Too eventful

 We ended up doing covid testing for Maren and Jeff. Since Linden and I basically have no contact with the outside world, we didn’t really need tests because any germs we had would come through Maren or Jeff. After doing some reconnaissance we found out that the lineup at the testing site ebbs and flows. They also have signs that say what the wait time is. So Jeff drove by, saw a wait time of 30 minutes, drove back here and scooped up Maren and took her immediately. They ended up having to wait more like an hour but that was partly because the testing site lost Internet service for about 20 minutes which slowed everything down. Of course the tests were negative, as we expected, but better safe than sorry.

But man, it has been a week. We all ended up getting Maren’s cold, and while Jeff and I didn’t have bad symptoms at all, Linden has been having a hard go of it. She seems to have been hit the hardest and being a two-year-old who is also constantly teething, her mood has been pretty explosive.

Then one of our kitties, Puck, started to seem quite unwell. Long story short, he ate probably 12 novelty Christmas erasers which were about a half inch in diameter. He puked up most of them, but two got stuck in his stomach and two got stuck in his intestines, and we had to take him to the emergency vet (because good Friday is a holiday here and no regular vets were open) and he ended up having to have surgery. He came home late last night and now we have lots of aftercare to do.

But today was Easter and despite being pretty tired we had some good times.

However, Linden definitely ate too much chocolate and had quite a sugar crash. She got really really mad at Maren and tried to put her brand new toy (an Easter gift from grandma) through the paper shredder. Props for creativity, but generally not appreciated. Here’s hoping that the coming week is a little bit calmer 😂

Cold

 Maren started having cold symptoms on Friday afternoon, and now Linden has it too. This is the first time we have dealt with anyone in our household being sick since covid started, and we are mentally scrambling a little bit to figure out what we are supposed to do. They both have a runny nose and are intermittently tired, but no fever and no other symptoms so there is very low likelihood that it is covid. The rates of rhinovirus, which this looks like, are way way higher than the rates of covid. Still, it is a bit of a shock and a scare to have them get sick at all. 

The covid numbers are rapidly rising here, and almost all of the new cases are variants of concern, mostly the UK variant. Our government has been terrible, pandering to politics rather than focusing on public health. There are now new public health orders in place, but they came way way too late. It is extremely frustrating and also a little scary.

School is closed for two weeks, and we are just going to camp out at home and not go out for the next couple of weeks. We are supposed to get both Maren and Linden tested for Covid, but public health has made the (idiotic) move to make all testing happen at one drive through testing location. No appointments, first come first served. And right now the wait times are between two hours and four hours, so you drive up in your car and wait in your car that entire time. That would be torture for all of us if we took them to get tested, so we aren’t going to do it. The chances it is Covid are very low and we would rather isolate unnecessarily than go through that awfulness. It feels safer to isolate at home right now anyway. I am going to be calling and/or writing to Public Health to tell them that their policies are leading to people like us choosing not to test.

But today we had lovely weather, and even though they weren’t feeling well they had a great time playing outside :-)

Kid chaos

 On Friday it was as warm outside as it was in the house, and everyone went a little crazy. Maren decided it was too hot outside and took her shirt off:

The snow is almost completely melted — it is only left where there were huge piles from shoveling, and where it is shaded all day. The temperatures are predicted to go up and down, but there are no more highs below freezing. So yay for real spring, which arrived just in time for the equinox.

Maren and Linden have been playing together much more. It is so much fun to see. One of their favourite games is hide and seek, and Linden really isn’t very good at hiding, but it doesn’t matter because they both laugh like they are really surprised to see each other when one finds the other. It’s also pretty fun to watch Linden count. The other day she was counting “21, 22, 29, 20, 21, 22, 29, 20, 21, 22, 29, 20…” and only stopped when she decided it had been long enough and it was time to find Maren. This was today, completely avoiding 20 and anything larger:

And here is one from the other day, capturing only about 1/10 of the actual chaos, because they toned it way down when they figured out I was taking a video:

Sooo close to spring

 We have almost made it through winter. We’ve been going outside with no hats, spring jackets, and splash pants for the puddles, but also sometimes in snow suits. It’s a confusing time of year. 

We made a snowman which is probably our last of the year. Enjoying the Saskatchewan spring.

Right now it is wet in the afternoons with all the snow melt, but super icy in the mornings with the overnight freezes. It’s sunny most days and the highs are finally above freezing. I really really hope that this is real spring and not false spring, and that we can spend lots more time outside soon!

Linden is Two!

 On Monday Linden turned two years old!

It is a little bit surreal, for a few reasons. First because it always feels like kids are growing up too fast. In her own words, Linden is “not a toddler baby anymore, a two-year-old toddler!” Second, because the last social gathering that we hosted at our house was Linden‘s first birthday party, one year ago. It’s hard to believe that we haven’t had friends at our house for an entire year. And then third, the last year of Linden’s life, which is basically all she can remember, she has mostly been at our house or within walking distance. This is a strange time, and I wonder what Linden (and Maren) will remember about it.

But nonetheless we had fun birthday festivities including apple pie (Linden‘s request), helium balloons, party hats, and plenty of presents. Happy birthday dear Linden!