Not a Wasted Word

Today I will do two normal things. Except they won’t feel normal anymore. They will be skewed by the new normal. In fact, these normal things will feel incredibly abnormal when I do them today. That’s life in the upside down.

First I will get my allergy shot. I haven’t gotten one in over two months, but tomorrow I have an appointment to get one at 9:45am. We used to not need appointments, but now we do. We used to not need masks, or specifically assigned seating arrangements, but now we do. It used to be just a thing I did on my way home. I would just drop in and get it done. Now it’s a big deal, with an appointment and protocols. I miss just popping in to do things. I miss it a lot.

After the allergy shot I will go to work. There won’t be any students there of course. I’m just going to start the process of closing my room for the summer. I’ll be clearing off counter tops and defrosting my mini fridge. I have hours and hours of work to do there, but I have to be home by 3pm so it will just be a start. I’m bringing a lot of materials back to school, things that I don’t need anymore. There are only three real weeks of distance learning left, and I don’t need much to finish off the year.

Finally I’ll run on my way home. I always love running on my way home from work because there are so many good spots. I’m going to try something new tomorrow, a 3 mile loop that is supposed to be less trafficked than my normal path.

I’m looking forward to the day away from home. It was a long week with my husband’s bad back and I’m proud of myself for asking for the time on Friday when I really started to lose my mind. My husband is taking most of the day off so I can actually leave. Just being away from my kids for five hours will be a welcome respite.

And of course that old normal, will now be weird too. I haven’t been away from my kids for this long in nine weeks. I certainly haven’t been this far from them for that long. I haven’t been away from my house for this many hours either. It’s going to be a surreal day, made all the more surreal by the fact that it all used to be totally normal.

This was a hard week. I cried a lot. It’s been a few weeks since I cried as much as I did this week. I’m so exhausted. I’m so tired of managing my kids’ big feelings. I’m tired of managing their school work. I’m tired of managing their disagreements. I’m tired of managing all of it.

My house is a disaster area. My husband can’t go shopping and we’re down to the last of our reserves. I’ll have to head out this weekend and I hate grocery shopping on the weekends.

We finally got something from our superintendent about schools opening again in the fall. Here were some points:

• We may start the year in Distance Learning mode or on sites August 19. We will be prepared for either scenario.
• We must plan for students and staff to practice social distancing by staying 6 ft. apart, washing hands often, sanitizing rooms during the day, and possibly everyone wearing masks.
• With social distancing, will students go to school campuses every day? Every other day? Half day? We do not know the answer yet.
• During the school year, we may need to return to Distance Learning at home for some weeks if there are high levels of COVID-19 infection and hospitalizations.  

I’m starting to realize that there is a much bigger chance of us “returning” in distance learning mode than I had originally thought. This is… a disheartening realization. It was hard enough ending the year in distance learning mode, but starting it that way? When we need to meet and build relationships with our students? It’s going to be really hard.

And if we do go back on some kind of hybrid model (this is what I’m still hoping for), what happens if my kids go to school on different days than I go to school? What will we do? My parents have said they would help, but I worry about exposing them to the virus. They aren’t 70 yet but they are close.

It feels like everything is teetering. It’s clear that nothing will emerge unscathed.

This is what our district is focusing on as it tries to plan possible scenarios for next year:

• Schedules and facility use/cleaning
• Teaching and learning in and out of school
• Technology support for every student and teacher
• Social, emotional and mental health of students
• Parent education and support
• Mitigating learning loss and meeting students where they are

There is so much to consider, and many of these considerations are at odds with each. Throw in a budget crisis, which will probably mean larger class sizes and furlough days (less time teaching) and it’s clear that something will have to give. And that something is almost assuredly the education of our students.

These changes to our educational model will have negative consequences for all students, but they will be profoundly damaging for students from lower socioeconomic households where parents can’t help with distance learning or provide the enrichment activities that students in wealthier households will be getting. The achievement gap, which is already a gaping canyon, will stretch the yawning distance between continents.

