this girl ...

...just got voted "most musical," by her 8th grade class.

The beginning of quarantine was tough for her.  Everyday she'd come into my office:

"We should be performing in Simi today..."
"What are we doing today?"
"We would be having our dance today."
"We'd be on Spring Tour today."
"Can we go to the beach tomorrow?"

She was pretty mad about her social life being put on indefinite hold.

Two months later it's down to:

"What are we doing today"
"Can we go to the beach tomorrow?"

She's definitely less angry which is nice.

I get it, no music trip, no Washington D.C. trip, no 8th grade dance, no 8th grade promotion event (which has been rescheduled as a "drive through" event -- that will be interesting) and probably 6+ music performances cancelled.  It really isn't fair.  I keep telling her, at least she's not a high school senior.

She has been doing a lot of solo music.  She has started composing using software which I for one think is pretty impressive (yes, I'm her mom, but still).

All in all we've settled into quarantine life pretty nicely.  The girls and I have found our weekday rhythm and I have to admit -- it's not terrible.

skate or die

I've been telling my kids this is not an ideal time to go to the hospital because of COVID-19 and to please be careful ... 

Mo took a turn on her skateboard and there were rocks and... well, fractured and dislocated elbow.

The Sounds of a Pandemic

Oddly enough the COVID-19 pandemic has not changed my schedule exceedingly.  If anything I have more time as I no longer have to drive people to school and then pick up and drive around to various practices after school.  No joke, this probably gives me anywhere between 2-3 hours more a day.

But, the tradeoff is I am no longer alone in my office (house).  The number of interruptions in my work day is countless.  Questions about their school work, how to email an image to a group when they have email accounts that are limiting, how to crop an image for an assignment, how to change a document into a .pdf, questions about how to get answers from a counselor, etc.  

I guess I should be happy they are cute little faces popping in ...  

But, clearly as the image shows those regular interruptions are also accompanied by quite a bit of noise.  

And, yes that is a saxophone.  Katie convinced her music teacher to loan it to her before school let out.  

The sounds of guitar, ukulele, clarinet and now saxophone fill the air at all hours of the day and night in house of the Little Wickies.

Katie has started composing, which can be frustrating for her as in her words "I can't get what's in my head into this program!"  And, she really has no one to help her as this is way out of my league.  A snippet of the intro she has been working on:

Mo has been teaching her "sisters" Lani and Keera to play uke. They made "The Coronavirus Song."  If you listen, make sure to have the Closed Captions (CC) on so you can see the lyrics.

I am so happy they have music in their lives ... but, man it's loud around here these days!