Thank you for abiding with me as I worked out some hard stuff last week and this week. I appreciate your presence, and support.
I thought today I could post something a little more positive. So here are some of the things that have been working for us, a family of four with a Kindergartner and 4th graders and two parents who are attempting to work full time from home, while supervising our kids’ distance learning with no childcare of any kind.
Saying thank you instead of I’m sorry
Women tend to apologize for a lot. It’s almost like we’re conditioned to apologize just for being alive. I definitely apologize way too much. My cousin recently mentioned how much we were apologizing in our Marco Polo videos, and told us that instead we could say thank you instead. I like it because rather than pointing out your perceived shortcomings, you can highlight the response you appreciate in others. When I was having a hard time a couple of weeks ago, instead of apologizing to my husband I thanked him for the support he showed me when I was struggling. I’m doing it with my friends, and kids, too.
Marco Polo and Houseparty
Marco Polo is an app where you can leave short videos for a friend or group. I like this because you don’t have to be available at the same time as someone else to check in. I Marco Polo with my friend in NY and my cousins in St. Louis daily. It’s a great way to keep in touch without having to arrange a specific time to talk.
Houseparty is a nice break from Zoom and Google Hangout, and there are some fun games to play.
Morning Zoom Meetings
Our kids are going to bed late and getting up later (well, one of them is). It’s hard to get them going in the morning, so having a specific thing they need to be dressed and ready helps. Both our kids have 9:30 Zoom meetings with their classes and those definitely start our distance learning days. I’m really grateful for these meetings, even though they can cause stress and dissent.
Meeting our kids where they are
My daughter is managing her workload pretty well. She has enough that I don’t feel I need to supplement what she’s doing. My son is not getting work, which I’m fine with because I have 1st grade resources to give him. He spent the year playing Prodigy (a math game) at the first grade level (they don’t have K) and honestly could start working on 2nd grade math at this point. And he’s reading at a pretty high level. (I attribute all this to TK, which was basically Kindergarten, which means he’s now done Kindergarten twice.)
He also hates doing school work at home. I make him a little packet of math and reading every day, and he spends some time on ImagineMath, Prodigy, and ABC Mouse. We’re also working through the Magic School Bus packs I got years ago and never used. He has to complete his paper packet before he can play the learning games. There are lots of fights about this, but it’s a system that works well enough. I’m pretty happy we can really focus on work that is at his level right now. I’m also relieved we don’t have to worry about him meeting any grade-level standards.
Audiobooks
We always listened to a lot of audiobooks, but we’re listening to even more now. Axis360 generally has what we want with shorter (or no) wait times than Libby. We’re also taking advantage of Audible Free Stories for Kids. I’m trying to push the Exclusively on Audible titles that we can’t listen to once they stop the free service (they say they will be offering it while schools are closed – not sure what happens in the summer).
Quid pro quo
Our son got a Switch for Christmas and he loves to play it. It was forbidden on school days before shelter-in-place. Now he can play it on the days he takes his virtual martial arts class. This takes the fighting out of martial arts participation, and gets him engaged in something that is both physically and mentally stimulating 2-3 times a week. It also makes it easier to turn the Switch off on weekends. (They get two hours of games (Switch, iPad, or Kindle) on Saturdays and Sundays.)
Small treats to make things special
On weekend nights we watch movies with popcorn and cherry lime rickies (I got cherry syrup at Smart & Final to mimic a special drink at one of our favorite burger joints).We make a big deal about new movies showing up on the streaming services. I make hot pretzels when I can get my hands on yeast. We let the kids have “sleep overs” (my daughters sleeps in my son’s bottom bunk) once during the week and once on the weekend. They are going to build a fort and sleep in it this weekend. We try to have special treats sprinkled through out the weeks to keep things interesting. We stick with our distance learning schedule on the weekdays so the weekends still feel distinct. I try to take them out at least once on the weekends to ride bikes or scooter. If the weather is nice we’ll hit up the beach (Ocean Beach is open again). We get In-n-Out from the drive through once a week, usually after biking or the beach.
Hulu while we work
I hear about people watching TV and reading books right now. That is not happening at our house. (I think it happens at the houses where the kids are older? I’m not quite sure.) My husband and I work pretty much all the time when we are not with our kids. We try to make one night work free (usually Saturdays), but otherwise we are working as soon as we wake up, straight until we go to bed. But at night, when the kids are finally asleep, we put on dumb shows on Hulu like Party Down or Broad City in the background. And that is nice.