This pandemic is set to dramatically change our institutions, some maybe even for the better, but I don’t know how public education is going to survive with these continued restrictions. Public schools are already underfunded to the point of dysfunction, and with the economic crisis looming, it will only get worse. Public school funding is always the first thing to go.

This summer is going to be fraught with uncertainty. As a teacher, I will be spending a lot of unpaid hours preparing for next year so that the fall is not as exhausting as this spring has been. I guess the good news is I have plenty of time to do it.

What are public education officials in your school districts saying about reopening in the fall? What messages are your communities receiving.

I wrote that post on Monday night. On Tuesday morning my husband threw out his back getting out of bed. The last 48 hours have felt like a marathon at sprint speed. I didn’t once wax philosophical about how I might cultivate some enduring inner calm during this crisis.

To be clear, I have no interest in learning anything new or developing some new skill. I guess I just wondered if I could grow in the face of adversity, instead of shrinking away from it. But maybe just standing in it, and making it through each day, is resilient enough.

This is really hard. I’m working long days. Very long days. I’m never done and I rarely rest. I’m lucky that the end of the school year is in sight. I can’t imagine what that parents who need to keep working through the summer, without childcare, are thinking and feeling.

Right now I’m at a park. My kids have traveled a “secret passage way to an ancient fairy shrine” (straight from the mouth of babes) and I’m enjoying a moment of calm. But instead of just sitting here and taking a moment, I planned next week in my Notes app and now I’m writing this post. Maybe what I’m looking for is ways to recognize, and take advantage of, the calms in the storm better, so I can carry that skill bravely (or just more patiently) into this new world.

I’m looking forward to the school year being over. I’m burnt out as a teacher and as a parent helping her own kids navigate distance learning. But I have to admit that the summer, with its long stretch of nothingness, the vast sameness of dozens of days, terrifies me. What will we do? Who will we be when it’s over? How will we keep doing this in the fall?

Stamina has always been my thing. I’m not fast, but I can go far. I’ve ridden centuries on my bike. I’ve run a marathon. I can do long distances. But this? This feels like it will never end. I think I need to change my mindset, so that I’m not wondering how long we can keep this up, but accepting that this is our life now. Forever. Maybe then it won’t feel so terrifying to look 2 or 5 or 10 weeks ahead. Maybe the gray nothingness will become a comfort instead of something that sets my teeth on edge.

I’ve read enough articles with subtle, and less subtle, and straight up overt, messaging that I should take advantage of this upending of my life as an opportunity for personal growth. I am in a stable enough position that these suggestions don’t feel as offensive as they might, but they still irk me. But maybe they irk me for the wrong reasons. Because, like all good, upper middle class white ladies, I’m always itching for an opportunity to shed my old issues, to grow stronger in the face of adversity.

But, as always seems to be the case, I’m not quite sure how to do it.

I even just finished Untamed, which one would hope would lay some solid ground work in the area of “finding oneself,” and yet…

I find myself falling back on my same old coping mechanisms. I find myself spending my money in ways that don’t align with my values (::cough:: Amazon ::cough::) for the sake of convenience. I find myself making all of the same choices I wasn’t thrilled to be making before. The “perspective” that the world can change at any moment, and the “great pause” that shelter in place has “provided,” is doing nothing to nudge me in the directions I want to go.

Maybe this just isn’t enough of a crisis for me personally, to force hard change. I haven’t lost my income, I haven’t lost my health, I haven’t lost anyone I love. I haven’t lost anything really, except the superficial trappings of my old life. Everything is still here, it’s just been rearranged enough that it looks entirely different.

I’m struggling with this, when I have the time to think about it. Maybe, as we slowly return to the pieces of our life that are allowed, I’ll start thinking about what I want to add back in. I’ve been surprised by what I’ve missed and what I haven’t missed, but I don’t know if the magnetic pull of “how things used to be,” of my well programmed subconscious, can be bypassed by any conscious revelations that have occurred along the way.

