Moments of the Month | March and April, 2020 DQ

“During Quarantine,” that is. I shared the first 12 days of March in my “March 2020 BC” post (for “Before Coronavirus”) HERE.

On March 13th, Kate arrived back from Spain and Patrick got home from his spring break in Montreal. All the schools had been closed by this point, so I count March 13 as the day it all began.  All six of us were unexpectedly home and it looked like it might be a while.

I couldn’t help but be pretty excited on one level.  All of us together with nowhere to go and nothing to do … felt kinda special.  Visions of photo-a-day project danced in my head, but then were quickly dashed as I began to appreciate how much my camera generally annoyed my fellow inmates.  They were missing out on some big things (study abroad, sports seasons, trips, friends) and were sometimes not feeling my giddiness.  So.  I still took photos – it’s how I remember – but they’re more of catch-as-catch-can variety.  Many are unedited iPhone photos. I threw them together in a slideshow because that’s always the best way to tell the story, imo.

What’s the story for March and April?  Well, I’m only telling the story between these four walls here.  That’s where we were.  Maybe I’ll put the “what was going on elsewhere” story somewhere else sometime, but this one is about distance learning and board games and card games and lots and lots of neighborhood walks.  Music, too.  I’m proud to say that all four kids picked up a new instrument in these months.  We’ve now got another guitar, another ukulele, a harmonica and … a songwriter.  He’d dabbled before (see, for example, my Mother’s Day present in 2016) but during these months Emmett mastered his new looper and started using his voice and did some amazing things in Garage Band.  Including the soundtrack to this slideshow, my 2020 Mother’s Day gift.  “In the Clouds”, written and arranged by Emmett with contributions from Matt and the three other kids.  It’s the best part.

There’s still all of May and half of June to tell this quarantine story.  Today would have been my first day back doing family sessions if it wasn’t storming out right now, so I count this as the end.  A time I’ll never forget, that’s for sure.

Remember this was beautiful.

Thanks for looking,

Jaye