Working out
I am still working out four times a week, at least. I take an intense virtual cardio/strength class through on Wednesdays. I take a virtual martial arts class on Saturdays. I try to run on Mondays and I do something on Thursdays and/or Fridays – usually 45 minutes on our elliptical. Even my husbands is using the elliptical three times a week, and he has never worked out in all our 13 years together.
San Mateo county just announce that it will be reopening its parks this Monday, which means I’ll probably be running more than normal for a little while. So excited to be able to run in our beautiful parks! Woot! It will definitely make the next month (or more) of continued shelter-in-place more manageable.
Lollipop walks
We go somewhere in the car once a week, usually to the Great Highway to scooter or ride our bikes. The rest of the week we walk in our neighborhood or go out to the backyard. There actually isn’t that much left to do in the backyard, so we’re trying to find ways to make that space engaging for the kids. In the meantime we coax them into their shoes and socks with lollipops. DumDums are a small but powerful incentive to get out of the house.
This is what we have to look forward to in June and July.
Of course, when it never stops looking like this, we stay inside. And that’s okay sometimes too.
Intermittent fasting
I’ve been doing some form of intermittent fasting during the work week for a while now. I continued it during shelter in place and it’s helping me keep my weight from creeping up (I’m trying hard not to gain the quarantine 15 because it will not help my mental health to gain a bunch of weight). I usually stop eating after dinner, around 7:30pm and I don’t eat again until lunch around 12:30. I have tea at night and drink my own form of Bulletproof coffee in the mornings. I find that I definitely feel better when I do intermittent fasting at least 5 times a week. During spring break, when I let myself eat whenever I wanted, I felt pretty shitty by the second weekend. At the very least intermittent fasting keeps me from snacking at night, and keeps the bloat away, and I appreciate that.
Not drinking on the weekdays
Another thing intermittent fasting helps with is to not drink on the weekdays. This has been a self-imposed rule of mine for years, and while it is tempting to relax it now, since I don’t actually have to be anywhere… well… ever, I still abstain on the weekdays. Since I’m working until bedtime anyway, drinking wouldn’t really relieve stress. I’m whatever personality likes specific rules and boundaries and then follows them, because moderation has never been my strength. Until the school year is over, I won’t be drinking during the week.
Not thinking about the future
I rarely think past the end of the week, except for long term planning for work. I don’t expect anything to happen this summer, but I don’t think about it right now. I just take each day as it comes. It’s helping to keep the panic at bay.
{I recently realized that this Friday is May 1st and that freaked me out something fierce.}
Landing on a schedule
We have found a schedule that works pretty well for us. My husband gets the kids ready in the morning (no small feat) while I answer emails from students who haven’t read the directions I so meticulous wrote out for them, or posted in videos, or both! Then he goes downstairs for three hours and I help the kids with school work, while simultaneously trying to do work myself. My husband comes back up from noon to 1pm to make everyone lunch and watch the kids while I record any videos I need to make. Then I come back up, and he goes back down until about 4pm. The afternoons change depending on who has calls or meetings or other things. I try to get the kids outside at some point between 2pm and 4pm. We eat dinner around 6pm. In the evenings the kids get TV on the days they don’t earn Switch time by taking martial arts. I get more time to do work on the weekends if I didn’t get enough time during the week.
Writing our meetings on a white board
Even though we have a makeshift schedule in place, we still write our calls and meetings on a white board in the hallway. Thursdays I have a lot of zoom calls so we have to switch things up that day. Mostly it helps to know when my husband is absolutely not available.
Timers and alarms
I have seven or eight daily alarms that go off during the day to remind me of when we need to take our medicine, or when we have zoom calls. I even have one to remind me to start making lunch. I found it was REALLY hard for me to remember what time it was and show up to stuff that was scheduled, so I just saved every possible time we might need to do something in my phone and now it sings songs to me throughout the day. I also set random timers and alarms to remind me… of pretty much everything. My follow through these days is pretty abysmal, so reminders are necessary.
With our shelter in place order extended “through May” we’ll be relying on what is working for us to get us through the next month, and probably the summer.
What is working for you right now?