Honestly, I think the only reasons I have been handling this so well, especially all our cancelled plans this summer, is that we have the downstairs to figure out, and it’s new and it’s fun and it needs things to go in it. If I didn’t have that to fixate on, to write lists for and to plan out what to get and when, I’d probably be struggling a lot more with the reality of this situation.

So yeah, I guess I just wrote the most obnoxious post in the history of coronavirus posts. But I swear it was inspired by other articles! I didn’t just wake up one day thinking… hmmm… it’s the end of the world, maybe I should focus on personal growth! While hundreds of thousands of people are dying! And the world’s economies are collapsing!

The past few weeks have been relatively good. There was that deep dip last week, before my period, but otherwise I’ve been fairly even keeled. I guess my brain finally stopped thrashing against this reality and settled in. And I have enough space and support to make it work relatively well (I also think I lowered my expectations, especially around work). So I guess I’m not in survival mode. Things have shifted, it feels like there is a modicum of white space in the margins. Just a little. And that is why I’m now thinking about how I might harness this insanity as a force for change in my own life. I just wish I knew how.

I guess I can say that I’m dealing with uncertainty way better than I have in the past. I suppose I’ve learned that along the way. I keep pulling up a blank email to ask my principal for the number of kids that want to take Spanish next year, and then I am reminded that knowing that will tell me nothing because we aren’t sure if we’re offering zero period (we might slash it for budget cuts, which would VASTLY reduce the number of kids in my classes because most of them care more about band than about Spanish and they only take Spanish if they can take both), oh and we’re not even sure how we’re going to go back next year AT ALL. So I close the email and I don’t ask the question, and it doesn’t feel that excruciating to let it go. I wonder about what being at the other middle school will look like, but again, I know there is so much uncertainty that no one can answer my questions so I let it go. My cousins keep talking about maybe still going to St. Louis, and while I assume that we will not join them if they go, the possibility of them going, and us staying at home isn’t driving me crazy. (I know the summer is not a source of stress for me, like it is for most people, because I don’t have to work while my kids are off, which definitely helps take the agony out of the question about summer camps.)

There has never been a singular event of this magnitude affecting so many people at the same time. Will we ever really be the same? Are we changing without even realizing it? And if we are, can we do anything to nudge that change in certain ways?

So there you go. The most obnoxious post of the coronavirus. You’re welcome. ::Flourishing hand gesture. Deep bow::

Yesterday afternoon my husband and daughter were in the backyard getting some fresh air. My husband was cutting big branches from the trees that are pushing over our fence from the neighbor’s side when he suddenly shrieked. Suddenly my daughter was by my side, breathless.

Mommy! We found a chameleon in the backyard.

Um, no. You did not. There are not chameleons, in backyards, in San Francisco.

But they had. A chameleon was just sitting in one of the branches that my husband had cut down.

Chameleons do not live in San Francisco – at least not outside, on their own. It’s too cold here for a chameleon – it must have escaped, or been cast out, from its home.

After knocking on some neighbors’ doors (with a face mask on off course) and some researching, I found a vivarium that would take the chameleon – and it was still open! We gently put its branch in a tub and I drove it across the bay to the vivarium, where it would have a spot under a sun lamp to stay warm.

When I called them, they also couldn’t believe we had found a chameleon in our backyard. His response mirrored the response I had given my daughter just an hour earlier. You found… a chameleon… in San Francisco.

We will likely be talking about our chameleon for a long time to come. I’m so happy my husband happened to be cutting down branches today, otherwise the little guy probably would have died.

Mothers Day ended up being quite nice. I didn’t get up until 9:30, at which point my kids came down with cards and breakfast for me in bed. They also had two air plants for me that my mom had gotten but left for them to gift me. I took my kids down to hike with my parents in the park near them that recently reopened. And then they watched the kids in the hot tub while I ran in that same park. All in all it was a nice day.

