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One Month!
Apr. 13th, 2020 01:18 pmThe first day the kids should have been in school, but were not, was Friday the 13th of March. Today is April the 13th. And, bonus, the 13th is on a Monday this week!
Some things are too challenging even for me to reframe. I mean, if we had a timeline or end date, we could be happy to have gotten one month closer. But we do not. Also, next week would be April Vacation Week, but while they still get Patriots Day off, the rest of the week is regular school, and they get out slightly earlier in June as a result. Who knows what that all means for our plans in June.
It is what it is. It has been so for a month.
This is the second week of Real School at Home. T. continues to be fully independent and to wrap up before lunchtime. A. continues to not be fully independent, altho since there are no more math challenges, the tears occur at random intervals. Shockingly, it was Flocabulary this time, with a grammar lesson about run on sentences that included a term I did not know (comma splice) and required me to explain to her what a clause is. Not great, when I was expecting to have 20 minutes to myself to take care of some other things.
The art related meltdown was offensive, because I had carefully gone over the choice board and identified the one activity that was basically just watching videos. Very cool videos of the Curious Contraptions exhibit at the SF Exploratorium of Newstead's automata. Should have been straightforwardly amazing; instead, lots of flopping and whining. Next time, I will run down the other options FIRST and then say, or you could watch this video. Enthusiasm will occur. It will be better. Probably. Otherwise, she may change her mind about how homeschooling is so much better than going to school.
At least there is a fun option for Wednesday PE: she can learn the steps to Old Town Road (which she loves). Should make her absolutely binky bonkers. I will not laugh, but at least I will see it coming.
Enough about school! I apparently feel like I should always be paying for child care. I used to pay for child care for a friend's kids, before I even had kids. Then I paid for child care for my kids. Now it is a niece and nephew. I mean, I have been doing this for a while, but the most recent transition is going from paying half to paying all of it. Which is fine! I am glad I am able to help out a little. Raising little ones is hard, especially as a single parent.
Last night R., with some assistance from me and even less from T., got the treadmill moved out of my office and into the upstairs hallway. Today, we got the light in the hallway figured out (the old one is now in my office, and we moved one of the ladybug lights onto a shelf in the hallway -- we just need enough light there in the evening to not trip over things). I had to put a lot of stuff inside a bookcase when I put Hogwarts lego on top of my filing cabinet; with both stands in my office, I can now redeploy some of those things. Sooooo nice to uncrowd things. Eufy now lives in my office, at least temporarily.
I got an email from WM today advertising their Bagster service. This cracks me up slightly; I suspect a lot of people are spending time in their houses being very frustrated by a bunch of crap that was easy to let build up while everyone was at work or school. Now that they are tripping over it, they are getting rid of some of it and rearranging the rest. I am mooing right along with the herd here. And because of the pandemic, you cannot donate things, so if you want something gone, into a bagster it goes, I guess. I have not hit that point yet; I am still staging in the basement in hopes that donation will become an option again someday.
Some things are too challenging even for me to reframe. I mean, if we had a timeline or end date, we could be happy to have gotten one month closer. But we do not. Also, next week would be April Vacation Week, but while they still get Patriots Day off, the rest of the week is regular school, and they get out slightly earlier in June as a result. Who knows what that all means for our plans in June.
It is what it is. It has been so for a month.
This is the second week of Real School at Home. T. continues to be fully independent and to wrap up before lunchtime. A. continues to not be fully independent, altho since there are no more math challenges, the tears occur at random intervals. Shockingly, it was Flocabulary this time, with a grammar lesson about run on sentences that included a term I did not know (comma splice) and required me to explain to her what a clause is. Not great, when I was expecting to have 20 minutes to myself to take care of some other things.
The art related meltdown was offensive, because I had carefully gone over the choice board and identified the one activity that was basically just watching videos. Very cool videos of the Curious Contraptions exhibit at the SF Exploratorium of Newstead's automata. Should have been straightforwardly amazing; instead, lots of flopping and whining. Next time, I will run down the other options FIRST and then say, or you could watch this video. Enthusiasm will occur. It will be better. Probably. Otherwise, she may change her mind about how homeschooling is so much better than going to school.
At least there is a fun option for Wednesday PE: she can learn the steps to Old Town Road (which she loves). Should make her absolutely binky bonkers. I will not laugh, but at least I will see it coming.
Enough about school! I apparently feel like I should always be paying for child care. I used to pay for child care for a friend's kids, before I even had kids. Then I paid for child care for my kids. Now it is a niece and nephew. I mean, I have been doing this for a while, but the most recent transition is going from paying half to paying all of it. Which is fine! I am glad I am able to help out a little. Raising little ones is hard, especially as a single parent.
Last night R., with some assistance from me and even less from T., got the treadmill moved out of my office and into the upstairs hallway. Today, we got the light in the hallway figured out (the old one is now in my office, and we moved one of the ladybug lights onto a shelf in the hallway -- we just need enough light there in the evening to not trip over things). I had to put a lot of stuff inside a bookcase when I put Hogwarts lego on top of my filing cabinet; with both stands in my office, I can now redeploy some of those things. Sooooo nice to uncrowd things. Eufy now lives in my office, at least temporarily.
I got an email from WM today advertising their Bagster service. This cracks me up slightly; I suspect a lot of people are spending time in their houses being very frustrated by a bunch of crap that was easy to let build up while everyone was at work or school. Now that they are tripping over it, they are getting rid of some of it and rearranging the rest. I am mooing right along with the herd here. And because of the pandemic, you cannot donate things, so if you want something gone, into a bagster it goes, I guess. I have not hit that point yet; I am still staging in the basement in hopes that donation will become an option again someday.