Tag Archives: school

Heck No, We Won’t Go!

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So, it’s official. There will be no more school this year. Well, in the school building that is. We are still going to have to suffer through remote learning. I had a difficult enough time trying to do remote learning in college and now I have to do it for even longer with my kids.

Q, my kindergartner, spends her whole lessons with her teacher claiming she’s too tired to participate, yet running around the dining room table where I have her set up. You already know the issues I was having with MJ. As much as I want to say, “forget it,” I don’t want anyone to be behind next school year.

Honestly, I’m not too worried about MJ and Q. They both have solid foundations and I think anything we don’t cover while they are learning with me will easily be caught up on once school resumes. I am worried about EM though. She’s supposed to be entering kindergarten come the fall. I feel like maybe she got enough preschool under her belt that she should be okay, but then again, you never really know.

I haven’t been sleeping very well lately as my anxiety and depression seem to be at war with each other over control of me. I have been trying to accomplish little tasks around the house that I have been putting off, but shelter-in-place affords me even less time for myself than the regular school year. However, I did just finish a project for the kids. I re-vamped two old end tables to make an oven and a grocery store counter. I put them in the playroom last night so they would wake up to find them this morning. They were a big hit!

CJ also just finished building a whole new play set in the backyard. He worked on it over one weekend and a few lunch breaks. The kids have been on it almost non-stop whenever we are outside. Even SC, my little 17 month old, is in love with it. It didn’t take long at all until she was brave enough to climb the steps by herself to go down the slide. And who doesn’t love a baby plopping off the slide onto their diapered bottom?

 

 

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If there’s one downside to this new computer, it would be this – it is a desktop and therefore stuck upon its desk. Now don’t get me wrong; it’s exactly the one I’ve wanted for a long time. I love it. It’s just, we’ve had to change around some sleeping arrangements lately and my computer in is the room MJ is now sleeping in. This means I cannot use it at night, for fear of disturbing him. Also, with the “quarantine school,” I am unable to use it during the day because I am otherwise occupied with the four kids.

I am currently drowning in worksheets and busy work, but I would gladly take that over the copious amounts of work that has been assigned to my children via devices. Am I the only one bothered by how much work is expected to be done electronically? I mean, it would be one thing to submit work electronically. I was a pro at that by the time I was done with college. However, my children are expected to do hours of lessons through gaming.

I am all for making learning fun, but telling my children they must learn through this medium just doesn’t work for me. If MJ gets too much screen time, regardless of the content, he’s, well…a jerk. He yells at his sisters, at me…It’s just no good. Whenever there are breaks from school, especially summer, I make screen time something he can only do on weekends and for limited bursts of time. (I would like to make it clear that what I am referring to as screen time involves handheld electronics, ie something you do on your lap.)

So now I struggle to modify the already modified lesson plans of their teachers, trying to make sure they are not behind by the time school resumes.

On a lighter note, last night at dinner, Q started telling some awful jokes. And by awful I don’t mean “dad” jokes or “punny” ones, I mean jokes that make no sense whatsoever. Then she was getting really confused as to why CJ and I weren’t laughing. Eventually we ended up laughing at just how outrageously bad they were compounded with her AMAZING delivery.

At this time, she decided that whoever was the first to laugh had to tell the next joke. It was quite funny and we all had a good laugh once we started really going. CJ and I discovered pretty quickly though that we were grossly unprepared for such a game. For some reason, every single child-friendly joke we knew decided to leave us and kept our number of turns limited. I think we were only able to come up with about a half dozen between us. I took this as a person failure as my grandfather is the king of these type of jokes and even writes the funnies for our local gazette. He would be so ashamed.

My personal favorite from Q’s arsenal tonight: What do you get when you put ketchup in your drink? Something gross.

You know you laughed a little too. 🙂

 

Too School for Cool?

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Today, we entered the world of homeschooling using materials and resources CJ picked up from school yesterday. This morning, we had a conference call with a teacher and quite a few classmates, we’ve used online learning sites as directed, and did many worksheets. I hate it.

As you’ve seen in my unfinished summer posts, I always make sure we are doing some kid of learning on extended time off. In preparation for the weeks ahead when they closed school, I made up schedules and lesson plans for us, to make sure the kids were still learning something; to keep their brains active.

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I would like to point out, the movie is a Disney movie and was chosen ironically. Also, they love it. And maybe I do too.  🙂

This schedule was super easy to follow and had a format my kids were used to. We were already doing really well with it. Today has been a mess though. Like, seriously.

We did science and math on Monday and Tuesday in the form of a hand washing experiment and spine demonstration (using cut straws and pipe cleaners) and did some baking and measuring.

