To put it simply, none of us were excited to go back to school at home. ALL three of my kids AND me were so disappointed when our district announced in July that we would not be returning to school. It was a huge blow for all of us, but Ron kept on reminding me that online school would look different this fall as the teachers would be required to do more and the parents would be required to do less. Since he is a high school principal, I thought he would know best and so I decided to trust him and hope that homeschool would be different. After finishing the first day of school, I realized very quickly that Ron was both right and wrong. Since he works in the secondary education world, he was very correct with how online school would work for the 7th through 12th graders which includes our Lia. She goes into our office and attends three periods a day for three hours in the morning before breaking for lunch for 30 minutes at noon. At 12:30, she goes back into the office to attend her second set of three periods for 1.5 hours. After that, she usually has one to three hours of homework. With the exception of needing help accomplishing some assignment or submitting some finished work online, Lia totally takes care of herself and requires very little attention from me. But, oh how different online, elementary school is! Logan's and Ella's schedule requires SO much work, time, and effort from me every day. In fact, it is more demanding than last year. The number one reason is that they are in and out of three to five virtual meetings every day with their teachers and it is not done in a back-to-back order. They are in and out of meetings all day long and I am not in control of the schedule. In addition, the two of them have totally different schedules, so I am required to remember when they are needing to join one meeting or another all day long. When they are not on their computers being instructed by their teachers, there is a lengthy list of assignments that need to be be completed for reading, writing, math, science, and social studies. Although Logan can read by himself and complete some work independently, he always needs a lot of work finding his assignments and figuring out how to complete them. Ella needs constant help with everything she completes and it really is a full-time job bouncing back and forth between the two of them.
In addition, since I am no longer in charge of their school schedule, they all start class in the morning before I am ready for them to begin. Last Spring, after feeding the kids breakfast, I would give Ella and Logan an hour or so to play while I cleaned up breakfast, did the dishes, got ready for the day, and took care of any necessary phone calls or emails. Since I am unable to get any of this done before they start school, I find myself still in my pajamas most day at 10 or 11 a.m. which drives me crazy! I also am no longer able to schedule a daily P.E activity like last Spring. We always would go outside for a bike ride around the neighborhood or an activity in the backyard after lunch and before Emmett's afternoon nap. Since all three of my children are required to be back in an online meeting at 12:30 with many meetings and assignments to complete after that, we never find the time to do P.E. anymore. As a result, none of us are getting the daily exercise and fresh air like the last school year and this is very frustrating to me.
Another new challenge is the fact that I have now dropped one of Emmett's two naps. He only takes one now and I put him down for his nap every day right after lunch. So, he is awake the entire morning while I am trying to run both Logan's and Ella's homeschool. To put it bluntly, it is pure chaos! The poor, little guy just roams around the main floor of our house wanting attention and someone to play with. He is constantly getting into things and getting into trouble. He tries to unplug their computers, sit on their chairs and touch their computers or write on their schoolwork, or pull things off the table. By the time we break for lunch, the kitchen and family room look like a tornado has blown through with the amount of things that are scattered all over the floor. It is so frustrating to me because it is not Emmett's fault. He is supposed to be home ALONE with me getting all sorts of love and attention, but instead, he is just an afterthought and someone who is always in the way. When Ella and Logan are in between assignments or online class meetings and waiting for my help, I now require that they play with Emmett instead of playing educational games on their computers which has helped a little bit, but it still is not an ideal situation.
Every day, there are melt downs and arguments between one or both of our elementary school kids and me. I get frustrated every single day that we are once again back in this same situation that we were back in the Spring. I was so burnt out when we started up again on September 3rd that it has actually been harder for me in many ways than it was when we first started up on March 16th with little direction and help from our school. I just want all of my older children to be back at school to leave Emmett and me at home alone to do "our thing" which includes spending one-on-one time together, running errands, and getting some projects done. I have had to pray for forgiveness many times from Heavenly Father for my less than stellar performance as a mother during the day and for the strength to make it through the next day. Normally, I love being a mom and try hard every day to be the best mother that I can be, but this entire homeschooling situation has made trying to do this very difficult and almost impossible at times. I just want to be a happy mom and to be happy being around my children and this has not been the case on a daily basis for the past three weeks which is very discouraging and disappointing to me. I just hope that one day this will all end...
Here are a few pictures of the kids that I took this morning while they were "in school." Here is Logan working on one of his math assignments at the kitchen table.
Ella attending one of the many online meetings that she has with her teacher and the rest of her class each day.
Lia joining her 2nd period class online at 10 a.m.
While I was walking around taking these pictures of the kids, Emmett was following me. When I finished taking Lia's picture, he immediately ran into the living room and climbed up onto "his chair" where I take his monthly photo. I just couldn't believe it as he thought of this all on his own after watching all of his siblings get their pictures taken. Of course, I had to take a few shots of this darling, little boy!
A close-up of my smiling cutie!
There is a little light at the end of the tunnel, but if there is one thing that I have learned in this pandemic it is that I cannot trust ANYTHING that anyone announces until it actually happens. From our Washington governor releasing the anticipated date to move to the next phase to our school district announcing when in-person instruction will resume to the Hawaiian governor declaring when tourists can return to the islands without needing to quarantine for 14 days, it's nothing but a bunch of words until it actually happen. So, although this is promising news, I refuse to believe it until my children are actually heading off to school. So, with that said, here is the latest plan to return to in-person instruction from our school district. We shall see if it actually happens...
And, lastly, due to my mother's suggestion, I wanted to end this post by recording a few of the "funny things" that I have found myself doing these past few weeks since we began homeschool. I will be the first to admit that my brain has turned to total mush during all of this. Between not getting as much sleep since Emmett has gotten into the habit of waking me up every day in the hour of 5 a.m. to having to juggle a 100 things at once to never getting a break to just be alone every day, my brain has just become fried. I barely remember simple things anymore and I find myself doing crazy things all the time. For example, I went to make waffles for breakfast for my children the other day. After stirring the ingredients for the waffle batter in a bowl, I looked up at my kitchen island to find BOTH the waffle iron and the pancake griddle plugged in. Never in my life have I done this. In addition, I was spraying some Spray 'n Wash on one of Emmett's shirts last week that was covered in stains. After I realized that the bottle was almost empty, I reached down into one of my laundry room cupboards and pulled out the refill bottle. After filling up the entire bottle, I discovered that I had refilled it with Windex and not Spray 'n Wash. Once again, I have never done this in my life and I was forced to dump the entire thing down the drain since I now had a Windex solution mixed with Spray 'n wash soap which was totally unusable. Lastly, I walked out into the garage the other day to get something and saw Ron's garage door open. Since we always keep our garage doors closed, I immediately thought that I had accidentally left it open from earlier in the day. After pushing the button to close the door, I heard a noise and saw Ron hurrying around the front of his car to avoid getting hit by the door. I hadn't even noticed his big, black Suburban was parked one foot away from me in the garage that is only ever in the garage when Ron is home. Oh, heaven help me. Will this house still be standing when our kids finally go back to full-time, in-person school? I have no idea...
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