Life without school (week 6)...

On Sunday before the next school week started:

Kiddos have been cleaning the bathroom for half an hour already. Its getting nice and sparkly. The teamwork chatter is fantastic: “you have to use elbow grease, daddy says!” “Oh, it does come off” “I get to clean the mirror” “I can reach behind the toilet”... such positivity!
Our home economics classes are really a game changer! Think everyone will be graduating from the course with flying colors. (I wonder if the fact there was video game privileges being awarded influenced their happiness in cleaning? Naw- had to be the pride in knowing they were doing a good job, right?)

Week 6 I was at work again for a few hours in the middle of the day M-F to hand out lunches to families in need of food. We've been pretty lucky in the weather on our weeks to hand out food, and I'm super thankful to still have a job. I'm also super thankful that I'm one week on and one week off so that we can also manage the stress of distance learning, though we have all started to get used to this new normal. It's going pretty well.

Every morning the kiddos get up and read or do something quietly. They eat breakfast and get ready for their day. I'm up and showered by roughly 8- 8:30 am. We look at emails and schedules to see what they need to do. Lucius' day is fairly easy and he is able to get most of his work done by 11am. He's been doing online chess club two mornings a week and even with the hour and a half he spends on chess he's still done with his schoolwork around noon.

O has what seems like a new schedule every day. O's teacher is so disorganized and spacey that it's no wonder O was having such a hard time this year. The teacher says one things and does something else completely. It's SO frustrating for all of us here at home trying to make sure O is doing schoolwork. O has a bunch of positivity through this- although O SUPER hates not being around people!!

Most mornings we let the cats up from downstairs to play and wonder around. They love being able to explore upstairs and see out the windows. But we don't let them stay upstairs because they start to claw all the furniture and get ramped up to the point of running around like crazy. That drives me a little nuts.

It's been getting a lot nicer out weather wise and we've been spending more and more time outside. Lucius and Daddy like to hit tennis balls in the driveway.

This week I started moving more of the retaining wall and digging up the river rocks. We're getting ready to plant grass here, because of the way we play with the neighbors the wall was a bit of a tripping hazard. I moved the basketball hoop down a little and transplanted the peonie farther up the driveway. It's a long job but slow and steady it's getting there.

I am also working on a cross stitch. It's also a big project but slowly it's coming along.

Week six ended with a physically distance "bring your own umbrella" party. The kids all sat under there shade tents and chatted. Eventually they got out a board game and played that distantly as well. They're making due, even though they dislike it. Thank goodness we have amazing neighbors or things would be a LOT harder for our young extroverts.