Day eight

This morning I made French toast. I am cooking a lot more with the kid at home. He eats almost as much as we do now. He seems to always be hungry, I guess he is a growing boy.

The UPS guy came by and dropped off the coloring book The True Colors of Family by Mark Loewen. I had interviewed him about the book before it became available.

The coloring book has lots of different families along with LGBT ones. There was even a Jewish family celebrating Hanukah. He colored that one specifically for papa.

Afterward, Andrew began to tug on his ear.

“My ear hurts,” he said.

After a cold passes or in allergy season, he tends to get ear pain. The doctor usually sees him but with everything going on with coronavirus and knowing that they usually prescribe him the same thing I thought I could work it out with the doctor’s office so he didn’t have to go there.

I called and said,” Andrew usually has a pain in his ear that goes along with his allergies or a cold, and with the coronavirus, I would prefer not going to the doctor’s office in person and obtain the normal prescription.”

The doctor’s office receptionist told me that she could call me back after consulting with the doctor.

About an hour later they said it was Ok. I was happy to know they let me do this. This was pretty normal for us.

David had been out and when he came back I told him I would go to the pharmacy and pick it up.

He asked me to check to see if there was anything we would want in the grocery section.

I checked out the food aisles and it was cleaned out, wow, panic buying is everywhere.

Day 9 Coronavirus

David has been good about wiping down everything when it comes to groceries. He had spent the morning getting provisions. He even kept some groceries in the car for a while to cut down on the viral spread.

Our big activity today was going to the park in Collinsville. The parks in Edwardsville are closed even to walking around.

Of course, when we arrived at the park Andrew had to go to the restroom, which is closed due to the coronavirus. We got back into the car and found a nearby gas station. We were careful not to touch too much and use napkins on the knobs. We all made sure to wash our hands. I didn’t want to just use the restrooms and run so I bought a coffee.

The park there has a Frisbee golf course so we used that as a trail to walk along. This involved hiking up hills and going down along a lake.

Andrew and I even went down into the back in of the lake through some overhanging brush. He enjoyed jumping over the fallen trees. It is good to explore with him. We all need to get out of the house, so we don’t all go bonkers.

Day 10 Coronavirus

My part in his homework today was working on the letter M. He had to hunt for the letter m, both upper and lowercase among the other letters on the page and circle it. He worked on locating the lower case m on another.

The last worksheet was working on doing the movements of the letter. The top image was a rope tension drum and at the bottom you trace the movement going out like a wavelength.

After that we had lunch. I took out some frozen Costco burritos and warmed them up in the microwave with cheese on them. This was a fail today. I thought they were all right for being frozen. They were chicken with a lime-cilantro so maybe that is understandable. I guess I will be eating these alone.

He really wanted to go to the park with a playground, but sadly the park is closed in town due to the coronavirus. It was sad to explain to him that due to what we call the germs, we can’t go to the park in town and most of all the playground is closed.  These are tough times to be a kid with the changes.

Day 11 Coronavirus

David checked our pre-school’s ap and there was a notice about a teacher parade.

The teachers were following the bus routes and driving around town in a parade with signs on their cars saying they missed their students.

We went outside and across the street and down the street other kids in the neighborhood were waiting for the teachers to come by.

Then in the distance, we heard honking and they came by waiving and the kids enjoyed waving back and pointing out their teacher.

It was very sweet to see the teacher’s of the town do this for their kids.

That afternoon we decided to go to a state park in Missouri, all the state parks in Illinois are closed.

We headed to Powder Valley Conservation Center. It has some hills and a few small creeks and a stream with rocky cliffs. It is a pretty park, even though it is still not far from the city.

It was about an hour’s drive. On the way through downtown, he said, “There’s the Arch, can we check it out later.”

“We can only walk around it, we can’t go inside of it since it is closed,”

He said that was OK, so we headed to the park first.

It was a little busy.

David said, “Six feet apart when we come upon others.” I agreed with him and we headed out.

The path diverged two ways, “Which way do you want to go?”

Andrew said, “To the left.” So we headed in that direction.

He kept running ahead and we kept reminding him to go to the far right when we pass other families.

We walked to a bridge over a small creek in which water flowed over rocks and limestone.

The trees are not green yet, but the flowers are starting to bud so it is starting to look like spring.

I noticed that some of the trees were marked. The park has a large nature center, which of course is closed with the coronavirus, and they mark sites on the path.

We came across a Northern Red Oak. “Andrew, from this tree you can roast the acorns and eat them.”

“Dad there is another one,” he said up ahead pointing to a tree with a sign on it.

“This tree is the sugar maple. You know how you like maple syrup.”

“Yes,”

“Well, this tree supplies that.”

“How.”

“They tap into it and put out a bucket and the sap or what becomes syrup is taken out of the tree.”

I pointed out a few other trees before the path met another. This section had signs about wildlife that live here.

This one showed images of spiders and skunks and talked about them.

Then we were back at the car and ready to head out.

