The first official day of summer was a few days ago, and it’s probably unlike a summer any of us can remember because almost none of us have ever lived through a Global Pandemic before. I just know that exactly three months ago, our country shut down, and we started to use terms like, “Quarantine”, “Social Distancing”, “Shelter in Place”, and “Remote Learning”. Week one was a little of a novelty with lots of family time, but by the time Week 2 rolled around and we started to create a daily schedule to prepare for remote learning things started to get a little foggy. I found myself trying to make it from day to day with everyone at home, consumed with navigating Google Classroom, going to the grocery store, making 3 meals a day, trying to remember Zoom meetings, and trying to keep spirits up when we were missing out on all the things in life that we had been looking forward to.

By about 3 weeks in, I was really missing my business, and realized I hadn’t picked up my camera in weeks. I got a little clarity and made a commitment that I was going to document this time for my kids, because it shows resilience; and I needed to not be rusty with my camera!!! I decided to do something different and document one entire month of activities in black and white, because honestly, much of this time felt heavy and moody as opposed to light and colorful. By April though, I had felt some light at the end of the tunnel, so I processes those photos in color, because I felt more hopeful!

We decided that with all of this “downtime” on the weekends, we were going to teach the kids how to do more household work, because quite frankly we spend so much time doing activities outside of the house, these kids don’t even know how to clean a bathroom, vacuum a room or dust - so Home Economics 101 was being offered. Well, they didn’t have an option to say no. They were both pretty excited to learn new things, but it made me realize that they still need supervision with cleaning products because 1) they are harder to come by nowadays and 2) I didn’t want to have to call Poison Control in the middle of a pandemic. One kid, who shall go unnamed, decided the dust was too much for her little eyes so she started wearing her science goggles while she was dusting (insert eye roll here).

I’m not even sure where to start with Remote Learning, but I have always had a great respect for teachers because that was a career choice that my mom made for 25 + years. And I have spent enough time in the classroom with both of my kids to get that being a teacher is no cake walk. Our district teachers pivoted on a dime, and had moved everything virtually, many of them with kids of their own in the district. We put in a huge amount of effort to keep our kids learning and engaged and let me tell you, some days we just had to call it. One of my kids told me that I was “Not Ms. Oliver” - and she was telling the truth. Teaching young kids academics is not my gift and teaching stressed and anxious kids was over my skill set and I had to frequently call in help from the principal (my husband who was now working from home in the basement every day). I am also ashamed to admit how many Zoom calls my kids missed because we could not get ourselves together. The Zoom Meetings were even on our calendars and we still forgot. And sometimes we needed to put every bow and headband on our head to actually get work done - and that was fine too because who really cared what anyone looked like since we weren't going anywhere!

Was there anyone else that had to look up how to teach “math strategies” for your younger elementary school kids because they don’t teach math the same way - they don’t just “carry the one”? Lawd, help me! And while I’m at it, did anyone else’s kids try to fly a kite in their house? Nope, just us? Making a kite was a great math assignment to help with learning Geometry, but trying to fly said kite in the house was not. So when the weather got better, they took their paper kites outside and actually had fun flying them until they met the same demise as Charlie Brown’s kite, if you know what I mean. hahaha….

With everything canceled, we had an incredible amount of time on our hands, and the amount of “I am bored” almost drove me to a dark mental place. Grrr…One of the things we found to keep our older one busy was a “Diamond Painting” where she meticulously took these tiny little stones and placed them one by one on a painting. She would work during every break she had to complete it, and once she completed it, it was so beautiful that we framed it. I still haven’t hung it up, but I have a really good excuse, haha…If you have a bored crafter at home and want to check the Diamond Painting out along with the reviews, I included the link to purchase it on Amazon.  Diamond Painting (And don’t even get me started on how Amazon and I are best friends now).

The girls also spent a lot of time making up cheer routines and making meals for their American Girl Dolls. I can’t tell you how many cheer routines we watched and how many times dolls got dropped on their faces because they fell out of a stunt, but ya know, it kept them busy! K2 also created her own buddy, whom you can see above and she played different games with her buddy. The only problem with her buddy was that we were missing lots of towels and blankets because they were stuffed inside her buddy!

