Coronavirus Day 1

12:38PM: James “I’ve been home schooling these people for three hours and I can’t take it anymore.  We should be paying teachers billions.” 12:48PM: Jacob Whimpering… “I really wish I was at school right now.” It’s Day 1 soldiers!  Buck-up and wash your hands.

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Zombie Apocolypse II

Yesterday I decided to go to the grocery store first thing and it was a crazy zoo.  I was going to make Trader Joe’s orange chicken for Jacob’s Coronavirus Birthday, but locusts had descended upon the freezer section.  All manner of asian delicacies were gone, though the kale gnocchi was…

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Friday the 13th

Floating around my house somewhere is a little hand-drawn gift tag my mom made for my twelfth birthday.  It has a sketch of a fault line with the words “Earthquake Birthday!” written on the front.  That was the year my presents were buried in a closet somewhere.  We had to hastily…

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Space Jam

As my mom tells it, my first slumber party was around third grade for Esther’s birthday.  And I would spend the following day as grumpy as, quote, “a little wet hen.”  As I grew as a connoisseur of the sleepover soirees, I mostly remember being the primary target of the…

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Friday Night Lights

We had that short lull after soccer All Stars and now we’re back in it.  Baseball and Flag Football.  Full swing.  Nate’s on the Yankees and the Georgia Bulldogs.  Jake scored big, making it onto the starting line-up for the Kansas City Chiefs in just his second year. Now we…

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Man buns

Over the last few days, Nate’s been fairly fixated on tracing his soccer lineage.  He tells me he’s great at soccer because I’m great at soccer (naturally).  And I’m great at soccer because Granddad’s great at soccer.  And then the trail goes cold.  Maybe it then leaps all the way back…

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Chickity China

Nate mostly speaks minion.  Yes, “minion” as in those little yellow cartoon guys that sometimes have one eye and sometimes have two and speak some version of gibberish Italian.  Nate is fluent. It started way back when little kids make noises that sound like talking, but is really just gibberish.  And…

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Ear Worm

I’ve gotta hand it to the YouTube generation.  Jake was struggling with learning not just where the states go on a blank map, but also then learning the capital cities.  That’s when he took it upon himself to find a song to help him learn.  Score another one for “Self-directed…

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Salt Lake City

I’ll never forget my eighth grade Civics class with Mr. Patterson.  He was a tall, slender, silver-haired man tasked with teaching us the great responsibilities and privileges of citizenship.  And we were singularly focused on attending “The New York Trip,” which also included DC and Intercourse, Pennsylvania.  Besides learning the…

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Motor

This is our first weekend after the All Stars season of soccer tournaments.  After several months of three to five games every weekend, I was completely at a loss.  What do we even do on weekends?  Then today we went to back-to-back kid parties and I kind of remembered. About two…

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