All the changes and updates.

It’s official. School is closed for the rest of the school year. Emergency schooling has begun at home (different from “homeschooling” and supposedly even a little different from “distance learning”). What it means to us is that we just have to do our best to make our kids get through as many assignments as possible before we lose our minds/temper.

I’m not gonna lie. This is rough. Mike and I are both working full time from home and trying to keep our kids educated. Teachers send assignments for the week and today I spent 3 hours with Hayden to do what should have been 30 minutes of work. But you know what? This is our new normal for a while – at least the next 2+ months.

The kids struggle to not be able to play with their friends (which has not kept them from attempting to sneak off to meet up to play with them!). I’ve even resorted to setting a bucket of hot, soapy water outside my front door for them to scrub down before they enter the house. and they did. I count that as a win.

Hayden’s birthday is coming up in like 2 weeks! He’ll be double digits! The big 1-0! We joked about giving him the day off from school and just letting him play video games all day. That might actually be what we do, but we’ll see. Even trying to keep some things normal seems to be a challenge.

However, this week we started virtual piano lessons! The kids’ instructor used a Zoom video call with Hayden’s iPod set up so she could see their hands. That actually went pretty well.

Bella does not know how to handle this change. She normally would get plenty of naps all day. No such luck anymore! The kids are kind of driving her crazy, but at the same time I think she is enjoying having everyone together. It seems to be a love/hate relationship with our recent situation.

I’ll try to do better at adding in new posts as we adjust, I promise.

We miss you all and are sad that the recent grandparent visits are all put on hold, but we can’t wait to see you when we can. We’ll definitely have a huge party.