This breaks my heart.
Option 2. 100% online. My mom soul is crushed thinking about all of the things she will miss out on, but until we know that she would be safe at school…we will rest assured knowing that she is loved, safe, and educated at home.
I hope you have all the things that second grade brings, my dear. I hope third grade will be a return to something safe and social. We love you and will do our best to be patient and flexible as we all work together from home for 2020.
This is week five or six (I can’t keep track anymore) of working from home and school being closed. The days are pretty similar when you can’t really do anything. However, we are trying to keep the kids (ages 7 and 3) in some sort of schedule.
We start our “school/work days” with a schedule that approximately looks like this:
Some days are filled with more instructional time, more reading, more hands-on activities, and some days are us just trying to hang on until 5pm.
Emma seems to be doing ok with the whole routine, but Ava is struggling some days. This poor child will be a mess when she goes back to preschool. Ava is just DONE at 3pm every day. There is no more ability to listen or be helpful. We’ve tried to give extra snuggles and silly time to acknowledge the fact that this is all out of the normal routine for all of us.
Work got extended to be at home until June 1. At a minimum, I can’t even see myself going back to work until public school is officially over because I still have to make sure Emma does school work.
School was phasing in instructional time over the past 6 weeks, so we just started phase 3: new instruction. Emma is getting the hang of meeting weekly with her class, doing activities on a computer, taking pictures of her work, submitting work online, reading books on iPads, and using Google Classroom LMS. She’s such a good kid, and she is a super helpful big sister. Sometimes we give her treats after Ava goes to bed just so she knows that we appreciate how good she is.
Some things we have done to keep busy:
I made some masks for my mom, dad, and grandmom for Easter because I knew that they might have to go in and out of doctors’ offices with Meem. I told Emma and Ava that I would make them some masks, and you would think I offered to take them to Disney World or something. They are so excited about it and ask me often when I’m going to make them masks.
I just ordered some new fabric since they are so excited. I will let them pick out their patterns and be a part of the mask-making process. Hey, it’s something to do, and they can be proud of their creation in the end.
Honestly, I have no idea what they will do with these masks because the kids have not gone anywhere, and I don’t plan on taking them anywhere either. Once we had to drive to the store, and Peter went inside, and they saw him put a mask on. Then they noticed that everyone coming out of the store was also wearing masks. They were intrigued.
I saw that a few schools overseas are having children return to preschool with masks, so if that becomes a thing here, we will have some for them. I would imagine it might be a slow return to normal even when things start to open again. Our area is still essential businesses only, six-foot distancing, 10 people maximum in a place, no dine-in, take-out only, only go out if you need to, etc.
Ava has been telling me lately that she has “the germ.” Then she says, “I have coronavirus.” This kid. I think she has heard that term maybe twice. She hears EVERYTHING. I informed her that she is healthy and should not be saying that to people. We don’t listen to the news or watch a lot of TV with the kids, so I know she just has a crazy good memory and likes to get a reaction out of people.
In an effort to have more exciting #QuarantineFoods, we made these.
To make three (3) eggrolls, we used:
To get this party started:
By some stroke of luck, our children even loved these. Just remember to cut them in half and let them cool for the little ones because these will be hot, flaming lava pockets when they come out of the air fryer.
Today the governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, canceled school for the rest of the academic year. I can’t even begin to process what this means. I haven’t told Emma yet because I do think she will be a little sad about it. Right now she is loving the ability to sleep in, not have to go to PE, etc. She is thinking about how fun it is…but I don’t want to tell her that she won’t go back to her 1st grade classroom again. She won’t see her teacher again, not as “her teacher.”
The teacher called today and said that they are all planning a parade through the neighborhoods with the PTA. Thinking about it now, it kind of makes me want to cry. Emma loves her first grade teacher.
I have no idea how life is going to be for the next few months. Even thinking about it seems insane. Today in Virginia, we only have 254 cases. It doesn’t sound like that many. Of course, some are not diagnosed, so we can’t count those people in that number. With numbers this low, though, it means we still are at the bottom of the soon-to-be rapid climb. That means that whatever craziness we are feeling today will be completely different a week from now, and then a week from then.
