I wrote this post on Madison Mom summing up my feelings about Minnie's weird labor and delivery, and I cannot even believe it has already been FOUR WEEKS.
I honestly think the only reason we are finding our groove is because of the plague. No extracurriculars. No commute. No one has to LEAVE THE HOUSE EVER. All of these things help simplify our workflow for sure.
Minnie updates: She doesn't always fall asleep while eating and likes to be ricked to sleep with white noise. And! Sometimes, she will sleep away from me for short spurts of time. She's growing up, is what I am trying to say.
Virtual school: LOVE IT so far. I don't think it is a pedagogical best practice to run elementary school like a webinar, BUT I do love the silence in our house while the kids are "at school," and our district designed the school day with a five-year-old alone in a room in mind, so the kids can do all the tech by themselves. While this is sad, it is also a brilliant use of universal design and takes a load off our minds. The have ONE LOG IN and ONE ZOOM PASSWORD and their whole day is linked from a master slide. It's really great. Even the asynchronous platforms they use for literacy and math (which are terrific as well) use the same log ins. I am really impressed, especially compared to the horror stories I hear on social media. Harry had a couple of relaxed days but has his first real day today. Both junior high and high school only do 3 lives classes a day, which is freaking awesome. I actually think the little kids have more screen time, which is ... questionable, but I am giving it a few weeks before I pull them or institute my own curriculum. The big kids are going to learn the kind of independent study skills and advocacy strategies that they'll need for college, so that's great, too. So far, so good.
Cooper's BIRTHDAY! Was great. The day before, Minnie was SUPER FUSSY, and I was kind of a wreck by the end of the day. But, that turned out to be good. She was crying at the breast and I assumed my milk had dried up (hormones! they are nuts!) and fuh-reaked out. But then Ben was like you're nuts (not helpful in the moment) and rocked her to sleep in no time (helpful) and gave me a leg and foot massage and a coconut popsicle (more helpful). And, the moral is, I realized she doesn't always eat herself to sleep anymore and that's a GOOD THING. So, I had better coping skills on Cooper's big day, and it was so fun. Ice cream for lunch! An asynchronous learning day, so he was done with school by 10 am and spent the day playing with his gifts. He requested buttermilk pancakes for breakfast (took some prep work to have enough free hands to man the griddle AND make from-scratch batter, but we did it) and a huge steak dinner for, um, dinner, along with ice cream cake from his favorite place. I ordered him the new Dog Man book to show up mid afternoon as a final surprise, and that was the cherry on his golden birthday sundae.
Minnie pics:
Her hand in her pocket?! Are you even kidding me?
My son wore ONE slipper to remote learning today. He discovered it over the weekend and has continued to just rock the single slipper. Our first day (today) was a complete sh*t show and my 1st grader got a half hour with his teacher where there was actual sound AND video. My 7th grader had no homeroom teacher and his social studies class just disappeared from his roster of classes. It would seem our school system (we are in MA) did not anticipate how terribly our server would handle so many students simultaneously trying to remote learn. They have different landing pages for their specials. It is not going to be easy for my 7 year old (1st grade) to navigate! I. Am. Stressed.
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