Dog Days.

 We've got two weeks of school under our belts, and some of the kinks are starting to work themselves out. I had intended for the kids to sit at the dining room table with me, but there was a lot of griping about the system, and it's harder now that they're doing more synchronized learning via Zoom. Ellie in particular was giving me a big upsell, telling me that her teacher said she MUST have a desk in a private space in order to work. Which I get, but your dad doesn't even have a private space - your teacher can't order me to build you an office - what if we lived in a little apartment? 

But, I am a nice mean teacher mommy, and I managed to find two kids' desk on Facebook market place and pick them up in an afternoon, so now everyone is set up in their own space. It's nice for me because Ellie does a lot less complaining and a lot more independent work, and Adam isn't right up in my grill. However, he wants way more supervision than her, so I often threaten to move him back to the dining room table. Example - he watched a video about the brain and how you learn, and there was an emphasis on how you have to practice to get better. At the end, he named easily ten things he's been at now that he's practiced them. But when it came to having to write two sentences, he didn't know what to write and started to throw a fit at me. He's a delight. 

I had told the kids that the cats are not their classmates, and I don't want them dragging Taco onto every single zoom call, but Taco obviously feels that he should do some math projects. He's also taken to sitting in Ellie's room with her during the day, which is fine by me, as long as he's not yeowling in the hallway. 

They're done by 1:30 in the afternoons, they let Mean Teacher Mommy check their work for the day (so that we don't have to redo things, or make more work for their teachers) and we've been continuing with the outdoor PE swim classes while it's warm. It's been just wretchedly hot the last couple of weeks, and for the first time the ocean was warm enough that Adam didn't come out shivering at any point. 

In person instruction via the hybrid program is tentatively set to begin on September 21st, but we are home until Thanksgiving. I'm really hoping for everyone's sake that the numbers continue to drop in our area and the kids can go to school and be safe in school. 

School Again!

 Here we are again, doing our distance learning, trying to keep sane and moving forward!

If you were wondering how our first family bike ride went last week, it was awesome, A+. No one cried, no one fell off their bike and no one got hit by cars. I was really impressed with Adam, pedaling away like crazy on his fixed gear bike (while Ellie pedaled slowly and complained - change gears and make life easier for yourself, kid!) 

We had a good last week of summer. Lots of swimming, another couple of trips to the beach. Buying the beach parking pass has been the best money I've spent all pandemic. If my kids look back on the summer of quarantine and remember all the great times they had at the beach, then I really can't ask for anything more. Their acrobatics training in Grizz's pool is also going well. 

So anyways, on to school. Both kids are in combo classes - Adam's is 8 second graders and 13 third graders. Ellie is one of 21 fourth graders and I think 9 fifth graders? The nice thing (for us) is that they don't tend to teach the kids together during the distance learning, so the kids are with a much smaller cohort. I think it will be especially good for Adam (who has Ellie's teacher from last year.) The downside is that those poor teachers are on Zoom all day, switching between classes. Thus far, no complaints. A technology snafu here and there as we get used to everything. Ellie did some serious sobbing about having a problem with a Zoom room - chill out chicken, it's not like you're going to fail fourth grade because you missed a lunch time check in! Adam hasn't had a ton to do yet, but he's getting the hang of the schedule. 

It's a lot right now, as we work out how the routine needs to go. Emotions are running high, from excitement to sadness to annoyance (mostly at technology.) In some ways, I feel like I have toddlers again, because I'm back to being their alpha and their omega and am responsible for everything, versus being able to fob them off on the teachers and follow up later, or like this summer, when the TV and Minecraft got to raise them. But I'm thankful we're all here together, and safe, and the teachers seem great and are doing their best to make this weird experience a fruitful and positive one. Two days down, 178 to go. 

August Mini Break

Not to much going on around here. The A/C is fixed, and the our solar system is in process, so this place should be pretty perfect in a few weeks. We've continued to hit up the beach almost every week day, and after a long wait, our bike rack has finally arrived and the trailer hitch has been installed on the car. Once Tim finishes lunch we're going to borrow Grizz's bike and head out for a family bike ride. Let's all hope for the best - Adam still hasn't done much outside of the school grounds on his bike. However, I got a great used bike a couple of weeks ago and that's been awesome for me! 

School starts a week from Monday, and due to state restrictions, it'll be fully online (I wouldn't have sent the kids into a classroom at this point anyways.) The biggest downside is that learning is set to start at 8:30, and I am not pleased about the idea of having to set an alarm again. Since our first Zoom of the morning in the spring was 10:30am, we had very leisurely mornings. The plan for distance learning for the new school year is that the kids will do live learning at several points throughout the day, and then complete work on their own (versus in the spring, when Ellie's class did twice weekly Zooms, more about checking in, less about going over new concepts and being taught.) We'll see how it all goes. I feel for the teachers to have to get all of this figured out, and to try to control a bunch of new, rowdy nutbars over video learning. 

We spent last week up in Northern California with Tim's college roommate Bob and his family. Ellie and Adam are thick as thieves with their two oldest, Amelia and Bobby, and are addicted to playing Minecraft and facetiming together. We didn't do much outside of hanging in their house (we went to get gelato twice, was the sum of our adventures) but the kids had a blast gaming together, doing water balloons and scootering. For the adults, sometimes it's just nice to have another set of hands around, and someone else to play Bananagrams and have a beer with after the kids go to bed. We're trying to plan a bubble trip where we can get an AirBnB someplace in between our houses. Being in Northern California made me very grateful that we can go to the ocean so easily, and that we have the deluxe membership package at Thiel Resort and Spa. 

Tim and I also celebrated fifteen years of marriage at the end of July. We had to cancel our planned anniversary trip back in March, but still had a really great day - spent the morning at the beach with the kids, and then for dinner we got fancy take out, and ordered cake from the same bakery that made our wedding cake, and had dinner with our maid of honor and best man, and our neighbor friends. I told the kids I wanted once nice picture of all of us for fifteen years and got....

I'll take what I can get.