Since Andrew was interested in the Arch we took a quick stop there on the way home.

We got out and walked up to the Arch. He was a little tired by now, but he trudged along. It was nice to see the Arch close up. I always like to look up at the metal beams as the narrow towards the top.

The river was flowing fast and a barge was moving at a quick speed as it passed under the Eads Bridge heading by the downtown. We lingered for a bit watching other families play with their kids before heading home.

Day 12 Coronavirus

Andrew found a tabletop air hockey set in a closet. I think we were going to give at a gift exchange that didn’t happen. I decided he could have it as an early birthday present. I decided though I didn’t want to do this on our wooden table that was in the room.

I remembered that we have a fold-up table downstairs. I found it and setup. The puck needed batteries so I grabbed some of those. We set it up and I shot one across the table and the puck hit hard on the floor.

I moved the table outside in the grass. That seemed to work better, although we live on a hill, so everything is a bit slanted.

Next time we should probably set it up in a carpeted room downstairs, It thought.

After air hockey, I decided to do the drive-thru at Lion’s Choice in town. It is an area fast-food place sort of like Arby’s. We’ve liked the St. Louis suburbs. We drove up and I ordered some roast beef for myself and Andrew got a hot dog. I ate the roast beef, but it seemed a little off like it had been sitting out for a while. I might give the place another try but was not overly impressed with it this time.

After lunch, I worked with him on some schoolwork for a bit. He had words to write out and then we spotted the words in his books. I had trouble finding the words he was supposed to work on this week. We will have to check on some more books.

That night I read him Put Me in the Zoo by Robert Lopshire. It is a book with a lot of rhyming along the line of Dr. Seuss. I like the spotted animal and how he can do all these amazing things.

He had slept in our bed last night but I encouraged him to sleep in his own bed tonight. He had had a bad dream, but when he sleeps with us it is harder for us to sleep. He also tosses a lot. He fell asleep and I headed to our bed and he slept through the night in his.

Day 13 Coronavirus

We spent most of the day at home. I spent the morning doing work outside. I actually got Andrew to help me this time. The weather is still warm and not hot so I took the time to clip the bushes in the front yard and clear out leaves.

I gave Andrew a leaf bag to pick up all the fallen bush stems. He was pretty good about following me around as I went about the yard clearing up the garden area around the house. It was a busy morning.

I was pulling at the wheat-like plant that has sharp edges and nicked my finger good. I ran inside and grabbed a band-aid. I might actually pull that plant out. I am always cutting myself on it.

I am slowly working on clearing up the outside area around the house. We might have our handyman come out later in the year and put in rocks instead of the mulch we have now. I would also like to change what we have planted. It was from the previous owner, it would be nice to put our stamp on the front yard.

That was the morning workout. Actually I was tired after filling three-leaf bags.

That afternoon we let Andrew watch Steven Universe Movie, this preoccupied him for a while.

I took a walk. There were passing storms today, but not too bad.

I decided I felt like Mexican, so we figured out that the nearby Mexican restaurant does curbside, which his the new way of serving people since no one can eat at the restaurant during coronavirus. This is the new normal.

Sadly, we’ve eaten more fast food, since they have a drive-thru. I know that how I did things before has changed. I used to go out for lunch a lot and do the coffeehouses. I don’t think I’ll do that as much as I did before. Life during coronavirus has changed my past habits. On the plus side, it will save us money, although a part of me misses life before this all happened.

Once the virus does this thing, I wonder what else will change. It just feels like life won’t ever be the same again.

Day 14 Coronavirus

It was a warmer day so we spent some time outside. Drew helped me a bit once more as I cleared out one of my garden boxes, getting it ready for the planting of tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. I have one more garden box to go to. I am thinking of going to Lowe’s and buying some weed barriers to help with keeping the soil clear.

That afternoon we headed to one of the many bike trails. The trails are owned by the county so they are open.

The trees and flowers are blooming so we stop to check them out as we ride. On his birthday on Monday, we will get him a kid’s pedal bike. This might be the last big ride with the glider.

At one point Andrew and I went up a small hill and explored a small path in the woods. I am glad our town has bike trails. This is important when kids can’t play on playgrounds.

Just before he went to bed he asked, “Can you put the Marvel action figures on my bed while I am asleep?” Andrew asked.

He wanted a surprise on his bed for his first present.  I said we could do that.

He was looking forward to his birthday. We’ll have a cake and he’ll have gifts. Sadly, I am not sure when we’ll do his birthday party. It was rough not being able to do this because of the coronavirus. It was supposed to happen this weekend, but even the location we were having at wasn’t allowing gatherings and was closed.

David remembers birthday parties being canceled for himself since his birthday is in February and a lot of times there would be snowstorms.

It still is sad to me that his fifth birthday was canceled due to a pandemic. This was not something I ever thought would happen. But I know, lots of people have had problems because of it. Weddings have been postponed, funerals have to be online, a trip of a lifetime moved to some future date. It seems everything has been postponed. It will be nice when things are back to some semblance of normal.