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!

Sad, happy

Linden is in full toddler mode lately, and when something doesn’t go her way, she is at best morose,

and at worst flies into a rage, ready to bite or pull the hair of anyone in her path. 

But fortunately she is also very forgiving, and most of the time it doesn’t take much to make her happy again.