So...it seems like after years and years of faithful blogging, I ought to offer an explanation as to my total disappearance from the 'map' of The Random Writings of Rachel.
I've always written on this blog because I loved writing. In June this past year, I got offered a contract to write homeschool curriculum....a LOT of homeschool curriculum. Suddenly I found myself waking up in the wee hours to write, squeezing writing in in all the nooks and crannies and naptimes of life...and there was no space for The Random Writings anymore.
Some of you know I've been making Youtube videos, too, some of you know I've fallen head-over-heels in love with this homeschool world all over again. It was a part of my life all as I was growing up, and I guess I could never leave it behind. Instead, I've jumped in with both feet.
The end of my writing contract left me with an itch to write and create my own curriculums and resources, resources that reflect my ideas about education and that support families who are pursuing bilingualism. I roped the talents of my many siblings into this idea, and "Where'd You Learn That?" was born.
It's a tiny, baby thing right now. It's me writing at 5 a.m. and Angel translating my lessons and my artist sister drawing illustrations and my graphic design brother and sister making designs and my teenage sister taking product photos. It's a tiny, beautiful dream that's coming true. This is the website: https://www.wheredyoulearnthat.com/ and you can head there and download free samples of my curriculums if you want to see more. In the meantime, you can look at these pretty photos.
So that's where I've been, still writing, but somehow, surprisingly, finding my passion and my voice in homeschool and preschool and curriculum. I'm diving into using the Spanish-language lessons with Cyrus and I'm nervous but I'm excited for the adventure in bilingual homeschooling.
And just like that, half a year flew by. But we always say that, don't you?
My Glen, you are going to have some very interesting moments in history recorded in your baby book.
Size: At his six month appointment, he weighed in under 15 lbs, and I can't say he's just "long and lean" either because while his weight has hovered around 5th-3rd percentile, his height is usually 1st percentile or below. He is a tiny little thing, and that is so cute and different after my extra-chunky Cyrus. The few people who have seen him think he's about the size of a 3-4 month old, that's the general impression he gives, and I have friends with 3 and 4 month olds right now who are heavier and taller than him. It's been fun having a tiny baby! He's in 4-6 month clothes although pants are still 0-3 month pants.
Eating: I started feeding him baby food the day he turned six months. It took him a little extra time to get really solid head and neck control so I didn't want to start early. He has since turned into a solid food monster and loves solid food more than milk, I think...we shall see if this chunks him up any. He actually really likes scrambled egg and banana, both foods that Cyrus utterly rejected.
We took a video of some of his first foods:
As you can tell, he hates avocado. Which I don't mind, because that means I don't have to share my avocado.
Sleeping: He is not a great sleeper. Cyrus woke up about 3 times a night to eat until he was weaned, but he never played at night nor just stayed awake crying. This one has night when he'll do both. But last night, he only woke up twice to eat, and there were no 2-hour midnight parties, so I'm calling that a win. Let's work toward more nights like that.
Milestones: He got his first two teeth since he his six months. He army crawls at high speeds across vast distances.
Which is hilarious, because since he's so little, he looks like a 3 month old crawling all over the place. He loves playing with toys, especially Cyrus's toys, not the baby toys. He thinks his brother is the funniest thing in the world, and big brother loves to oblige his entertaiment needs by jumping up and down so that baby will laugh at him. So far, he's not a big fan of daily storytime, he just wants to be on the move. He will put any piece of hair on the floor in his mouth, so he requires a very clean environment, haha!
I lean heavily on the side of not needing to find a way to call bad things "good."
The pandemic and related consequences are, in so very many ways, bad.
This has been a sad season.
But there have been little highlights. Our family has been intentionally "planning" little events to look forward to in the middle of the season of life when all the normal routines aren't possible (i.e. going for walks, playing at the playground, swimming, etc) and when all the big travel plans we were looking forward to got canceled.
We had a "family movie night" where we pulled the whole mattress off our bed, put it in the living room, and cuddled on the mattress while watching a movie on Angel's laptop. We've made some kitchen experiments and had chocolate fondue for lunch one day, just because.
