I wrote this on November 10, 2020 (it is now almost April of 2021 but I AM catching up!!!)
My goal is to catch up the photos from this summer before Christmas. But I have this nagging sense that I should be writing about RIGHT NOW. But every time I start to think about doing just that, I remember how far behind I am, and how much work would have to go into catching up (my computer is a ten year old laptop that has less memory than my phone. I have this whole process where I have to take it from my phone to my computer, to my hard drive, and download it to my blog while it is on the computer and before it's on the hard drive...see the dilemma.). (...2021 update...but now I have a NEW computer, which is why I can finally ACTUALLY catch up!)
Sterling is just about to finish up a six week rotation that was really brutal and I always think "he's not home in the evenings, I'll have time to catch up on a few things" but what really happens is I spend the evening catching up on all things life that I can't stay on top of during the day, because #homeschool, and then I'm exhausted and I don't do anything of the things I WANT to do. Sounds about right?
So. We're homeschooling. Our district has actually sent the kids back into physical schools. The work they do while at school is still completely online though. I've heard talk that some teachers are using physical things to teach-but technically teachers aren't even supposed to be handing out papers or touching a students pencil, etc. etc. We do send Russ to school for two hours every morning (-ish, we pull him out whenever we want to swim or go to the beach or the park, haha) for speech. He manages two hours in a mask no problem, which is surprising and his only hiccup has been that he didn't like going potty at the school, so he'd be killing himself trying to hold it when we picked him up at 1030. We've finally conquered that hurdle, yay!
Homeschooling is pretty great. And pretty hard. And pretty easy. And pretty much like parenting 24/7 in all the best and worst ways of parenting. When it's sunny and beautiful outside and we can get a lot of swimming in and beach days--it goes so great. But we had an entire WEEK of flooding rains and then one week where the soggy ground was trying to recover, and now it's day 3 of rain again. Our small space definitely starts to feel cramped. We have a pretty great routine going, and I live and die by routine. So here's a day in the life right now:
7am: Breakfast
745: take Russ to school, ideally all of us on bikes if the weather is good
830: everyone sits on the living room rug and we recite our family theme, practice the new primary song we are learning, sing some others ones we've previously learned, and then blast Scripture Power from the google at volume 10 while everyone dances around like a maniac
9am: quick call to order and straight to the table for math. This is the trickiest time. I can't distract Gracie with the tv because that distracts everyone else. She usually sits on top of the table and alternates between coloring on her own paper and bothering everyone else by coloring on their paper. We also do some play dough, stickers, and puzzles to grab her attention. The best solution is when Molly finishes math super fast and she takes Gracie upstairs to play dollies for a little bit while the older two finish up.
From that point each kid has a laminated paper that say what they are supposed to accomplish each day. Will has four options he can choose from to complete reading-so the days don't always look exactly the same. At 1015 I leave to get Russ with the baby and whatever older kids want to come with me. If its beautiful and we're biking, I make everyone come. If Will is upstairs playing legos and engrossed in an audio book, he usually chooses to stay the ten minutes at home.
We usually come back to a few more half hour slots of piano practice, reading books out loud to me, Ruth hiding in her room to find some quiet to read for 30 minutes, etc. And add in a snack because Grace and Russ both need it by then.
12-lunch. Everyone is usually finished school by then. They have an afternoon chore and when Grace goes down for her nap we do a subject all together. We rotate between science, geography, art (which we do at our house with neighbor kids at 1230 on Mondays), and PE--being outside time at a park or pool. In their elementary school they called this "specials" and they rotated between those classes to different teachers and only had them once a week. So the kids were already used to that, and since they are so close in age I can combine the curriculum for those classes, it works really well.
On Mondays we have swim lessons, on Wednesday we usually don't do school so we're usually still outside and then have soccer practice, on other afternoons when it's not beautiful weather we go a little stir crazy and you can usually find my kids creating books and drawing at the table (I wrote "on the table" and deleted it, but that would be true for a couple of them!).
Right now Russ has just learned to say everyone's name in the family. He calls himself Russell, but the 's' sound is really sharp. Grace is Deedee. Molly is Nahnny. Will is Wheel. Ruth is Rusie. He is obsessed with Cat Boy from PJ masks and also with Muscles. He is slowly but surely coming along with so many new words every day it's so so fun to listen to him and hear what he'll say! He is a tank and eats a regular 4 pancakes every morning, or 3 pieces of toast and 2 bowls of oatmeal. My favorite thing about him right now is how he says "me happy" for everything that he likes, or wants, or enjoys. At dinner he was telling Ruth that "Cat boy, me happy and Rocketeer me happy!" He even leaned in for a kiss the other night and say "Mom--you me happy" awwww. He is at that perfect age to rub into his soft, soft cheek and give perfect kisses and hugs to. He rubs my back when I sing him a good night song. He's also a rough and tumble crazy kid with a serious listening problem that we are trying to curb--but he has such a jolly personality.