One little fun outdoor game that we dug out of the basement or the garage (it’s amazing what you find when you’re at home) was something my mom gave them for Christmas and it’s like playing tetherball, but with a tennis ball! It’s super compact and can be put up or down easily and they had a lot of fun playing it. It’s a great alternative for those of us that don’t have a tether ball in their backyard. And well who has one of those?! Amazon link is here: Championship Swingball

Another surprise one of the kids found in the basement (that I apparently hid from myself) was this science kit that, again, my mom bought for Christmas and it didn’t even make it under the Christmas tree because it was lost in the house. This is a pretty self-contained science kit that you don’t need a lot of extra ingredients to make the experiments work and those are my kind of experiments. I don’t want to have to buy a laundry list of items to do science experiments. Perfect thing to do to kill an hour or so, and I included a link for that also. Crayola Color Chemistry

There were so many little blessings we could find if we really looked during this time, but one of the obvious ones was the weather. We had stretches of beautiful warm weather that we were able to take advantage of. And the one thing they could agree on most of the time, was wanting to go outside and tumble. After week 1 at home we saw the writing on the wall, and felt like kids sports would be the last thing to get re-instated; so we used what little common sense we were operating with and measured our backyard and bought what we in the cheer world call an “Air Track” or a “Tumble Track”. They were able to keep up on their tumbling skills while the gym was closed, and for both of my girls, they got some new skills just by continuing to put in work on their own. So we are super proud of them for staying committed and focused when they probably just wanted to stay inside and play on devices. You’ll probably notice the last photo in the tumbling series was of the dog - whom I have nicknamed “Needy Dog that Thinks Everyone is an Axe Murderer.” Well we had to spend some time to quickly train him not to run across the tumble track. We didn’t want him to pop it with his nails - and we also did not want him to cause a collision while one of the girls was tumbling. He learned very quickly and there were no accidents, thank goodness! Cheer also looked different in another way because although there were no practices, the girls kept up with their teams via Zoom Meetings. It’s amazing how much of an impact 17 other kids + coaches make in your lives, and there were lots of smiles when it was time for the cheer team zoom calls!

Some things didn’t translate well to a virtual platform; but a few things did - including piano, art classes, and cooking classes! Now, our piano teacher lives in our neighborhood but virtual lessons are still ten times more convenient and I think this is one of the things I will opt to hang on to once this is all over.

Quarantine brought some new traditions, which I’m sure we weren’t the only ones to do:

• Birthday parades with the most elaborate sign displays from The Sign Gypsies; we even got a a yard sign display for K1’s 5th grade graduation. I linked them too, but you gotta plan ahead because everyone has the same idea right now. Sign Gypsies

• Indoor Easter Egg Hunt because there were no Easter Egg Hunts going on and no in person church services, which made Easter feel kind of strange.

• Making smores in the backyard, which once you make them one time, the kids keep asking for them again and again!

The quarantine dictated that we go old school and get a slip and slide. Heck, I think slip and slides have been around since when I was growing up. These puppies sold out extremely fast, so I was glad we were thinking ahead and got one because as the weather continued to warm up it was easy fun. The only downside is that it burns the grass up, but nothing’s perfect right?! The girls were having so much fun on it that they begged me to come outside and take pictures. Even though I’m sure I needed to take a metal break, I came out to document it and I’m glad I did because they were having so much fun.

It has been a long few months for all of us ya’ll. Many of us were surviving on coffee and who knows what else. I know I’m not alone in hoping that we don’t have to see another Quarantine in our lifetimes. One can hope right; and if we do end up going back into Quarantine, I’m going to try and look for the joy in it, just like we did from March through May.

Danielle Makia, Photographer is a South Denver Family Photography Business also specializing in Maternity, Children, In Home Newborns, Senior and Extended Family Sessions; as well as Intimate Weddings/Elopements and Event photography.  Service areas include Denver, Colorado; Aurora, Colorado; Highlands Ranch, Colorado and surrounding Denver suburbs.