Saturday, June 6, 2020
O’s last day of school...
The school year that never should have been is FINALLY over!! Last August we were meeting O’s new teacher for the first time and the teacher told me during that meeting that they never wanted to be a teacher. A week or two later, First day of 6th grade, same new teacher called O a nickname... O does not like nicknames and was not thrilled. Months of back and forth about ongoing bullying that started verbal and became physical with multiple kids ganging up on my kid. Many visits to Doctors, therapists, OT and a psychologist. Medication, a formal IEP and maybe a few weeks we briefly started to see our kiddo reemerging from despair just in time to self isolate for a global pandemic. Distance learning and social isolation took its toll but mostly things were good- we were away from the bullying for the most part. Then racial injustices were brought to a head. O struggled, wanting so badly to make a speech that would help end the racism and hatred that plagues our country. While we watched and read about the turmoil, we thought about how we can help. We also learned last week that the artwork O created at their school this whole year was lost/thrown away/ or discarded. It was yet another piece of heartbreaking news, as O worked so hard on it all. Listening to the other kids on the last day of school zoom meeting rave about their school year, I watched my kiddos face become down right depressed. O had a miserable year and did not get along with the teacher and many of the students. We will look forward with hope but are also leaving space to remember the pain and frustration we have continued to process this whole school year.
Friday, May 29, 2020
Week ???
Today is Friday May 29th... Monday an African American was killed when a white officer knelled on his neck for 5 minutes. This shouldn’t have happened. My city has been protesting this man’s death at the hands of police and the fact that policeman is still free to do as he pleases. This white man was fired but the city did not arrest him till Friday morning. I see rioting and looting happening all over the twin cities and surrounding towns on the news. Most of the images are of white people doing crazy things because they can get away with it while the police are trying to maintain some order. The national guard was called in to help. Tonight the twin cities and my town of Roseville, MN have put into affect an evening curfew of 8pm that will go through the weekend. Our President tweets out that more violence should used to control the situation, instead of calling for peace or justice for this man named George Floyd. Our world is hurting and it makes me heart broken to witness the hurt my community is suffering. To know that my skin color has never made my life harder.
All this on top of a world wide global pandemic that has taken the lives of over 100,000 people as of this week. In MN we are at 967 deaths, reaching 1,000 deaths probably this weekend. Stay at home orders were going to enter phase one of the reopening for businesses on June 1st. They say that we probably haven’t even peaked in new case numbers, they estimate the peak around July.
Meanwhile this week we stayed home. I did not have to work and we didn’t really make the kids do too much with their distance learning this week. O’s teacher seems like he’s pretty much given up. Lucius’ teacher had told us that she would be lightening the school work this week.
With the cities in such turmoil this week I focused on yard projects. It’s been a large under taking but I’m making progress finally. Last Saturday Jerimy and I went to Menards to get some things for the yard projects. It was the first time I had been inside a store since March 13th.
**I'm posting photos from the process, long after I actually wrote this blog post. I spent much of the summer of 2020 picking rocks out of our front yard to transform it into our yard, instead of the yard my parents used to have. It was a lot of work but we didn't have too many chances to get away from our house this year because of Covid, so we made the most of being outdoors in our own front yard.
Sunday, May 10, 2020
Life without school (week 8)...
Goodness... Who even knows what day this is or what week anymore. We've made it eight weeks without school.
Lucius teacher stopped by our house one morning this week to drop off a book for us. Since we kind of figured we were not going to be back in school the rest of the year, we took Lucius' "last day of school" photo with his teacher. It's totally a year to remember... face masks and physically distant teacher photo.
While talking with his teacher Lucius happened to see this cute family of geese in our yard. We watched them for a while, making sure they did not try to go in our backyard where we were sure the dog would have tried to eat a baby goose had she been outside.
On Tuesday, after I was finished with work the kiddos and I rode our bikes over to the library to pick up our new books we had on hold. We pick them up curb side, which means we don't get to go into the library. New books means we have to sit and read the RIGHT AWAY. So we took a short break to read in front of the library. Then we rode the 3 miles back home. It was a good 6 mile round trip and thankfully everyone loved the outing.
Once home the kiddos curbed up on the couch and read most of the afternoon!
Lucius has been enjoying some outdoor time with Daddy. They play tennis together on the driveway. They can't wait for the tennis courts to be open again for public use!
The kiddos have been LOVING biking this spring and a friend told us about a short dirt path in the woods near our house. I told the kids about it and they TOTALLY wanted to see it. They of course told the neighbors about it and invited them along. It's been really nice to have neighbors who we can talk too through the stay at home order. I ended up taking all four kids with on the exploration of the dirt path. It really wasn't very long but the kids had a blast riding on the dirt through the woods.
This week we also realize that Lucius needed a new bike. The old one was getting small, his knees were bent all the time and the seat couldn't go any higher. Its a 20' inch bike so I started looking for 24" bikes. I found a few but they all sold before I could even contact the seller. Uncle Hung is really good at finding things, so he offered to take over the search! He found Lucius a new bike. When he brought it over, it was practically the same size as the old bike, till I realized the new one we could raise the seat and it had gears. Hooray!!
On Friday's we've been joining the neighbors down the block for the MPR neighborhood sing at 5:55pm. This week is was "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong. I had both boys happy to join me in singing with our friends.
