Hump Day!

Today is...day...11?  Who knows. It’s Wednesday!  And that means it’s...(take it away, boys):

We’re still doing our thing here - working, playing, fighting naps and the urge to pee (some more than others. Ahem, Leo)

I just want to share a sweet moment that happened today between a little girl and her great grandmother:

Thank goodness for modern technology, right?

Gavi has also been practicing a lot of walking at her walker and a lot of kissing this week:

Besides Gypsy, we’ve been spending a lot of time having snacks, and going for long walks. Those seem to be our go-to activities. Every day we ask Leo if he wants to walk or go in the stroller. Today he said walk so we brought the single stroller, then he spent most of the walk like this:

And Gavi spends much of her time trying to get up and down the stairs. At least, that’s what she does when she’s not directly on my lap which is about 95% of her waking hours.

This is what working looks like these days:

Although Leo does have a very busy schedule too. He has his own meetings, just like us. His school has been wonderful in organizing Zoom meetings where they have led yoga, read books, been led on a nature walk, and more. And here, Leo (and Gavi) are Zooming with most of the kids in his class, and his teacher even logged on!  Video chatting has been a life-saver for us. 

The kids need the social interactions, and so do we. As soon as Gavi hears the ring song for FaceTime her era perk up and she comes crawling over to see who she’s going to get to play with now. And it’s becoming a regular part of Leo’s day to have lunch with this grandparents or to hang out with his buddy Matthew from school. Between this and a little tv is this too much screen time, especially for Gavi?  Yes, but it’s what we have to do to get by. We think it is in their best interest to give them a chance to socialize on FaceTime and Zoom, to get to zone out a bit and have not-family-time with 20 minutes of Elmo or Daniel Tiger. We’re figuring it out as best we can, just like everyone else. 

Social Distancing, Day 7: The Black Bean

A lot has happened since I posted on this blog last.  Gavi turned one, Leo turned three, Brad and I went to Africa, and Coronavirus is here.

We have been social distancing/self-quarantining for 7 days now.  We've been working from home and having the kids at home, 24/7, for 7 days, and this is just the start.  We have been having a lot of family time - some great, some stressful, some lovey, some exciting, some dancey, some clingy, and a lot of experiences.  We've been holding it together pretty well, if I do say so myself.  That is, until tonight.  I think we cracked.

Let me set the scene.  It's bedtime at the Stamm house.  I was changing Gavi into her jammies and Leo was changing himself into his jammies and pull-up, Brad was downstairs cleaning up from dinner.  Leo comes into Gavi's room in his pull-up:
L: Mommy, can I have a paper towel?
S: Um, my hands are busy right now, can you ask Dad?
L: (shouts down the stairs) Daddy, can I have a paper towel?
B: Yeah, why do you need one?
L: I got poop on my chair
B: You got poop on your chair?  What?  Okay, here I come.

Brad goes into Leo's room and I hear:

B: Oh, Leo, that's not poop, that's a black bean!
L: (comes into Gavi's room) It was a black beeeeean!  Not poop!

And then this happened (video):

You guessed it, it WAS poop!  So then Leo comes back into Gavi's room:

L: Mom, it WAS poop!

We were all just laughing our heads off, including Leo.  It was a much-needed humorous (and gross, and real) moment that was just so funny.  I hope you've enjoyed this little anecdote as much as we did.  And yes, we are washing his chair cover as we speak.

And here are some pictures and videos from the past week for you to enjoy and see how we've been spending our days.  There are a number of videos so if you're reading this blog in your email, be sure to go to the real blog to see the videos.  Hey, you have time to waste, don't you?  Spend a few minutes watching some cute (non-poop-filled) videos:

 We go for walks

We work from home

We try to make breakfast but someone won't let us put them down for 2 seconds

We take baths, and make silly faces (these are her two current go-to faces)

 We play with Mr. Potato Head's glasses

We build towers and wear shark goggles

We read tons of books

We make breakfast

We go to the playground (and bring hand sanitizer with us)

We crawl under the table

We make each other laugh

We play with our stuffies (look for both Leo and Gavi)

 We do projects and activities

We clean

We snuggle

We made challah on shabbat:

We used Zoom to do Shabbat with 150 ECDC families from the JCCs

We try to eat crayons:

We play music

We eat lunch and throw food on the floor

We practice using our walker

Oh yeah, and Brad and I installed new floors in our kitchen!