Quarantine Round-Up: Family Records from an Unusual Year

It is hard to believe it has been a year since last March when so much about our daily lives changed. It makes me think about the passage of time and how quickly it slips through your fingers. 

The other night as W and M erected a blanket fort as I prepared dinner, it occurred to me that they've never made so many forts before. Lately it feels like they make a fort almost every week-- so much so that Santa got them a second box of Crazy Forts connector pieces at Christmas time to help them build bigger and better structures! I'm sure we all have our own unique experiences, and, for better or worse, our kids will be telling their tales of this year their whole lives. 

Beyond the number of forts built, here are some other things that stand out for our family about this year.

This year definitely marked for us the least of some things:

• Number of times dining out in restaurants (0)-- we're a little extreme and haven't even had takeout in a YEAR. (We are literally preparing food and it is getting consumed All. The. Time.)
• Number of extended family gatherings.
• Trips or vacations.
• Mileage on our cars.
• Birthday parties.
• Camps, organized sports.

But also the most of a lot of things:

• Games and Legos played over video chat.
• Sibling bonding.
• Rusty brake rotors from disuse.
• Puzzles done. There is always one vying for space on our large-but-never-large-enough dining room table, and they seem to get bigger and bigger. 
• Online learning. We've enjoyed instrument lessons via Zoom, Tippi Toes dance classes, and the occasional Outschool class. 
• Virtual concerts watched. We tapped our toes to Hilary Hahn, Natalie MacMaster, and The Trans-Siberian Orchestra from the comfort of our living room.  
• Online trivia nights. We've seen a couple of groups of friends far more often than we would have in normal life, thanks to this. 
• Time spent together as a family.  
• Homemade bread and other new adventures in food (homemade yogurt, African peanut butter stew, homemade sushi, and sourdough: bread, pancakes and waffles, pizza dough, crumpets, biscuits, popovers...)
• Time spent with our dog (which is good because, in his old age he seems to need to go outside more and more times in a day).
• Songs from the Hamilton and Frozen soundtracks listened to, sung, and memorized.
• Connection with nature. We've always liked to be outside and bike and hike and ski, but this year we've forced buds, started seeds, tapped a tree, found and revisited frog eggs, played with milkweed, harvested and drawn on shelf fungi, followed deer and rabbit tracks, searched for antlers, tromped in wetlands, cracked ice sheets from the surface of the freshly frozen brook, studied worms and introduced them to our compost bin, and really gotten to know our own backyard more than ever before. 
• Popsicles consumed (we really got into afternoon popsicles outside as a treat from spring through fall and still have some stashed in our freezer since the warm days ceased).
• Groceries ordered online and delivered straight to my car. I've hardly set foot in a grocery store since July and it's amazing. 
• Skiing and skating and sledding and snowman building in a winter-- this year there is not much else to distract from those things during our weekends and free time.
• Sickness-free for our family personally, for which I feel extremely lucky and grateful. I find it amazing that not one of us has had so much as a sniffle in a year.

What are your standout mosts and leasts you will remember from this unusual year?