Was this week better? Was this week longer? It’s really hard to tell. At least this week we knew what we were in for. We knew we’d have nothing scheduled, no events, nothing to look forward to. That was still better than last week when each day brought a new cancellation and disappointment — can’t have dashed hopes if you don’t have hopes in the first place.
So how how did we stay busy this week?
We started working on the Nature and Wildlife badge with the older girls for their an American Heritage Girls troop. We tried going to the botanic gardens then to swamp trails to learn about native trees, but they were all closed to the public. Understandable yet disappointing. So we went to our neighborhood park and plucked leaves off of trees there. The libraries are closed but luckily we had an Audubon field guide on our shelves and the girls were able to look up and identify the trees. Not as much fun as I had originally planned, but it was still something to do toward a goal. Next week, instead of going to the zoo, we’re going to watch videos made by workers at our local zoo showing various native animals. More than nature and wildlife, I think this badge work will teach us about creativity and compromise.
We tried to come up with ways we could cheer up other people (and maybe cheer ourselves up in the process). First up was starting a letter writing campaign. We wrote up a list of people we’d like to write to and who might be cheered up by getting a letter. I’m pretty sure 80% of the kids’ letters included rainbows.
The second idea we had to cheer people up was to decorate our sidewalk with bright, cheery chalk drawings. There are a lot, and I do mean a.lot. more people walking and bike riding in our neighborhood this week — the cabin fever is setting in. We’ve had a few people stop and tell us how much they liked it. It had the added bonus of keeping the kids occupied for a few days. We are supposed to get some rain soon that will give us a clean slate to start over. Thanks nature.
We have also embraced Amazon music extra hard this week. I swear, when the kids hear French pop they just can’t make their feet behave and it’s hard to feel sad when there’s a dance party in the kitchen. We’ve also undertaken the task of learning all the 50 states through popular music. Country music has the southeast pretty much covered, although the New England states are proving more difficult. If you’ve got a song that’s not New York, New York, please send it my way.
Here’s to another week saving the world by staying home. May our laughter be more often and our panic attacks less frequent.