I also made progress this week on my cross stitch... slow and steady it's getting closer.
Lucius teacher stopped by our house one morning this week to drop off a book for us. Since we kind of figured we were not going to be back in school the rest of the year, we took Lucius' "last day of school" photo with his teacher. It's totally a year to remember... face masks and physically distant teacher photo.
While talking with his teacher Lucius happened to see this cute family of geese in our yard. We watched them for a while, making sure they did not try to go in our backyard where we were sure the dog would have tried to eat a baby goose had she been outside.
On Tuesday, after I was finished with work the kiddos and I rode our bikes over to the library to pick up our new books we had on hold. We pick them up curb side, which means we don't get to go into the library. New books means we have to sit and read the RIGHT AWAY. So we took a short break to read in front of the library. Then we rode the 3 miles back home. It was a good 6 mile round trip and thankfully everyone loved the outing.
Once home the kiddos curbed up on the couch and read most of the afternoon!
Lucius has been enjoying some outdoor time with Daddy. They play tennis together on the driveway. They can't wait for the tennis courts to be open again for public use!
The kiddos have been LOVING biking this spring and a friend told us about a short dirt path in the woods near our house. I told the kids about it and they TOTALLY wanted to see it. They of course told the neighbors about it and invited them along. It's been really nice to have neighbors who we can talk too through the stay at home order. I ended up taking all four kids with on the exploration of the dirt path. It really wasn't very long but the kids had a blast riding on the dirt through the woods.
This week we also realize that Lucius needed a new bike. The old one was getting small, his knees were bent all the time and the seat couldn't go any higher. Its a 20' inch bike so I started looking for 24" bikes. I found a few but they all sold before I could even contact the seller. Uncle Hung is really good at finding things, so he offered to take over the search! He found Lucius a new bike. When he brought it over, it was practically the same size as the old bike, till I realized the new one we could raise the seat and it had gears. Hooray!!
On Friday's we've been joining the neighbors down the block for the MPR neighborhood sing at 5:55pm. This week is was "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong. I had both boys happy to join me in singing with our friends.
I also made progress this week on my cross stitch... slow and steady it's getting closer.
Sunday, May 3, 2020
Life without School (week 7)...
This was my "on call" week at work, which meant I checked my email twice a day but ended up not having anything to go in for or to work on. So I enjoyed making sure the kiddos stayed on task and got a bit more done on my rock project, cross stitch and weeding the gardens.
It was getting warmer still and the kiddos decided it was time for water wars. I still thought it was a little windy/ chilly for ice cold water fights, but they had a few days of these battles. They enjoyed it immensely.
Mormor was asking about the magnolia tree for a few weeks and finally it started to bloom. So I asked O to take a photo to send to Mormor so she could enjoy and this was the selfie she got.
My cross stitch in progress is coming along. I few mistakes and knots that I had to hide in the back but nothing is ever perfect and I'm okay with that.
On Tuesday on week 7 we had a virtual game night with a few of my co-workers and their families. It was a fun way to pass an evening. We played a game called Listology. It was a lot of fun for all the ages we had playing along.
A few of the garden beds that I was able to weed this week. I ended up burning all the dried weeds that were in this one planter, which was fun. I still have several garden boxes left to weed since I completely ignored them last year.
The neighbors have been getting together on Friday evening to join in a neighborhood sing- a- long. This week is was the Beatles "here comes the sun". It was my first night joining. The kiddos stayed home to play video games. Maybe they'll join us next week?
Saturday was another round of "bring your own Umbrella party". They all ate lunch outside together with lunch trays I happen to still have from their younger years.
I decided it was a great time to just chop all my hair off. The kiddos thought I was going to go bald, but I was not quite ready to go that short. So here I am and loving that it's super easy to get ready every morning!
It was getting warmer still and the kiddos decided it was time for water wars. I still thought it was a little windy/ chilly for ice cold water fights, but they had a few days of these battles. They enjoyed it immensely.
Mormor was asking about the magnolia tree for a few weeks and finally it started to bloom. So I asked O to take a photo to send to Mormor so she could enjoy and this was the selfie she got.
My cross stitch in progress is coming along. I few mistakes and knots that I had to hide in the back but nothing is ever perfect and I'm okay with that.
On Tuesday on week 7 we had a virtual game night with a few of my co-workers and their families. It was a fun way to pass an evening. We played a game called Listology. It was a lot of fun for all the ages we had playing along.
A few of the garden beds that I was able to weed this week. I ended up burning all the dried weeds that were in this one planter, which was fun. I still have several garden boxes left to weed since I completely ignored them last year.
The neighbors have been getting together on Friday evening to join in a neighborhood sing- a- long. This week is was the Beatles "here comes the sun". It was my first night joining. The kiddos stayed home to play video games. Maybe they'll join us next week?
Saturday was another round of "bring your own Umbrella party". They all ate lunch outside together with lunch trays I happen to still have from their younger years.
I decided it was a great time to just chop all my hair off. The kiddos thought I was going to go bald, but I was not quite ready to go that short. So here I am and loving that it's super easy to get ready every morning!
Sunday, April 26, 2020
Life without school (week 6)...
On Sunday before the next school week started:
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.
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?)
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.
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