We didn’t do anything I had planned for today, opting instead to just go all in with what the teachers had provided. This method, unfortunately, leaves the younger two out. I cannot fully devote myself to either faction that has been created. The two younger ones distract the older ones, as they just want to touch the devices that were sent home, and I can’t focus on keeping them otherwise occupied since the older two require instruction to get their work done.

I plan on finishing out the week, to see if things get any better. If they don’t start to go more smoothly, I may back out from what the teachers are asking (sorry!) and just stick to my own planning. My kids may end up a touch behind in lessons once school resumes, but how much can they really be absorbing with such frequent interruptions? Also, it’s not like they weren’t learning anything. They just didn’t realized they were learning.

This experience has once again made it clear to me that I made the right choice studying adolescent versus elementary education. God bless our teachers!

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After having survived visiting both sides of the family in a single weekend and numerous hours in the van, we still had plenty to get ready for at home. We had the beginning of school for MJ and Q, the end of my job at the hospital, and the beginning of babysitting for one of my girlfriends. We have been an exceptionally busy household.

Most days, it’s been the level of busy where you feel really accomplished by the end of the day, but you’re too tired to do anything else other than binge on DramaFever before bed.

There have been a few highlights since school has started. One of the things I loved was one morning while driving to school, as we passed the cemetery, Q waved out the window and said, “Hi, Baby Riley.” It was just that simple; just that sweet. And now they always do it. It makes me both happy and sad at the same time. The other thing has to do with MJ. One of the other mothers was in his classroom for a birthday. She pulled me aside at pickup later that day to tell me how impressed she was with how well-behaved and polite he is. I was shocked. And so excited. I can deal as long as he’s only naughty at home lol.

So today begins my attempt at a better, more structured writing schedule – squeezing it in between life and everything else. Hopefully I will be as successful as I would like to be.  Wish me luck!

Friends

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As a woman in my late 20s (I had to cop to it sometime), it is hard for me to admit that I get lonely. A lot. My husband is my best friend and I love him for it, but sometimes I crave more.

My best friend since middle school – we served as each other’s maid of honor then matron of honor – moved 13 hours away about four years ago. What was once skyping and phone calls has devolved to Facebook comments and the occasional text message. I miss her.

The handful of friends I made before MJ was born were a few years younger and still in college when we met. Once our place of work closed, they went their separate ways. Well, from me that is. They are still friends; in fact they all live together. I miss getting together on Thursday nights to watch Grey’s Anatomy and just chit-chat.

My sister lives extremely close by, but we are so completely different that although we get along, we don’t hang out. She likes to party and get a little tipsy. I much prefer a different kind of evening. I love her because she is my sister, but I wish she were my friend.

After being with CJ for nearly eight years, he has finally convinced me to give up on his sister being my friend. I didn’t even get a chance to know enough about her to see if we would get along before she expertly and completely shut me out.

CJ tries to reassure me that once MJ, Q, and the new baby are older, I will find some of what he calls “mom friends.” I see his point about running into more woman my age with more in common, yet I feel he severely overestimates my ability to make friends.

This whole entry sounds so depressing…I promise to no longer go on a Friends binge while hormonal.

Earth Day 2010

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I really love the children in my room at work (school age). Especially on days like these.

The kids did not have school this year on Earth Day, so as a special treat, we all walked to the local movie theater and saw How to Train your Dragon. Before we left the center, one of the girls was talking to me about what Earth Day means and what you are supposed to do on that day. I told her, goofing around, that on Earth Day, you were supposed to hug every tree you saw, to show your appreciation to it.

As we were walking to the theater, that same little girl ran up to the first tree we saw and gave it a great big hug while saying, “Greetings to you! Happy Earth Day!” It was so cute that I could not bring myself to yell at her for getting out of line.

She quickly got back in line, but had apparently read my silence as permission to continue doing what she was doing. Every tree or bush large enough for her to hug she would run right up to and greet with much enthusiasm.

As we neared Main Street and the trees were surrounded by concrete and sometimes trash, her words to the trees got even cuter. To one she said, “I’m sorry you’re right next to a garbage can, but I’m happy you’re alive!” To another she said, “I can’t believe someone littered right next to you. They should be ashamed of themselves!”

Now this is funny in its own right, but this coming out of the mouth of an eight year old was just too much. I could not help myself but to let her hug every tree on our way to the theater and every tree on the other side of the street as we walked back to the center.

Maybe if we could all take the time to show our appreciation and not care if we looked silly while doing it, all our trees would look a little happier. As she had said, “That tree looks sad. He needs a hug and then he’ll feel better and look better!”