Oliver continues to love his time at Dodge. The weather has been variable over the past month, with both snow and mud. The pictures below are a small sample of Oliver’s many adventures.
March Oliver
A Bit of Hope
As mentioned in prior posts, Oliver was in preschool this year for a few months at the beginning of the year. Now he is back at an outdoor preschool for three mornings a week.
Griffin and Maggie, however, have been in full distance-learning since last March. They’re used to it now, but it has been a major blow. A normal day in their Montessori school would involve 6-7 hours of constant interaction. Working with classmates, moving around the classroom, attending mini-lessons from the teacher, playing at recess, lunch, the school bus, etc.
Now they’ve got Zoom meetings, independent work, and an occasional minecraft game with their friends. I’m not knocking the school; they’re doing a great job. But the social gulf between this year and last is enormous.
It is with joy, therefore, that we dove into a program at their school where individual classes come to campus once-a-week for a few hours of all-outdoor social time. Maggie had her first day yesterday and Griffin went in this morning. (We only have a picture of Griffin at this point.) Hopefully this is the first step on the long road to normalcy.
Oliver Outdoors
After Oliver’s brush with COVID in November, we kept him home through December and January. As he was starting to go a bit stir crazy, we were lucky to secure an opening at Dodge Nature Center‘s outdoor preschool program. Both Griffin and Maggie had wonderful experiences at Dodge before they started kindergarten.
Starting at the beginning of February, Oliver has attended Dodge on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. He’s had a great time so far. See a few pictures below. Oliver wears a bright pink hat.
Baths
Tonight during Oliver’s bath…
Sarah: Did you know some people take baths EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT?!?
Oliver: What?!?
Sarah: Yeah, isn’t that crazy?
Oliver: NO! That’s OUTRAGEOUS!!
Owls
Oliver: “Mama, can I have my vitamins that are made of owls?”
“They’re not made of owls, honey.”
“Yeah, of course. They’re made BY owls.”
Nearly Identical
Maggie, just now:
“Pannakukken is just like a pancake except it’s way bigger and not flat. <pause> And, it tastes totally different.”
(See our pannakukken recipe.)
The Hallway Museum
Finally got some of the kids’ artwork hung in our basement work space. The kids are calling it the Hallway Museum 
Many of these pieces were done with @createveryday the past couple of years. They really make the space bright and cheerful 
Synchronicity
COVID Data Update
The latest two-week COVID rates for the Twin Cities and surrounding counties continue to skyrocket.
For reference for our out-of-state friends, Saint Paul is in Ramsey County and Minneapolis is in Hennepin. The other counties form a ring around those two.
My full spreadsheet with a larger chart is here. Weekly data is released on Thursday at 11:00 AM central. (Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, they didn’t release the latest data until Friday, November 27.)
COVID-Free
This morning we received the first of what we hope will be four negative COVID tests. This one was for Andrew. Waiting patiently for Sarah, Griffin, and Maggie. Oliver was non-contagious as of Tuesday, November 17, so assuming these last tests come in negative, we should be free of the plague in our household.
This doesn’t change much, really, since we are basically locking ourselves down until the state numbers descend, but at least we can go shopping if we need to.
Hopefully, this will be our closest brush. Fingers crossed!
Update: We were expecting the results for the rest of the family this morning. With each passing hour, we became more nervous that this post was premature. Finally, at around 8:00 PM, we received all three additional results: negative, negative, and negative. So the full family is officially in the clear.