All of this is great, thanks so much for posting some awesome ideas. I am really impressed you are sticking to IF/no drinking on weekdays. Those were the first habits that went out the window for me, and I’m struggling to get back on track. I can use you as an inspiration! I really like the “saying thank you” one, and now I want to try House Party (I joined marco polo but I’m not comfortable talking by myself to the camera so I never posted anything).
We are DEFINITELY doing quid pro quo and small treats, alarms, and schedules. getting my kids outside has not been a challenge so far, but on those days, I like the lollipop walk idea, too!
WOW! Impressive. You always exceed what I think is achievable. Then I remind myself of what my life was like at a similar time in age, I worked 70 hrs/week and sole parented 2, but schools were open … and am still impressed by you.
I am wondering your opinion of Gov suggesting a return to school in July. OR what about September, I understand many public schools have been opening in August for many years, so this would be a delay. What would you want to see at your school before it re-opens as protection for students AND STAFF? What if your school opened but SF Unified did not? What do you think about the suggestions of running alternating student attendance schemes in order to reduce class size for social distancing reasons? OR does that all happen after Friday so not to be considered as too awful stressful?
You have given me much to think about. THANK YOU.
I don’t think Newsom can actually force school districts to start in late July or even early August. Most districts in California have a start date of mid-August, so late July/early August is not actually 8 weeks earlier, as some people are saying as they freak out. 8 weeks early would mean we don’t have a summer at all. But even pushing the start date up 2 or 3 weeks seems, effectively impossible.
From what I understand, school districts would have to negotiate an earlier start date with their unions. I think the idea would be unpopular enough that Newsom wouldn’t make it mandatory (if he can even do that?), so if an early start date does end up on the negotiations table, I believe there is very little chance it would come to pass.
There is also the issue of funding. Asking teachers to teach a longer school year would require paying them more. Districts are going to be facing massive budget crises, which will probably lead to them using furlough days to effectively shorten the school year in an attempt to balance their budgets (In CA, at last, public schools are funded partly by business taxes, which won’t be at their normal levels because of the economic shut down, and because many districts have paid-for preschool and after school services they use to make up for shortfalls in public funding, which are bringing in no money right now. They also might be losing the rental fees from camps and others summer programs). It’s true that students need to make up the time, but the reality of our public school system doesn’t make it possible. (We’re also talking about increasing class size to balance our budget, which is the opposite of what we should be talking about during a pandemic).
Teachers are incredibly burnt out right now. And we’re very stressed out about next school year. Currently we have no idea what the 20-21 school year will look like. I’ve heard of a couple possible options: returning with a staggered morning/afternoon schedule, or alternating days, or some hybrid of classroom and virtual teaching. Again, this requires teachers teach more hours (they would have to teach the same thing for twice as long if class size is halved – or cut into thirds) or require hiring more teachers. Since budgets crises will prevent paying teachers more, AND will also prevent hiring more teachers (if they even could – there is already a shortage of educators in the country), I don’t really understand how any of this is going to work.
I’m not saying that we should all go back in the fall like nothing ever happened (or isn’t continuing to happen). That is also impossible, and I wouldn’t want to be a part of that if it were being pushed (I don’t think it will be). I just don’t see how our public education system, which is already so underfunded and dysfunctional, will be able to rise to the challenges of teaching our student population in a pandemic. It’s already May and the wheels of change in public education move so, so slowly. I’m very curious to see what things will look like next year, but I have absolutely no idea how this will possibly play out. It took our district a whole month to create an MOU between the union and district during distance learning – how will they renegotiate the entirety of our contract in a few short months?
So yeah, I’m not sure how I feel about it. Mostly I don’t think about it at all, because I can’t… I have no information and everything would be conjecture anyway. Newsom won’t even being presenting the state budget, which districts need to plan their own budgets, until August so who knows when we’ll know what is going on. The only thing we can be sure of is it’s going to be a mess and people are not going to be happy. I guess we’ll see what they figure out.
Thank you. That was both educational and also oddly reassuring to me. I guess because it all sounded normal and reasonable unlike the reports that in FL death certificates can no longer list covid as a causation. Which sounds purely crazy and not in the interest of public health and etc but so little is rational today.
I am super pleased for you on how well your son is doing with math and reading progress. And it was lovely to hear that a fourth grader can do more independent school work.
Thank you. I may get through this strange time with your help.