Day 2747

Decades later, and I suddenly have a whole new appreciation for Grandad’s gift of Winnie-the-Pooh. I wish I could tell him.

Day 2746

I’ve realized I can help a grumpy Lizard by asking her to help me with a cleaning task and oh boy are we ever going to have some silly rampages together...

Day 2745

Trying to explain to Lizard that we’re not trying to persecute her when we tell her not to persecute her brother.

And ordered a plague journal. Like you do.

Day 2744

Turns out if you shovel like hell, you can stop the flooding.

But also you’re in your thirties, so your body is over now.

Day 2743

Getting bored of pandemic? Try flooding!

Day 2742

Generally you don’t expect the big ugly questions of moral philosophy to come up in your everyday life.

Day 2741

Chinchilla got a toy vacuum for his birthday and I’ve never seen a kid vacuum so thoroughly or so enthusiastically. Once he gets over his fear of the real vacuum I’ll be set for life!

Day 2740

All other school activities are cancelled. We are only doing science, and we are only making oobleck.

Day 2739

I would have been okay with having one baby who doesn’t grow teeth late, and in bunches.

Day 2738

Banana seems to have noticed that she’s getting less of her mother’s undivided attention, and she is making it known that she doesn’t appreciate it, especially in her time of teething.

Day 2737

Our definitely very big Chinchilla is three! He was so excited about it that he kept reminding us to say happy birthday to him throughout the day. He said his favourite part of the day was the cake (before he had eaten it, and then didn’t finish it). He named his new nesting doll killer whale Ned, and kept happily announcing when Ned’s head had come off.

Also, finally convinced the kids to start saying ‘my compliments to the chef!’

Shoutout to Lizard who swept the living room, tidied the baby jail, and vacuumed the stairs even though she was too grumpy to read books.

Day 2736

Parenting continues to involve saying and doing things I never would have expected. Like putting socks on my son’s hands before bed, and asking him “did you lick the dust bunny?”

Day 2735

There is something wonderful about randomly shovelling snow around your yard to have an adventure with your housebound children.

Day 2734

It’s weird realizing that self-isolation is not much different than how I normally do mat leave.

Day 2733

I was not expecting that physical activities would be the point of contention for impromptu homeschool. 

Note to self: provide different rules for Chinchilla at the outset so that rule-bound Lizard doesn’t lose her shit.

Day 2732

Can I borrow someone’s copy of Amateur Curriculum Planning 101 for Dummy Beginners?

Day 2731

Massive uncertainty in the face of a pandemic is hard for risk-averse planners.

Day 2730

The most exciting present for Chinchilla is cake. To which he suggested we could add more eggs (after baking) to make it more delicious.

Most mispronounced present: the abacus, now known forever as a biscuit.

Day 2729

It’s hard to get a handle on the vibe. It’s like getting ready for a blizzard that you know is going to result in a snow day so you get bonus time off work... only it’s the whole world and it’s for weeks and the market is tanking... so maybe add a few dashes of zombie apocalypse?

Or zombie apocalypse where there’s a low transmission rate and a vaccine being developed and probably the government will mostly manage to keep shit together in the meantime.

Day 2728

It is not a good time to be home with time on my hands and news push alerts on my phone.

Day 2727

Banana is officially mobile! And much like a mobile, she mostly goes in circles...

Day 2726

Chinchilla learned a life lesson the hard way today: don’t find out if your fingers fit in something by jamming your fingers in it for funsies.

Our Parmesan now comes with extra toddler cooties.

Day 2725

Between daylight savings and two days of wrong naps, our sweet happy baby reached the end of her patience and started sobbing when I broke eye contact at bedtime.

But she also got to sit at the table at a restaurant for the first time, and discovered splashing in the bath. 

Day 2724

Our other season, which is intermittent: Ice.

Day 2723

And now comes the annual sacrifice of one hour’s sleep to the god of time; we’ll discover tomorrow how heavy the price is.

Day 2722

Does Iceland having the best Eurovision entry mean that it’s officially End Times?

Day 2721

How to give the dog fits: have people nap in different parts of the house simultaneously. Don’t let him nap with the person who was gone for two days.

How to make Banana happy: have her daddy appear. Also Cheerios.

Day 2720

Banana is mostly a very good baby, but she does have an uncanny knack for knowing when I most need to sleep... so she can wake me up.

Day 2719

Lizard has officially started her texting life. Now I just have to convince her to add spaces between words...

Day 2718

Every once in a while your kid says “I can do it by myself!” and it turns out that they really can and suddenly you realize they’re two inches taller than they were what feels like five minutes ago...

Day 2717

Birthday playdates are the best birthday parties.

Hawaiian pizza is still delicious even when the pizzeria mysteriously decides to hold the ham.