Summer Days Ahead

Well, here we are in June 11th and still in semi-quarantine. King County just got approved last week for a "modified Phase 1" - there are some restaurants open now with 25% capacity (50% patio capacity), hairdressers open at 25% capacity (which is basically just making their lives super hard as they try to manage the new requirements), and my very favorite announcement - PET GROOMERS ARE OPEN! Jasper is going in tomorrow for a much needed spa day, that dog needs a cut so badly! He is just a big hairy beast these days, and we haven't bathed him in over a month. Oops! Another thing that opened up in this phase is some limited socializing, we are now allowed to hang out outside with 5 people outside our household. I feel like there is a bit of an air of people returning to some form of a normal life, although realistically there will be restrictions still for months to come. The Canadian border remains closed, and I heard that it will likely remain closed at least until the end of July. My personal feeling is it will be closed all summer. Such a strange summer we will have ahead of us! Honestly I wish they would just announce whether it will be open this summer, I am having a hard time mentally preparing for summer not knowing if we are travelling to Alberta, or to BC for our camping trip with Bobbi and Jer in August. I wish I just knew one way or another so I could get my head in the right space. 

We are ready for a summer at home, our pool went up this past week! Finally, after days of back breaking work shoveling sod, the pool pad was ready. Brian really wanted to rent a sod cutter, but that turned out to not be an easy thing to do. I don't mind the odd labor intensive project (emphasis on the "odd"!) so I got out there and shoveled for hours. After shoveling out the sod, we had to get some gravel and sand to smooth and level out the area. So much work goes in before you even get the beast up, and then you have to take care of the water! On Saturday we finally got the pool put up which  was very exciting! We started filling it on Sunday and since our hose is crazy slow and the pool is big, it took two days to fill. The water was cold, but the excitement of having a pool was bigger than that so the kids got in right away. We need some better weather so the water will warm up quicker, our solar heater can't do much without some sunshine! I am looking forward to some summer fun ahead!

Pandemic Fatigue setting in

May is almost over, and we are still in quarantine. I was holding out hope for a June 1st start to opening things up again, but it turns out our county is not going to meet some magic number goal to open. We are a long ways from getting to this number, so I am settling in for the long haul. We bought an above ground pool last week, yay! We still have to level the ground, looks like we are going to be try and get this pool up this weekend (and hopefully ready to swim in by next weekend, depending on how quickly we can get the water warmed up). It's nice for the kids to have something to look forward to! We did bend the rules a bit and have the Daveys over on Sunday, we stayed outside. It was so good to see the kids having fun with other kids again. I was all for flattening the curve of this virus, and now I am all for a safe re-opening. I am now wishing I lived in Alberta, which has started opening up sensibly. I guess time will tell if places that opened in May will have a giant second wave! Since King County will be in quarantine until January 2030, we will get a spectator seat to all these people living their lives:-/. Can you tell I am over this whole thing already??

Adam's repetition went through the roof this weekend. His OCD type behavior has been slowly evolving into movements, and this past week it hit high gear. He is moving away a bit from asking for repetition of touches, but now if someone across the room touches a chair, totally separate from him, he does not rest until that person has touched the chair in the exact same way. Chairs and doors are things he has really zeroed in on. He's had a few rough bedtimes recently, too. Saturday was the worst day we had with him in so long I can't remember, it was so discouraging. Thankfully this has tapered off a bit this week, the last few days have been a bit more manageable. I am trying to get in touch with some therapists that specialize in OCD, I'm not really sure how to get him the help he needs. He has another appointment with the medication department at the Autism Center, so we will see if this new doctor will hear us out and has any options for us medication wise. This new thing with him just bossing people around, making them do a literal dance for him is not going to fly in the long term. He just doesn't listen to anyone when he is in this mode - all he can do is focus on getting that need met. It's unreal. Hopefully we can find a professional that wants to take us under their wing and help us figure this out!

We managed to get Nathan on a bike again, and he even went to the bike park with Lynsey and the Daveys kids on Sunday! I was really proud of him, he had really only practiced on our driveway for a few days so far this year. Adam is trying to ride Lynsey's old bike, and is actually a lot more interested than I thought he would be, but he became a bit impossible after the first day. He wanted to be able to stand up on his bike with his feet on the pedals, and would not accept help. I found some training wheels on Amazon that are supposed to work on a 24 inch bike, so Brian needs to see if those will fit on Lynsey's bike. I so hope they do, and he can take more control of his own learning. I do think he would enjoy riding a bike, although I just don't know if he will be able to maintain the motivation to do the kind of pedaling that will be needed to actually ride the bike more than a few feet:-).

What else is new . . . Brian got an espresso machine, so that was exciting! When you are staring down months of working at home, you get to treat yourself to some new things! 

Quarantine Day Gazillion

So yes, I am losing track of time and the days are starting to run together a bit. I realize that one day with some perspective, I will read this and think "Geez it was not even two months at that point!" and future me would be right. It hasn't been that long, but yes it feels long. Adam's repetition has ramped way up the last 2-3 weeks, and is starting to get close to that unbearable stage that it has been in the past. Oh how I hope this is temporary. 

What has happened since my last post . . . we are hanging in there. School has good days and bad days, over all I think it's going okay. Brian now works with Adam in the mornings, not sure if I mentioned that last post. It works pretty well, although getting Adam to focus on school work is quite the chore. His teacher sends these read aloud stories that he records, and we put them on his Kindle and he loves to listen to them. We have had some nice weather which is so helpful for our moods - this past weekend it got up to +30 C! Our stay at home order has been extended until May 31st, which is discouraging for sure. I had to cut Jasper's hair myself because he was just such a hairy beast, he turned out okay but I am so tired of doing these things to him that he hates! I want to just be his momma, not the cutter of the nails that makes him bleed because I suck at it:-(. 

I am weary thinking about how long it will be until we can travel again. I very much want to go to La Crete to see my Mom, and I just don't know when that's going to be possible. I'm looking ahead to a summer spent at home, and I'm currently trying to convince Brian to get an above ground pool set up in our back yard. I emailed the City of Redmond because we back onto a ravine and wanted to make sure there weren't any requirements to consider there, and then I found out that I might need a permit of all things. She is going to look into it further (I guess she was new there) and find out for sure, I hope this doesn't turn into a big headache. Seems a bit over the top to have someone come and inspect my out of the box Costco pool:-/. I have no idea if the kids's camps will work out, and even our own camping trips are in jeopardy. One of them we are planning with 3 other families, so even if camping is allowed, I don't know if they would let us camp with that many other people. The other trip is in BC so who knows what the border situation will be by August. So many questions, not enough answers. 

I had a nice Mother's Day yesterday, so that's a bright spot! It was a gorgeous day weather wise, I did a lot of relaxing and chatting with friends and family. 

Not much else to report. Hopefully next post will be about some things opening up and life getting a bit more back to normal. Fingers crossed. Adam badly needs a haircut!