I have been so, so grateful that if we have to stay home, that it is with two energetic little boys. There has not been the slightest chance of boredom for me, while I have missed our little friends and our normal routines and opportunities to see others, we have stayed busy from morning till night with fun in the house. We have definitely tried out new things inside the home in the name of variety. ha!
As you might expect, Angel is working from home, teaching his classes via Zoom, and doing all his teacher work online. Thankfully their school had been preparing for this eventuality so they were pretty well prepared and I think it has gone fairly smoothly. Cyrus even joined in on one of the Zoom PE classes--ha!
I have been taking The Bible Project's Intro to the Hebrew Bible class online--if you need something to keep your mind active, I highly recommend this course. The Bible Project does such a good job of teaching the way the Bible should be read and understood, and their new courses and "classroom" project is something I am very excited about! It's a pretty hefty course, 29 sessions...I'm somewhere about 24 sessions in, so nearly done!
Be forewarned, most of the photos in this post are just pictures of Glenn.
Because this is the face I see right next to my face...in the morning, and also in the middle of the night His crib is right up against my bed like this, haha!
Someone kindly delivered some produce to our house...which included okra and eggplant, two veggies I had never cooked before. I made roasted eggplant soup and deep fried okra and both were delicious.
This probably counts as "quarantine crazy"...but this was a snack I gave Cyrus the other day. Angel has been doing the grocery shopping alone and sometime buys weird things like a can of whipped cream...I asked him what the whipped cream was for and he said "Pancakes." But, not having either the ingredients or inclination to make pancakes, I used some whipped cream for a silly sensory play/snack for Cyrus. Yep, quarantine crazy.
Some of our groceries arrived in a big cardboard box, so we made a fridge to add on to Cyrus's Ikea kitchen, which he's been playing with on a daily basis since Christmas.
This is an outtake from Glenn's 5 month photo session, Cyrus always has to get in on the photoshoots, too.
For the first time of any Easters that I can remember, we got Easter chocolates and mini "Easter baskets" (brown paper bags). Now you can tell we're going a bit crazy with quarantine. We've been having our own mini-family-church services, and Angel and I have been having fun choosing songs, mostly because we choose the 90s-era worship songs we grew up with that you hardly hear in real church services anymore.
With Angel being home, he plays crazy games with the boys (moms and dads play very differently, I think). "Baby chases Cyrus" has been a popular game lately, so we had to get it on video for the memories!
I do lots of fun activities with Cyrus, who loves storytime, coloring, play-doh, and duplos...but he doesn't end up in photos as much because...I don't know if you've ever seen a two year old...but they move really, really fast. Even indoors. He's actually handled not going anywhere much better than expected. But I know he misses old "normal" things like going grocery shopping with Angel and seeing his friends every day and everything we used to do. We shall see what happens next.
If you've been reading this blog for a length of time, you may know that I tend to find my husband very amusing in his tendency toward the odd. He still surprises me with his ideas after more than a decade together, and this is one of the things I love about him.
I do tend to squash some of his weirder ideas and plans with a dose of reality, although I try to make them happen when possible, because life is made more interesting by a good dose of different once in a while.
He told me this weekend, "How about you shave my head?"
I said, "No. I married you because you had good hair, there's no reason for you to be bald!"
He said, "Yes! It's quarantine, I don't have to go to work, this is the only time to do it!"
I said, "You literally have zoom calls everyday, and everyone can still see your head. What does not having to go to work have to do with it?"
He said, "It's fine! Come on."
I still said no.
Then I woke up the next day and said, if we filmed the haircut and made a video out of it, I would do it. But I still kind of regretted it. And I still do...buy hey, my life would be much more boring if it weren't for all the random spice my Angel adds to it.
Do watch the video to see Cyrus's reaction to Angel's bald head, along with the chagrin that is obvious on my face as we got close to the end of the haircut. Is it safe to say we've been quarantined slightly too long?
Hang tight in there, and if anyone in your family just wants to shave their head to do something different this quarantine...say yes. Maybe.
