After having to figure out what to do with all three kids for home school the first week off, I was able to pick up Lia's laptop on Tuesday, March 24th, which has been such a huge help as it was getting very difficult to share my one laptop with all three children who need to do their online learning every day. In addition, Lia's teacher started sending out a daily lesson plan with assignments in all subject areas that same Tuesday which now requires Lia to work for 3 to 4 hours a day. This past Monday, Logan's teacher started sending out assignments for the week which now means that I really only have to come up with Ella's lesson plans since her teacher has been a bit lacking in this department. Ella and Logan both work for about 1.5 hours a day on their school work which means that they are done by lunch. After eating lunch and completing our exercise time, Lia has to return to her school work while the younger children get to start their TV time. I have been so impressed with how diligent Lia has been in finishing up her work each day and how little she complains.
After the first week off when we were blessed with incredibly, sunny weather, we are finishing off two weeks in a row of cold, rainy, windy weather with multiple hail storms. The weather can go from cloudy to rainy to hailing all within a matter of minutes. As a result, I decided that our exercise time was not going to be dictated by this bizarre and unpredictable weather and so we now go outside every single day for our daily walk/bike ride around the neighborhood or to the school at the top of the hill. We have been lucky to end our exercise time right as it started to rain several times, but have also gotten caught in the middle of it a few times. I just remind the kids that we are not afraid of a little rain during our exercise time and so we keep on going. As a result, Ella has become a pro on her bike and now can ride up and down the long hills in our neighborhood which is amazing to me since it hasn't even been two weeks since Ron first took her training wheels off. Thanks to Ron putting the baby seat back on his bike, I officially took Emmett on his first bike ride around our neighborhood today. I have not ridden on a bike (besides on the flat bike trail to Orting last Saturday) since I injured both of my knees last summer and I was so relieved to see that only my right knee hurt a little bit throughout the ride. I love going on bike rides with my kids during the Spring and Summer months, so I was grateful to see that this is still a possibility.
The video conferencing platform, Zoom, has also become our new best friend these past few weeks. As of a month ago, I had never even heard of Zoom and now we are using it several times a week. All three of our older children have met with their teacher and their classmates through Zoom, Lia has also met with her YW group and her GS troop, and my entire family (minus Kelsey who is on her mission in Texas) met on Wednesday night to sing "Happy Birthday" to my mom. Since she had no idea what to expect, my mom actually started crying when she saw all of our faces in our little boxes pop up on her computer screen. It truly was a moment I will never forget as this virus has changed all of our lives in so many different ways--including the ability to get together as a family to celebrate a birthday.
Overall, we are surviving and making things work. Although cancelling school has provided a huge list of new challenges and problems to work out, Ron still loves working the shorter hours from the comfort of our home office. Thanks to the help of two out of the three teachers, I feel like my children's school time is actually effective although I know that they still would be learning more at school. The children have comfortably settled into our schedule without blinking an eye and all seem to enjoy this extra time at home and with each other. I know that Lia misses the interactions with her friends, but Ella and Logan really don't seem to mind. The children all enjoy going on our daily walk/bike ride and look forward to the family movie night that we have two to three times a week. I have now gotten used to not getting as much done each day and not checking off as many items on my to-do list. I just needed some time to adjust my mental agenda. I do struggle a bit with never getting any "alone time" or time when I am not being asked to do something, look at something, help someone with something, etc. After hitting a really bad wall on Monday after an unusually rough school session with all three children, I declared to Ron that I needed to 'just leave the house' to run two errands during lunch time. He had about 30 minutes before his next meeting and so he took over and made the kids lunch while I drove to the bank and Costco and called my mom. After venting to her, I decided to follow her advice and held a family council on Monday evening instead of studying the scriptures. We talked about our different roles during school time and then set up some ground rules and a reward system for this time of day. The children all need to now earn eight clips before TV time in order to earn the privilege to watch TV every day. If they don't earn their eight clips then they need to find another quiet activity to do during this time. Since this is a major highlight of the day, this system seems to be working so far as the rest of the week has gone much more smoothly than Monday which has helped me to be a more happy, patient, and loving mother.
So, overall, we are making things work and hoping and praying every day that we stay healthy and that our lives will return to normal sooner than later. Although we were supposed to be flying out to Hawaii on Monday morning for our Spring Break, we are looking forward to the break we are going to get from school and a change in our regular routine. I know that this will not last forever and try to remind myself daily that we have much to be grateful for (including a steady paycheck that is still coming in every month) AND that our situation could always be worse.
Here are a few random photos from this week...
A picture I took of my entire family singing "Happy Birthday" to my mom through our Zoom meeting.
The kids and Ron singing to my mom.
A picture I took of our April calendar with EVERYTHING crossed out on it (including our trip to Hawaii and Spencer's wedding in Utah). Since I never bothered to write all of our children's after school activities on this month, I just can't get over how white and blank it looks.
Lia's and Logan's cards that are taped between our kitchen windows where they now have to move eight clips from the left side to the right side every day before TV time starts. Ella's card is not included in the picture because it is taped next to another window in our kitchen.
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