It is amazing to think how different life was a month ago when I last posted. I had planned on posting sooner, but right after I sat for the orthopedic speciality board the Covid- 19 pandemic hit Silicon Valley hard. Our schools closed on March 13th. Keith called me after picking up the kids early from school once he was notified that a parent of a non student employee was diagnosed with the virus in the upper school. Keith started working from home on the 11th and his work asked all employees to work from home starting from March 14th through March 31st.
Since then, Kaiser has gone to all virtual care for non critical patients and Santa Clara County has gone to mandatory shelter in place requiring all residents to stay at home through April 7th. We have been transitioning to life at home, work at home, school at home. I think this first week was successful. The kids managed to get into a pretty good routine and get all of their work done. Axel was able to attend all of his zoom meetings. Phoenix will start a daily morning zoom meeting with her home room teacher as well. Her language arts teacher and home room teacher sent nice 1 minute videos telling Phoenix how much they miss her and good job on her submitted work.
In the weeks before all of this ciaos Mr. Rubix earned his alphabet crown at school. This means he can recognize all of the letters and knows all of the sounds of the letters. He also had to know the long and short vowel sounds of the vowels. He worked really hard for this and we practiced at home. This was a very proud moment for him.
Another amazing milestone is him deciding to ride the 16 inch bike. It literally took him hopping on it and then he rode off. Of course, he couldn't stop or start on his own, but he could ride. Within 4 days he could start and stop on his own. He is now quite skilled only a couple of weeks later. Since we are home he rides about 2 miles twice a day or about 40 to 60 minutes a day. He is absolutely hooked!
Marshall Lane was a great place to learn and practice starting and stopping. We regularly use the parking lot, but we no longer use the blacktop or play ground as there was a confirmed case at Marshall Lane and it was recommended to avoid this area.
Phoenix has become quite skilled on her bike as well and can now hop the curb. She is also quite the climber and loves to play on the monkey bars. She is missing them as we have not been now for a couple of weeks.
You can see from this picture, Rubix was wanting to ride after school when he first learned on March 3rd.
A little fun fact of parenting an almost preteen. When we were in Hawaii we noticed Axel had some changes on his toes which looked like fungus. When we asked him how long it has been there, he said months. Well it is taking forever to get better. We have had to change medication per doctors orders because it wasn't improving with typical treatment. We are hopeful it will be gone in the next 4 to 6 weeks with the new medication.
On March 7th a lovely surprise came to my door. My dad and Sonia sent this lovely bouquet of flowers to say congratulations for sitting for the orthopedic boards the day before. It was the hardest thing I have done in my adult life. Studying for roughly 8 months and taking the 7 hour test, along with managing work and family took discipline and sacrifice from the entire family. The day of the test I had to patiently wait over an hour to start the test. Most people who know me, know I am not the most patient person. It was extremely nerve racking, but I am extremely grateful to have the opportunity to sit for the boards despite the beginning of the covid-19 ciaos. Luckily, the day life seemed to be put on hold for everyone was the last day all tests were administered, March 14th. I am so glad everyone who took the time to prepare for the test was able to sit for it.
With the test in the books and Spring approaching came spring cleaning. We went up stairs and I cleared out bags and bags of clothes and boxes of toys. Here Rubix is happily displaying new clothes we found 'upstairs". He loves Axel's old boxer briefs, "tall socks", and pj's.
Here is where all of the kids stuff was. They put up old curtains and put out blankets, pillows and stuffed animals. Phoenix also put up art work that she worked hard to create just for their new fort.
We also cleared out Phoenix's room and closet. Because of this we were able to reorganize her room completely. I just love how clean and organized it is now.
I am so proud of her for getting rid of a lot of toys and clothes in order to make this happen.
Although, we had to cancel Rubix's birthday party we tried to make it the best we could. He turned 4 on March 15th. Here he is enjoying his pancake birthday breakfast.
Birthday present time!
Mommy, "It says Rubix, "r", "u","b", "i", "x"."
Phoenix also did a very sweet thing and gave Rubix a car he has wanted since the day she got it a year ago. She also wrote him a nice birthday card. It was a very thoughtful and generous thing to give him something he wanted so much.
It was a gloomy kind of day but we still managed to go for a rain ride. I am so proud of him for dressing appropriately. He has finally matured to the point of wearing pants, long sleeves, gloves and jackets.
We also managed a nice walk later in the day.
Afterwards we had dinner and cupcakes.
We ended the day with a movie we purchased from Amazon prime. I think it was called the Dragon Slayer. It was cute, but still too scary for Rubix.
Here is a cute picture of Rubix and Phoenix a few nights ago after making a magnetile tower they were proud of.
I thought this was also a cute picture of Daddy showing A and P the Stephen Colbret show about social distances and the coronavirus.
I thought it might be nice to show some pictures of what this week looked like. We started school around 8 or 830 am every day. Daddy taught Phoenix math, while I worked with Rubix on math and his worksheets. After an hour Rubix used my phone to work on some apps while I worked with Phoenix on Language arts and Science. Rubix would last about 45 minutes and then get bored. He would either join Phoenix or go play. Axel was pretty independent and just followed his curriculum until I called him for lunch at noon. After lunch we would have recess for an hour or longer. We would then go back inside and finish social studies, art, music, character development or whatever other work Phoenix had. Here is an example of language arts writing assignment Thursday.
Today's assignment was to correct and improve he paragraph.
Here is an example of science work.
For Axel, I only helped him by taking pictures of his work and emailing it to him to upload to the appropriate google drive or document.
This picture was taken the morning after school closures. Rubix was so excited he couldn't wait to start working on his worksheets.
Here is a picture of him working hard after breakfast every morning this week. He can now spell and write Rubix Szolusha. So proud of him!
Here is Axel playing an alphabet game with him after his classwork earlier this week.
Phoenix working on math.
Phoenix watching her videos about goats before writing her informative writing paragraph.
Rubix on the ABC mouse app. while I was working with Phoenix.
Axel being his studious self. If you didn't notice, all three kids are in their rooms. This was the best way to keep them all on task, which means a lot of walking from room to room trying to make sure all three of them are on task. For P.E. Axel has been running with daddy this week. He ran 2 miles one day in under 20 minutes. He ran an 8 minute flat mile today. Axel had a handful of zoom meetings for class work this week. Next week he should have several every day. He also had fun video chats with friends this week. We will be planning his virtual birthday party tomorrow as his Escape room party has been canceled/ postponed.
We hope all of our friends and family are safe. We miss you all very much. Know we are thinking about all of you and love you.