My kids only have two full weeks of “school” left. They officially end on June 2nd, but I wonder if they’ll expect anyone to “show up” on those last two days. It was already dumb enough to end on a Tuesday and now it feels especially useless. I am looking forward to a break in the daily power struggles associated with distance learning, but I’m worried about the loss of a schedule, especially when there is nothing to fill the void.

I have school until June 11th, so almost a full two weeks longer than they do. Our students are going to learn soon that we aren’t posting traditional grades this trimester, but instead will be doing some form of Pass/Fail (probably Pass/Insufficient Evidence) and once that happens, I worry the few students who have been showing up and putting in some effort will officially be done. Maybe at that point the kids who have disappeared might come back to try to salvage a “pass” out of their failing grade?

After mid-June we’re looking at… more of the same, except without the external expectations of school. I’m looking forward to being done with this daily grind, but the vast nothingness that stretches after it sends me into a panic. We’re going to need to find a schedule that works for all of us, and I doubt that will be easy as each of us wants different things (and some things, like unlimited Switch time, are absolutely not on the table.)

I got a new computer from work but I’m paralyzed by the prospect of moving everything to it so I can actually use it. This frustrates me, as my old computer is struggling. I asked my husband for help, saying it could be his Mothers Day present to me. I know he could get it done much faster than I could and I’m hoping with a little guidance the whole thing won’t feel so daunting. I’ve had this computer A LONG time and there is a lot on it. My personal computer died years ago so this has basically everything from the last two or three years on it. It’s going to be a lot of work to move it all over (and probably I should go through it all first so I’m not moving over stuff that I won’t need again).

I tweaked my shoulder and neck last week but they are feeling better now. I also tweaked my elbow that seems to have calmed down. I’m struggling to stick with virtual martial arts – it’s just very hard for a visual learner like me to engage with this platform. But I want to have martial arts to go back to if that is ever possible. Right now though, it’s hard to show up.

I’m rereading The Explosive Child. Actually, I bought the abridged audiobook on Audible (it’s an Audible exclusive) because listening for three hours is something I can actually manage. The simple reminder that “kids do well when they can” is helping. The acknowledgement that what I’m dealing with is intense and difficult validates my struggle and feelings, making things easier to manage. Still, it’s exhausting, and I am reminded on a daily basis that I am a better parent when I have time away from my kids.

Not much else to report. I can’t believe it’s mid-May, and that it’s been almost two full months since our world was turned upside down. It no longer feels like we’re in crisis mode, but we’re certainly not thriving. I guess manageable is a step up from where we have been, so I’ll take it.

This week was national Teacher Appreciation Week and Sunday is Mother’s Day. And while I made sure my kids made their teachers digital cards, and I sent them gift cards, I did not receive anything from my students. And while I will give my own mother something on Sunday (I am very grateful she is still in my life), I will likely not get anything from my own family. I’ve gotten so close to accepting this perceived discrepancy every year, and honestly it only stings a little at this point, but I’m still not a big fan of early May.

{I know I am appreciated, and I know my kids love me, and I hate when superficial “weeks” or “days” make me feel like someone needs to do something to prove that. I think it’s especially frustrating because the efforts I make myself never seem to be made toward me (and I am not the kind of person that enjoys making the efforts – it absolutely feels like a chore). But again, I know that sending an email during a specific week is not the only way a student can show they appreciate what I do, and a card from my kids is not even my preferred way of them showing me they love me. But when you see it everywhere, except in your own life, it’s hard not to feel… overlooked? Like I said, I’m not a fan of early May.}

And yes, I have made clear to my family that I would like I little acknowledgement (just a card or drawing!) but it doesn’t seem to be something they can manage at this point.}

So in the absence of being openly appreciated by my students and family, I appreciated myself this week by taking advantage of a sale on Mixtiles. In about three weeks, 32 photos will be arriving here to grace the wall in our new living room. We just got the giant wardrobe out today (which has been stressing me out for weeks) so I can finally see the entire wall. It’s going to be amazing when all the photos go up!

