even tried the green beans.

This and (other Christmas miracles) up next! 

That’s 40. As in, how old I am. Like most posts this year, this one is extremely backdated (it’s actually December 29!). I’ve been 40 for going on 6 weeks already. It’s fine so far? Although lately I’ve seen some pictures of myself and it’s questionable. Like what is this. 

So here I am at age 40, in my heated vest (see above) and the weird wrinkle in my cheek (see above above). I can’t think of a number I’d rather be or a life I’d rather have. So very, very happy 🙂 xoxo

October 31, 2020 was a pretty unique day! Besides the fact that it was a blue moon and we were recovering from a blizzard the day before, it was Ashton’s First Communion! As a CCD teacher (ahem), this means that he was receiving the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the body and blood of Christ, for the first time. Now this is a big deal in the Roman Catholic church and I still remember my first communion, my dress, the white patent leather shoes, and the party afterwards. It usually happens in the Spring but since we were on lockdown basically, it was rescheduled to several Saturdays this fall and Ashton’s was on Halloween. He wore a blazer and tie and generally looked so big I almost couldn’t take it. We had to leave Alex at a friend’s because, no siblings, and the church, although empty, still felt special.

And that was it! No brunch afterwards, no nothing, but a mere 5 hours later and it was time for Halloween! 

Our neighborhood, I will say, really stepped it up. People sat around their firepits in order to greet trick-or-treaters outside and most houses had a table or some other kind of display where kids could take candy in a socially distanced way. We walked around with the Stahls and the kids got a TON of candy – everyone really overcompensated. There was no pizza party or hanging out after, and it was cold, but there was no wind and ended up being quite enjoyable 🙂 

First, our set up. Ooo, a man-eating spider!!

And then the costumes. Alex was a skeleton and Ashton, for the second year in a row, just decided to wear his football outfit.

Notice Jason helping in the background LOL.

And just because this post is feeling a tad lack-luster (for how AWESOME my Halloween posts usually are 😉 ) I’m going to link to Ashton and Alex’s first Halloween as brothers, when everything felt like this.

We are heading back to hockey practices this afternoon after a two week shut-down, but cases are on the rise again here. Add to that, it’s been 5 days and they still haven’t called the presidential election, and things are feeling a bit precarious. Off I go to eat some candy…

Well to state the obvious, summer is long gone. The kids have been in hybrid school for the past month, Halloween decorations are up, and it gets dark at 6 pm. Waaahhhhh. 

But what is there to say about this summer? Covid wreaked havoc on the majority of our vacation plans and the boys didn’t go to a single camp. For several months straight they managed to entertain themselves within the confines of the neighborhood, in our friends’ pool, and wherever their bikes could take them. It was kind of glorious. Yes we had our moments of boredom, but it was a time in our lives unlike any before and I honestly think we made the most of it. The boat helped 😉

Let’s start at Memorial Day weekend and the time we bought a 2000 Chaparral 180 SSE (a little 18 foot motorboat specifically purchased to fit through the tiniest tunnel imaginable. But we’ll get to that). Knowing that a) I was going to be remote all summer b) any plans for activities for the boys were cancelled c) we did not join Longfellow d) the beaches, at the beginning, were closed or at least closed to non-residents and e) there wouldn’t be any parties or events to look forward to, I knew we needed something good. I said Jason, we are simply going to need to buy a boat 😀

So we did! Now, Lake Cochituate is 5 minutes away and has three sections: North Lake, Middle Lake, and South Lake. The boat launch is in Middle Lake but the only place that towables and water sports are allowed is South Lake. And the only way to get there is through this tunnel. 

That one tries to decapitate you. Anyway, once you’ve made it through these tunnels, you are free to tube, waterski, or however you want to recreate. And it’s so so fun. We spent the summer on all three of the lakes, swimming, floating, kneeboarding and generally lazing on the water with select family and friends.

It’s a lot of pictures, friends, because it truly was our entire summer. I’ll save you from the videos 😉

In the middle of the summer there was July 4, and then the rest of July and August was a mish mash of Long Island, a couple trips to Vermont, Ashton’s birthday, some time in our friends’ pool, a few family visits here and there and a lot of hanging out with neighbors and all. 

