Quarantine Journals - Mother’s Day

The weather has been really pretty outside, so we've been trying to spend as much time as possible out there. Saturday morning, while Richard was at work, the kids and I went outside in the backyard. They played on the pond swing in the fort while I did some gardening. There were 4 anoles in the garden, one of which was very curious and kept following me and Oliver around.  I moved some of the pepper seedlings outside, and started gathering things to figure out how I can arrange the rest of the garden. At this point, the garden beds are overflowing.

Today, I woke up to some very adorable happy Mother's Day banners in the living room. We took a bike ride with Penny on her bike, and she wrote about a mile and a quarter. It was kind of stressful though, because she wouldn't stay on the right side of the road because she was scared of the sewer drains. So a couple times she got way closer to cars than I would've liked. So we had to stop and take a break to discuss safety and why the sewers were not something to be afraid of. When we got home, Oliver was crying to take his own bike out, but Penny wanted to ride in the bike trailer. The whole plan had been to take a short bike ride so that I can go back to the backyard and do some gardening while Richard watch the kids. But, instead, I suggested that Richard take Penny around the block in the bike trailer, and I would take Oliver around the block in his tricycle.

Afterwords, we all went out to the backyard while Richard went inside to fix lunch. I really wanted to do some gardening, but it just wasn't happening while I was also on duty with the kids. So I just gathered some dirt, while swinging and playing with them, and then we all sat outside and ate quesadillas for lunch.

After lunch, Richard took Oliver for a nap, and Penny and I came back outside the garden. She help me plant the basil plants, and she helped me transplant the hydrangeas that Carmen had brought me for my birthday. After that, we watered all the plants with plant food mix. 

After a while, she asked to go in her for ipad to play code spark. I gave her some headphones, and then I went inside to make myself some fresh lemonade and a sugar rimmed cup. I had finally settle down into a chair to read and enjoy the outdoors when Richard texted me that Oliver was awake.  I hesitated to go in there because I had just sat down to relax and enjoy the quiet, and Oliver ended up falling back asleep on Richard's lap in the living room. I guess when he had woken up he had wanted me, but when I wasn't immediately there he just went back to sleep.

I don't think that I've mentioned this before, but I've been having a weird hearing anomaly. Pretty much always on my right side I can hear someone's bass playing. For days I thought one of our neighbors were playing music super loud, but I started to notice that it was happening pretty much all the time. I asked Richard what he thought it was, and he can't hear it. Neither can Penny. I walked around the house outside trying to figure out where the sound was coming from, but I struggle to even hear it outdoors. That's when I realize that I think it's more in my ear than it is in the world. I was pretty much having an anxiety attack at that point. I shoved a cotton ball in my ear, and it seem to help a little bit.  It is really frustrating because one of the things I struggle with the most is just a level of noise that is going on in the house always because of two kids. Even just a television is overwhelming to me. And now I can't even sit and enjoy the quiet because it sounds like we have a noisy neighbor who's blaring their music. The nice thing about being outside today was that I rarely heard it. I'm not sure why that is, but it was just replaced with the ambient sounds of nature and birds singing. Which might be why it was so peaceful and contributed to why I stayed outside for eight hours straight.

Oliver slept pretty late, and Penny and Richard ended up playing some video games while I sat outside and read. It was really nice to just have that break in that quiet. I could tell that I had probably gotten sunburned though, I was starting to feel pretty dehydrated when Oliver woke up and I need to go inside. Richards aunt called and we did a video chat with her and his granddad. Though, half the time we were just looking at Richard's granddad's finger because he kept covering up the camera.

The sunburn has been bothering me all evening, but the weather is going to be similar tomorrow so I will probably be outside for most of it.  I stayed up late re-watching shits creek while I was trying to organize a small part of the utility room. Bit by bit, I hope to make this house less cluttered and chaotic over the next few weeks. But we will see.

Penny is starting to get anxious about school ending. She misses her friends, and she misses her teacher, and she's really sad at the idea of everything going away. She's also sad about field day having to be a virtual event now.

The mushrooms are ready to be harvested, and I probably should've done it tonight but I felt bad doing it without Penny. So here's hoping they aren't totally dried out in the morning. We will harvest them and give it a shot. We harvested some of our lettuce yesterday to put on tostadas, and it was delicious.

My dad received the new iPad that I bought for him, but he doesn't want it so I'm having Amazon pick it back up from his porch tomorrow.

The baby fish are getting big. I think that's it!