These are all photos I’ve taken over the past year or so, that I ran through different filters on an app called Prisma. I really like to have photos like this on my walls, and most of the “art” in our house was created by me (some of it created by a much younger, very interested in black-and-white photography me). I do have some photos of my kids, but mostly I put up stuff like this. It was incredibly satisfying to “create” something (it’s been A LONG TIME) and I can’t wait to put it all up on our walls.

Do you like days or weeks that force others to feel they have to show their love or appreciation in certain ways? Do you participate in them?

I was going to come here a couple nights ago and say, hey, it’s been a while since I cried. It’s been a while since I’ve felt totally overwhelmed. I was going to report that the mental health crisis I was dealing with a bit ago seemed to have passed. That I felt pretty decent, given the circumstances.

And then Tuesday happened.

I’m sure it’s hormonal. I have a short cycle (just 21 days) so I’ve been on this roller coaster twice now already during shelter-in-place. It definitely hits harder these days. These days are rough. This week, evidently, will be rough. I’ll get through it, and it will be better on the other side.

I’m very happy that Monday one of my favorite nearby parks we open again after a month-long closure. Getting out, alone, to run for an hour definitely helped put me in a good head space for the rest of the week.

The stuff I’m reading about right now – that people are assaulting people whose job it is to enforce face mask requirements, that governors are then waiving those requirements, that states are requiring people return to work or lose their unemployment benefits… there are no words. And once again our country feels unrecognizable.

I read recently that the most horrible thing will be when we accept the deaths as unavoidable casualties. When we know longer care that a 1,000 people die every day. Except they are avoidable, and I worry many of us already stopped caring.

And now Trump is sowing doubt in the validity of number of deaths. Even though, when you factor in access deaths, the number is actually much higher.

I think now is the time for me to step away from the news cycle for awhile. Especially during weeks like these when I feel more emotionally reactive and overwhelmed. it doesn’t educate me, it only depresses me. And right now my hormones don’t need any help with that.

This week, while about half of the states in the nations began to tentatively reopen their economies, California extended its shelter-in-place order through the month of May. I don’t think anybody was particularly surprised, or upset. We were the first state to start sheltering in place and I believe we will be one of the last to lift certain restrictions. And that is fine. I trust Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, and London Breed, SF’s mayor, to do what is best for our city and state (SF has been committing to public health policy along with six other counties in the Bay Area so they are always working more or less in concert). They are opening the San Mateo County Parks again, which I’m thrilled about, and I don’t plan on writing much else about public policy as it relates to the coronavirus here, or anywhere else, as I clearly do not have anything of value to add on the subject. If anything I just misconstrue facts and create confusion and that is the last thing we need right now.

Having said that, I do think I might have some clarifying perspective on Newsom’s suggestion that California public schools might open up early this summer – possibly even in July. This was mentioned at the same press conference as the extended shelter-in-place, and it got a lot of press as people weren’t sure what to make of it.

Someone asked me for my thoughts on it here, and I wrote a long response in the comments, which I’m going to re-organize and then re-publish as a post. This post!

First of all, Newsom did suggest starting the school year early. And he did mention the month of July. But he suggested the possibility of an earlier start in late-July or early-August. Most public school districts in California already start in mid-August. So the early start he suggested was only 2-4 weeks early, not the eights weeks I heard people freaking out about. If we started eight weeks early, we’d get no summer at all.

I understand why Newsom wants to open schools early – kids are falling behind, and it’s the ones who were already not meeting standards who are falling behind the most. In my district, all but one week of the third trimester has been distance learning. That means the kids who are not able to effectively learn right now are missing a full third of the school year. That is a massive amount of time. Teachers are not even attempting to cover the regular curriculum, so even the kids who are thriving with this new kind of learning are missing important topics and skills. Teachers will not be able start teaching next year at the same places in the curriculum that they usually start. The amount of school these kids are missing is a really big deal.

