1/14/20: Luna Girl, Gecko and Evett at Kids' World
1/30/20: Welcome to the world, Devon Elizabeth Kirby
February 8, 2020
2/18/20: Nap time
Valentine's Day 2020
February 20, 2020
2/27/20: Finally finished the 2295-piece LEGO Ninjago Destiny's Bounty!
3/11/20: Evett fun with hair on YouTube, right before the pademic hit:
3/19/20: Skype love in the time of quarantine
March 2020
COVID quarantine haiku
dark, fast-moving clouds fallen palm fronds on concrete sudden spray of rain
| April 2, 2020 Soren preparing for first Skype writing class. Today's story: family walked to the high school, where there was a hill. Soren climbed it and then slid down ... all rendered in most excellent Spanish! |
| April 6: Screen shot of Soren's Skype writing assignment today -- looking forward to his birthday! |
Same Skype day -- Evett with flowers
| April 11: Soren demonstrating leaf that has been partially chewed by his pet grasshopper, Freddy, who lives in a cage. The boy's a born fictionalist. |
Mama Beth and Evett after another delightful Skype tutorial with Soren
| April 14: Today is Soren's 7th birthday! First we did our Skype writing class; his four sentennces read, "Hoy es mi cumpleaños y tengo siete años. Mis mamas y mi papa y mi hermano me dieron muchos regalos. Mi pastel esta hecho sobre futbol. El pastel esta hecho con coco y un campo verde." It's hard to capture pencil writing through Skype via screenshot, but here is sort of what it looked like: |
| It's a relatively new thing that he says Mi Papa, and it warms my heart. Soren is going to open most of his regalos later, after the pastel is done, but he opened his Papa present after our writing class. He wanted a Super Mario Kart and got a remote controlled one. It was pretty hard to get out of the box, but once it was set up, Evett and Soren se divertieron mucho con el Kart. Sweet! |
The pastel as described in the story:
... and much gaiety was enjoyed by all
| Below: a Zoom family reunion during quarantine: descendents of the original Zveetkees/Sweet side of the family; in other words, many cousins, one aunt (Francie), one uncle-in-law (Gordon), and a father (me) of the two boys in the above picture ... which makes Soren and Evett distant cousins to all these folks also! |
| June: we arranged to set up a Father's Day meet in Berkeley park near my house. It's the first time I've been in physical proximity with the moms and kids since quarantine started ... what a delight. We all wore masks for a while, except for Evett, who is staunchly anti-mask, and gradually they came off. I got some books from Amazon for the boys, and they made me some really cool stuff, pictured below along with some pix from that day |
| 2020 seems to have turned into a blog, since I'm now reporting on the present. We're still in full quarantine mode. Soren's school is over for the summer, so I'm not doing Zoom meetings with him every day to work on his Spanish homework and play on the whiteboard. Instead, we're having summer camp on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with me reading books to both sons and doing some Spanish with Soren. We've only been doing this a couple of weeks, but so far it's great: the boys make a fort under the dining room table and take the computer with them, and I am reading Mr Mister and Little Miss books by Roger Hargreaves, which they both enjoy. Here a screenshot of mis hijos under the table, listening intently, and all three Kirbykids while Zooming. I miss hanging with them all in person, but these virtual meetings are a joy. Thanks to the moms for facilitating! |
| July 8: Devon makes another surprise visit on Soren's Spanish lesson day |
| ... and later that same day, Momo the newly adopted kitten makes a surprise appearance with Lynn and Pearl Stadler on another Zoom call |
| Soren and Evett riffing on one of our favorite Beyblades reviewer's favorite phrases |
| Today is my birthday. Arranged to meet with the moms and the kids at Annie's place of work, Las Cumbres Observatory, where she has been going in several times a week during quarantine. We met on the lawn in front of her office in Goleta. The boys and I brought our Beyblades, and we all had loads of fun playing and talking. Sunny summer afternoon on the lawn, energetic conversation, Devon being exceedingly cute ... in all, a perfect way to turn 73, never mind the current circumstances. |
| ... and THEN, just when my birthday couldn't get any more awesome, I receive a box in the mail. It's from the Hjelstroms in Morro Bay. Kinda big. What could it be? I open to reveal: The Beavis Bowl! |
| I call it the Beavis Bowl because, after I watched the video in which Eric created it on his lathe, I wrote a comment, "Fire! Fire! Heh-heh," an allusion to Beavis in the MTV animated series. Here is Eric's video: |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xtsJzg6Qb4
... and here is the Beavis fire meme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XchwE9zVdnw
| Sweet post-birthday Zoom today with Ben and Corinne and Parker and very good doggie whose name I forget. |
August 2020: Beth and Devon drop into the Zoom session
| Moms and kids made paper airplanes over the weekend, and they boys enjoyed putting on an Air Show for today's Zoom session. Soren loves to use different backgrounds, frames, hats, animal faces etc. while we Zoom. Evett likes it all except when the mouse nose and ears end up on his face. Then he fries to shake them off and Soren, being the fine and caring brother that he is, turns off the offending feature ... most of the time. This video has no mouse faces -- just the planes, and me forgetting not to talk so that I don't have to be onscreen. Maybe I'll get it one day. |
