Stories from the School Room.

AKA, our dining room table. We've had some moments - it's not easy to be the mom and the teacher in these times. The other day Ellie was reviewing a math lesson she'd turned in, and her teacher had commented that she needed to review a few problems. We reopened the document and started looking and she had the answers wrong. When I went to explain it to her, she got really worked up and started screaming that school is STUPID and she's QUITTING. She doesn't NEED AN EDUCATION, she's already SMART ENOUGH! (to which I wanted to say, but did not, if you're so smart, why didn't you get that fraction question correct?) We went to her room and had a chat and a cuddle - a lot of it is just frustration with the whole situation, and loneliness for her friends.

Yesterday was a better day - we started doing another fraction lesson (this time with larger numerators than denominators, so she was getting a whole for the first time) and initially she was glaring at me about how I don't know, I don't understand, and I was like "look, I may no longer have the multiplication tables memorized, but I know 1/4 is smaller than 1/2." At least once a day, I tell her to quit treating me like I'm an idiot, and respect me as she would her teacher. It's also hard because I'm trying to explain concepts to her that I just get because I am old and know fractions, and this is her first go round with it all, so I'm trying to help her figure it out and figure out how to solve the problems herself, rather than just saying "yeah, because that's how it is, that's the answer." Good news - she picked up on her fraction lesson rather quickly yesterday when all was said and done (when she started looking at the lesson, rather than rolling her eyes at me.)

I should say though, yesterday was a better day for Ellie, not so much Adam. He started screaming at me about having to write sentences about the book he'd read, and how he couldn't do it. When he gets in a tizzy like that, it's hard to get him to calm down with him ripping up his work and completely melting down. And after a long week, it was hard for me to keep my cool with him, so he and I are yelling at each other, and Tim came out to tell us he can't work with the noise in the back ground and it's like well, that's the life we live right now, buddy. Obviously this is not the way I want to run my classroom, but in the scheme of things, any of his coworkers who are going to be a jerk about noise on a video call are out of touch with what the reality is for families with young children right now. Adam and I eventually got it all worked out, but then after the school day was over, I was hiding had retired to my room to relax, and I heard him start absolutely shrieking at Tim about a video game (I had my ear plugs in, so I couldn't make out the details, just that it was bad and I didn't want to go and be involved.) Adam eventually came into my room clutching Lamby, wanting to cry and get me to go to bat for him against Tim, but I told him to just come snuggle and when he calmed down we could talk. He got under the covers with his head on my shoulder and my arm over his belly, and I felt his body relax, his breathing slow and then his head get heavy as he fell asleep. It's been years since I felt one of my babies fall asleep in my arms, so I just enjoyed the quiet moment, and drifted off as well. We slept for probably an hour, and when I woke up, Lucky was even snuggled up on the two of us.

It's easy to forget how hard this time is for the kids. They're well aware that the coronavirus makes people very sick. They miss their friends. They miss their teachers. They miss their grandparents. They miss their routines. Even though we're trying to keep things fun, even though we've loosened the rules about screen time and bed times, even though we're trying to keep them physically active and mentally engaged, even thought there's lots more time together and affection for one another, they're struggling too. Adam crashed out mid-day last Friday as well, so it's something to be mindful of going forward with our dude, and our dudette too, even though she'd rather eat hair than nap. She's no baby - she allegedly ready to graduate from her education and move on to better things (get a job, hippie!)