I’m bringing you another family update today with more of our low-key adventures in the midst of a lot of happenings, both nationwide and personally, that are anything but low-key.
As we get further into 2020, it definitely doesn’t get easier to keep writing updates. I’ve purposely not provided a lot of personal commentary on the events of the year. But it wouldn’t feel right to publish this past month’s update without mentioning Kenosha. Kenosha is very close to home. We have family and friends there and know multiple people personally with local Kenosha businesses. We drive right through the areas where significant violence and damage occurred every single week. My heart is broken for the city and scared for what might happen in other cities around the country now, particularly as we approach the election.
A little over a week before everything went down in Kenosha, there was a huge fire. As with many things in 2020, normally the fire would have been one of the biggest news stories of the year. But it was only a tiny blip on the radar. I’d never seen a fire of this scale in person, much less this close. I took this photo about three hours into the rescue.
We’re still laying pretty low while doing our best to maintain a normal routine for Tommy. August was a much better social month than July. Among other things, Tommy got to have a few outdoor play dates with friends.
We had my parents over a couple of times and had Tommy’s birth mom and grandma over for dinner and a backyard fire.
We also went to a friends’ house for dinner one night. This is the first home cooked meal I’ve had since all of this started that I didn’t have to shop for or prepare in any way whatsoever.
Tommy and I washed my car. He had so much fun. It was one of his favorite activities from the entire summer.
Jumping in puddles remains a favorite activity.
We have ventured over to our neighbor’s beach again a few times this month. It’s totally a normal thing to bring your sword to the beach.
At the beginning of the month, we transitioned Tommy to a toddler bed. The first few days were absolutely awful, and I was worried that he wouldn’t nap ever again. But it’s gotten considerably better since then. One day he insisted on wearing his Spiderman jacket to sleep, with the hood up and everything, and actually fell asleep that way.
I took Tommy for a (slightly late) annual check-up at the doctor.
We ended the month with a trip to the zoo.
Finally, I’ve gotten a ton of questions about what we’re doing for school this year, if Tommy’s starting school, etc. The short answer is that he’s not this year because of the pandemic. For a number of reasons, I hadn’t felt strongly about him starting this year anyway. With that being said, if things were different, most likely I would have looked into a two or three day mornings only preschool for this fall because he is potty trained and very ready socially. But it just doesn’t make sense right now. If he were older and starting kindergarten this year, I would be homeschooling him for the year. I pray that things will look better for the 21-22 school year.
Head to the family section of the blog for all past family updates as well as baby/toddler Tommy updates.
