Like that selfie? There are 15 more taken within about 2 minutes when I left my phone on the counter. Ella is full of mischief and cannot be trusted alone. You may have even received a text at some point from “me” that was NOT from me. Not ideal for a homeschool situation, right?

Want more fun? Watch closely as she tries to lick a bubble:

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Silly she may be, but stupid she is not. Spend 3 minutes learning how she she completely redesigned her store (aka the cardboard box that used to be “Ella’s Cartoon Store“):

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But back to that mischievous thing… Below is a video of Ella explaining a drawing that I thought was a storyboard. She has also drawn storyboards, as she really wants to design a game called “Freebie” where EVERYTHING is free. No, really Mom, you can do ANYTHING! Basically she’s tired of not being allowed to buy things in apps on her iPad. Anyway, the following video is of an image that is NOT a storyboard but a series of doors, behind which, well, you’ll see:

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How’s that for an intro? It’s chaos over here. I can barely remember what happened last week. I literally just checked my text history, my calendar and my bank account to remember. Not a joke. I do know the girls had more online classes, including Zoe starting a Minecraft course called “Metrocraft” where together a group of students designs an entire city. That sounds fun.

Ella’s favorite class is still Fun Fairytales, but she’s still obsessed with the mermaid teacher on Outschool, who has no new classes we can take, though I did send her some suggestions. Yes, I really did that.

I had fried avocado from the air fryer we gave Bart for his birthday. That’s new.

It was delicious. We’ve eaten many dinners together outside under the pergola. I hosted 3 more roundtables online last week (I’ve now hosted 29 virtual ones since March 31 and 45 total). That’s something. We got a popup soccer goal for the backyard, and the girls alternated between having fun with it and whining about who got to kick. Also new.

The BEST new thing? Remember that pants-tastrophe on Father’s Day? I made those pants again, solo. I opened my Google doc with lessons learned, carefully cut out the pattern (expanding the waistband to accommodate for the “no fly” material that was missing last time), and assembled the parts. I was never good at geometry – especially the part where you have to rotate shapes in your head. Turns out, that’s not a good trait for a seamstress. So to avoid more crazy mistakes like last time, I literally put the pieces together before sewing anything. It worked!

Those are PANTS! With pockets and a folded hem that won’t unravel. The purple pants continue to have issues as all seams are slowly unraveling, including the poorly sewn hem at the bottom, which is creating strings the cat can’t help but chase. You’ll notice above how she’s hanging out near the bottom of the new pants. No luck, Jasmine. These pants are sturdy. And oh, so soft.

Our Lego saga continued, with more building from the box of misfit pieces and more actual playing with the structures and scenes they built, all weekend long. Most of the time, that’s good. Often there’s debate over who gets which piece… So on Sunday my sweet husband braved, gulp, the mall, with two little kids. In his mind, he was going to shut down this “that’s my piece!” argument for all time and have them “dig in the bin” for those controversial parts. HAHAHAHAHAHA.

You can imagine what I was thinking: a) OMG OMG OMG, and b) I’m so incredibly thankful the Lego store knows better than to have a “bin” right now. I had no idea until they had already made it home with two Lego kits that a bin was even an option. At home, the girls disappeared as soon as we allowed them into Daddy’s office to have private space to assemble their kits.

Actually, that’s not the full story. While they were gone, I was supposed to have “Mommy time”, which (after a shower with no one asking me for anything) turned into a decision to pick up the tiny objects that remain on Ella’s floor every time she cleans it. During that effort, I found crumbled cracker bits from Thursday, all over an area of the room, which she said she had cleaned up. I pulled out the vacuum cleaner, fuming.

Following that, I decided to vacuum Zoe’s room and found 3 snack wrappers in Zoe’s room under her dresser and the edge of her bed. When they returned home they walked through the door to an angry mother, who almost took away those Lego kits. Instead, my brilliant husband decided that AFTER they completed a few tasks they could open ONLY ONE kit. You should have seen their faces.

Remember, these are two kids who have been haggling over Legos for two weeks. The spiteful juvenile delinquent in me loved that sweet revenge. The mother in me was grateful for having a calm, measured husband who could lay down some calm, wildly effective punishments when it mattered.

Oh, and I also got an acupressure mat, which I highly recommend. My friend Laura suggested it during a confession, er, conversation we had about all the odd things we’ve ordered from Amazon during the pandemic. Anyway, Ella likes it:

And finally, it’s interesting to see how everyone is handling this crazy time. We have friends who are exercising like crazy and perhaps in the best shape ever, and others, like us, who are eating everything in sight. For every pound they’ve lost, we’ve found it.

I will say that we’ve been diligent about taking walks, and on average I end up with around 2,500 more steps per day than I used to – mostly around my house. As an added benefit, I’ve seen some incredible flowers. Maybe one day I’ll find something cool to do with all the photos I’ve taken along the way. The Coronavirus Flower Project. I believe I like them so much because they remind me of the power and beauty of nature, and in some odd way, they give me hope.

I’m not biologist (or botanist), but if nature can put these two flowers on the same bush with all their delicate gorgeous details, surely this life of ours can overcome a virus and move forward. See? I’m an optimist. In the meantime, stay safe.