And yet, I don’t think Newsom can actually force school districts to start in late July or even early August. School districts would have to negotiate an earlier start date with their unions, as the 20-21 year contracts have already been passed. If districts did try to start the year early, it would be incredibly hard to reach an agreement with their unions. But I don’t think districts will be attempting to start early, and the biggest reason for that is 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 least, public schools are funded partly by business taxes, which won’t be at their normal levels because of the economic shut down, plus other methods of funding are also not tenable). It’s true that students need to make up the time, but the reality of our public school system doesn’t make it possible. In fact, the opposite is much more likely.

And of course, we’re talking about all without even mentioning the biggest elephant in the room – that schools currently have NO IDEA how they might bring students back safely once the new school years starts. You can’t effectively social distance in a small class room with 28 to 35 students, or hundreds of students eating lunch at the same time.

I’ve heard of a couple possibilities for returning next year: starting with a staggered morning/afternoon schedule, or alternating days, or some hybrid of classroom and virtual teaching. In all these scenarios, teachers are on campus five days a week but students are not. 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 three times as long if it’s cut into thirds) or require hiring more teachers to cover the same amount of curriculum. 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 they will implement social distancing and fully cover the curriculum. The only situation that works is for students to effectively get less instruction, when what they absolutely need is more.

I’m worried we will be asked to teach small numbers of students in the classroom, and also have asynchronous lessons ready to send to the students who aren’t at school on a given day. This would be absolutely untenable. Asynchronous lessons are preferable for students, who can access them on their own timeline and finish them with some flexibility (as opposed to synchronous lesson which require students to on a virtual call to receive the initial instruction), but they also require an incredible amount of time and effort to plan, create, manage (respond to questions via email, etc), and then grade. My district has requested we do the majority of our teaching asynchronously, which is more equitable, and I have complied. And now I work 14 hour days because creating a meaningful learning experience that can be done in the almost complete absence of the teacher is incredibly difficult. There is no way teachers can be teaching in person AND creating these kinds of asynchronous assignments for the kids that aren’t in the classroom on a given day. I really don’t understand how any of this is going to work.

Teachers are incredibly burnt out right now. And we’re very stressed out about next school year. Currently we have no idea what the 2020-21 school year will look like.

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 impossible, and I wouldn’t want to be a part of that if it were being pushed (it won’t 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. How are all these different districts going to figure out a plan, negotiate it with their unions in three short months, and then implement it. (even an MOU will take months to negotiation, let along a whole new contract – and really a new contract will be necessary because our jobs will be entirely transformed). I’m very curious to see what things will look like next year; I have absolutely no idea how this will possibly play out.

Newsom dropped the “maybe early start school year” bomb on Wednesday of last week. The day before I spent two hours in a zoom staff meeting discussing how our tiny district can cut $3- to possibly $10-million dollars over the next three years. We’ve lost over a million dollars to our closed preschool and after school programs, and rental fees for property use over the summer (which we created and developed to balance our budget when state funding was inadequate). We’ll be losing countless more millions when the state announces its budget – a month late – in August. They are talking about increasing class sizes and implementing furlough days – effectively crowding our classrooms and shortening the school year- the exact opposite of what teaching in a pandemic requires. Other districts will be having these conversations very soon too – we’re just ahead of the game because 20% of our budget is made from preschool and after school and we know those funding sources have disappeared for the foreseeable future. When the state budget is released, everyone else will be panicking too.

If the idea of maintaining the economy while we control the spread of the coronavirus for 1-2 years confuses me, the idea of us going back to school next year sends me into a profound stupor. I cannot fathom how they will make it work. At this point the whole enterprise it totally untenable.

I guess the only thing we can do is wait and see. If we thought the last seven weeks were crazy, just wait until next fall. It’s going to be a doozy.

The only thing I do know for sure is that California will not be going back to school in July. There is absolutely no way that is possible.

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.

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?