Sequestered in Seattle, Day 298

Happy birthday to Colin! How can you be eight years old already? Rachel claims to have been telling her friends that you were six.

We had rewarmed pulla for breakfast, with jams and quince paste, though Colin took his plain. Colin is partial to Granny Smith apples, so I cut one of those for him and a red one for the rest of us. When the hangout arrived, Colin was ready to open gifts. He was soon playing with the Gravity Maze from France. He was also eager to redeem his Roblox gift card from his friend Dane.

After the hangout, while Colin was playing, we had another round of Kingdom Builder with the Taylors. The winners were Roy, Roy, and Rachel, respectively. After that, there was talk of a walk, but it was too soon time for Colin's birthday party. The kids just had a few minutes of playtime outside.

Colin and four of his friends met on Zoom to assemble and paint birdhouses and eat cupcakes from Cupcake Royale. The other three kids also participated in the activity, at the other end of the kitchen. Colin and Eric had birdhouses with just screws, but Rachel and Lydia had a different model involving glue and nails. We got them all assembled, and I helped Eric paint his.

Finally, we did get out for a walk just as dusk was coming on. Colin and Eric elected to stay home and play outside, but Rachel and Lydia took cameras and wanted to see the owl. By the time we got to her, there was little light left, not enough to get good photos without the tripod. But Rachel managed some video. The owl left her rooftop soon after we arrived and flew to a nearby tree, then another. She stayed for a while, then flew off, we knew not where.

Soon I got a text from Nicole asking if she should pick us up to go get dinner. We walked down the hill to meet her. We picked up sushi, at Colin's request, from a restaurant in Wallingford that we used to go to. It was a treat, since we haven't had sushi during these nearly three hundred days. Not a bite remains.

It was only a little after six, so we had time to watch a couple Mandalorian episodes before dessert, a bath, and bedtime. Regular bedtime was too optimistic after two weeks of vacation, so reading time was followed by a second reading, and then I had to return to the boys' bedroom and read to myself while they finally went to sleep.

I have a dentist appointment in the morning, but the rest of the family will be remembering how to do remote learning. I think we've got all the devices ready.

We remembered to take birthday portraits after Colin was in his pajamas.

Colin's favorite thing to do is play Roblox on his laptop, though he's branched out into a few other games in the past year. It's sometimes a challenge to get him to do other things, but he at least is willing to regularly practice piano. I had been thinking he showed surprising dexterity at it, but then I realized he's already eight years old.

Colin's teacher thinks he misses swimming, because of some things he has written, I think. We see no evidence that he misses taekwondo, on the other hand. He had one baseball practice before the season was cancelled in March, but hasn't shown any interest in picking that up again, either.

It's a challenge to get Colin to read on his own, even books that he seems to like, but he does certainly enjoy being read to, so I picked books for gifts that might be a stretch for him, but that we can read together.

He's a fun-loving kid with lots of energy, plenty of imagination, and some interesting skills. I can't wait to see what the ninth year brings.