Will my job be okay with me working from home? Will I have to keep writing lesson plans for my first grader so that she can be up to speed when she goes back to school for second grade? How can I keep a preschooler busy while I am trying to work? Will I be able to keep Ava stimulated and educated while I am also trying to homeschool her sister? Do I have to keep paying the vacation fee for daycare even though I am not sending my kids in? Will my kids have a daycare to go back to? Will I have a job after this? I had a job before that laid me off when they had a time of financial distress. I didn’t think I would have to worry about that again, at least for a while.
The answer to the question, “I wonder what things will look like when this is all over,” seems to change from day to day. I can’t even imagine what my thoughts on the answer will be a week from now, let alone a month or three.
Watching the news and hearing about a whole country going into isolation and panic because of a new coronavirus is definitely a crazy way to start the year 2020. Maybe we were oblivious to the rest of the world’s news in January and February, but sometime in March we started hearing about this new virus that was spreading like crazy and was worse than the flu, attacking people’s respiratory system. Soon after a bunch of countries started paying attention, they named it COVID-19.
Once Italy was in the news, things really started to kick off. The story began to unfold just as it did in China, but this time in another country. And it seemed to keep happening. Johns Hopkins created a map that would create a red dot each time a person contracted the disease. At first, the disease was pretty much in a few areas, but things began to get real…real fast when the maps quickly filled with so many red dots that they just decided to put a large red color over the whole country or state.
The news is like we’ve never heard it before. You can’t turn on the TV or read the news online without hearing about COVID-19. We don’t know much about it yet, but we do know that people who travel internationally may have been exposed, people who have flu-like or respiratory symptoms may be have been exposed, and that this virus is worse for those who are immunocompromised and the elderly.
Schools started closing in other countries. Then it happened in California. Then it happened in Washington state. Then it happened here in Virginia. Seniors will most likely not be able to attend prom. Plays have been cancelled. Schools are closed for at least two weeks. And just yesterday, I was sent home to work remotely until at least April 1.
Walking around, you’d think this was a zombie movie. First it started in another country…people were getting sick…we weren’t listening…then it happened here…schools are closed…people are going crazy at the grocery stores…
The crazy thing is how quickly things are changing. You can hear news in the morning that is no longer true in a few hours. No more than 500 people can meet…no more than 100 people can meet…no more than 10 people can meet…no more than 5 people can meet. Don’t touch your nose. Don’t touch your face. And don’t dare sneeze because of allergies in a public place because you will get death stares from everyone. (Of course this all had to happened during allergy season to make us more paranoid).
Hand sanitizer and sanitizing wipes are everywhere–except for in the store for purchase. There is none. No toilet paper. No bread. No eggs. It is kind of funny what people buy. You can, however, buy egg substitute, flour, and yeast. So this house is good to go!
If you visit a friend or go to the store, they immediately sanitize their hands after you give them something or after they come into their home.
Restaurants are closing and laying people off. Stores are starting to close early. Daycares are closing.
People are walking more, though. Neighbors are waving. Dogs are wagging their tails on their evening jog. Kids are riding bikes. Italians are singing songs and playing accordions on their balconies for all to hear. People are starting to decorate their windows for kids to see. There is talk of Christmas lights going back up to bring a little cheer to our social distancing.
And “social distancing” is a term that we all know now.
Parents have to find ways to work a full-time job while they home school their children and attend meetings virtually.
To be continued.
This month was a pretty cute bag for ipsy (–it is actually written with a lowercase “i”). 🙂 The outside of the bag is a rough, textured, plastic-y fabric that displays little bottles of perfume, shampoo, conditioner, lotions, etc.
The contents of the bag were of an average excitement level for me. There were 5 products; one of which was full-sized, and the others were samples. Good-sized samples!
Overall, this month’s bag was a 3/5 for me. Not terrible, not super impressed, not bad though.
I am going to be showing off a new, fancy blog theme soon! Stay tuned…I am putting my computer-savvy husband to work for a few days to help out with the update.
Emma is now 6 months old (and some). Crazy how fast time flies. At the same time, I feel like it was so long ago that she was so small and I was stayni
So I saw this news story today about a woman who restored a 19th century painting on Jesus Christ.
It reminded me a lot of something I saw on Pinterest.
I decided that I couldn’t live with myself until I made this:
If you haven’t seen the story, go here: http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/48776729