In no particular order, and sorry it IS a lot, I have got to stop cramming 6 blog posts into one!! 

LASTLY, Labor Day weekend, we went to Martha’s Vineyard for a few days with our neighbors that have become super close friends of ours, the Stahls. It was gorgeous and a perfect way to end it all. Wait, that didn’t come out right. You know what I mean 😉

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

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 🙂

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!

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.

 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.

Friday, March 13, 2020 was the first day of the COVID-19 shut down. No more work, no more school. Statewide shelter-in-place advisory to “flatten the curve”. The news was terrifying, the weather was bad, and except for essential workers and the occasional grocery trip, we were all to go home and stay there. No shopping, no restaurants, no commuting, no events, no sports, nothing in person. Jason and I commenced working from home and then a week or two later, the Natick schools managed to get an online program together. It was strange, scary, and surreal.

I haven’t quite known how to document everything. The weeks have ticked by and once we hit Saturday, June 13, 2020, I was like omg. The three month mark. Although Massachusetts has begun to re-open, the virus is not gone (and in fact, case numbers are surging in half of US states that are behind us on the timeline) and we are basically still home. We don’t even know what “normal” means anymore. You can’t go out without a mask, you can’t come within 6 feet of anyone in public, and we are all anxiously awaiting the decisions about school in the fall.

There have been a lot of ups and downs in the community as a whole. In the beginning, fear. And hostility towards people who were perceived as not “following the rules”. Despair, at being in our homes day after day, and watching one thing after another be cancelled. But then, hope and solidarity. This affects every.single.person. We united in that fact and the collective efforts to stop the spread. In Massachusetts, I can tentatively say, it seems to be working.

The COVID-19 pandemic will be a historical time and I suspect what we’ve experienced so far is only the beginning. Disruptions and lockdowns will persist into next year. And keeping with this blog’s purpose, I’d like to keep track of this time in our lives, this completely unprecedented time in our lives, so my goal for the next posts will be Months 1, 2, and 3. Come along for the ride!

Jumping right in, usually my Mother’s Day posts are kind of like “well it was Mother’s Day, Jason worked, it wasn’t the best, here’s a picture, the end.” Don’t worry, I’m not going to break the mold. Although there was one main difference: due to COVID-19, Jason didn’t have to work! But…womp womp. Due to COVID-19, it still wasn’t the best. Not much happened (hey, perfect intro for a blog post! Keep them wanting more wink wink).

So, okay, first. Woke up to cute present, flowers, and cards.

We’re like two weeks past Easter now right – oh well. Turns out that stay-at-home orders really turn every day into the same day and then they FLY by. You’re all “what the heck happened?” especially when you realize we have been home for six weeks. But during that time birthdays and holidays still roll through and Easter was no different. I’ll admit, I was toying with the idea of skipping. Easter could have come and gone and the boys would have had pretty much no clue. But then it was mentioned on one of their classroom chats and their little ears perked right up. Eggs and candy! How many days Mommy? How many days until the Easter Bunny comes??

We managed to pull together some baskets and while we knew that Sunday mass was being live-streamed, we didn’t watch it Instead we did the usual egg hunt and then we went for a family hike to Pegan Hill in South Natick. It wasn’t a long one but it did get VERY muddy and it was quite strange to pass people and have them wearing masks and pull over 6 feet. One of the things I’ve noticed about social distancing is that people have kind of stopped smiling too. Just because you have to maintain personal space doesn’t mean you can’t look at people and greet them right? It happens everywhere now! Even people walking by our house. So weird. Smiling and waving doesn’t make the virus more contagious. But anyway as you’ll see the hike was very muddy and we eventually tromped through it all. Ashton was very excited about it and kept saying it was “an Easter adventure and a membory [sic] that I’ll never forget!”

One more note about this Easter: my dear grandfather Papa passed away on Holy Thursday at the age of 92. I have some awesome blog posts with him in them (here and here are favorites). It was incredibly sad to lose him. I have so much gratitude for the many warm memories and the long life he lived. He was wonderful in every way.

Without further ado, Easter Sunday pictures. A basket, a hike, and some meatballs for dinner. Xoxo