Grace is fierce. She self-potty trained yesterday. She told me she was "peeyoo" ran to the toilet, pointed to it, I set her on it, and she went. And then again later. So I pulled out some training pants. She wet them after lunch and I was like "I'm not ready for this" but then she had a nervous breakdown when I tried putting a diaper on her, so I think I'm going to try and go for it. Wish us luck. She says "no" instead of yes and shakes her head up and down while she says it which is my absolute favorite. When you can convince her to try saying yes, she says "yesh" and I love it so much. When anyone is sad or upset at home she has this adorable way of cocking her head and saying "you Otay?" that I just adore. She is still taking regular 1-2 hour naps and I also love her for that. She has learned the art of opening doors and pulling stools over to where she needs to climb. She calls Russell "loh-loh" and its the best. When something makes her especially giddy she yells "YAAAAAY!" in the cutest way. She LOVES animals. Dogs, cats, and horses are her special favorites, but she likes them all. She runs up to every dog we pass on our walk (this can be many, and make our walks very slow) and once I've asked if we can pet the dog, she squeals "yay!!!" and bobbles around the dog in crazy love and happiness.
Molly has grown leaps and bounds this year--she is TALL and she also has learned so much already and we're not even halfway through the school year! Her reading has taken off, she's finished all of her kindergarten workbooks and moved on to grade one. She got tired of waiting for me to find a journal prompt for her every day so she just says "Hey google, what's the animal of the day" and then she draws a picture of it and either writes a story about it, or draws it's habitat--she just comes up with it all on her own. But now she knows crazy facts about weird things like skinks and it always makes me laugh. She has this hilarious mannerism where when she says something especially witty or clever or super funny she ducks her head down and then looks up with those big huge eyes and they are just full of mirth and her smile is massive but she always tries to hide it so her lips stay closed. It is my favorite thing. She comes out of swimming lessons looking half drowned but she never gets down about it (we bumped her up so she could go at the same time as Ruth and Will) and her skill level is just taking off. She wasn't fabulous at strokes before and they have her doing it all and even breathing pretty well while keeping form. She's also my yeller. I can't blame the poor middle child, but she definitely lets people know when she's been pushed around too much. The whole house knows. We're working on it. HAHA! But oh how we love her and her happy-go-lucky spunky person!
Will is trying to put up with our crazy more-extroverted-than-he-is household. He has the most friends that are also homeschooling, so we get to hang out with them a lot for playdates. Seeing Will and Skyla holding hands walking back from the park the other day was the cutest thing in my life. She also made him a best friend necklace. His other really good friend is gone for a month right now, but we love having that extra person to distract my kids from all the time they spend together and give them some breathing space ha. Will's art is incredible. As are his lego creations. When he thinks something is too hard, and we eventually get to the point where he grasps the new concept and he realizes how easy it is, he has this slow smile that spread over his face that looks all bashful for the stink he put up in the first place. I love it. He's also becoming an excellent reader and is a huge fan of Magic Treehouse and audio books. He likes to draw while listening. I also love it when I tell the kids that they have a certain amount of time to play and then they have to start something else he's the first one to say "Okay, lets make a plan.." as they walk off to play. Haha! He's also good to have around because he keeps us on key when we are singing!
Ruthie is such a hard worker. She pushes herself and makes my job so easy. She always wants to pitch in with the cooking and has become my number one banana bread maker. Her piano playing is off the charts this year and I can't even believe the songs I hear coming from that piano! She is my biggest helper with the babies--I'm always telling her that she can just keep working and she says "but I like to help, mom". Awww. (she literally asks to change Grace's diaper, what?!?) She wants to be my running buddy to get better at soccer but our opportunities have been slim due to the weather and Sterling's late night rotation. Ruthie is the first one awake every morning, dressed, bed made, hair and teeth brushed, prayers said, and ready to remind us to read scriptures. In fact, she's reminds me of things all day long! She is also so so good about working and working at something until she finishes. She also likes to sneak treats with me, and she won't tell everyone else haha! Her sweet spirit definitely brings the peace and we all love our Rusie sooo much!
Other than that, we have a handful of friends we regularly get together with on afternoons, or for Friday swim and movie nights, or for evenings at our community park, or for our Wednesday no school day. Because we are outside and we are with those friends a lot we do not mask. The friends we do art with we don't mask for. So the only real reasons we put on masks are for the 45 minutes of church we have, the library, and walking into swim lessons. Russ wears his for speech. I don't do groceries with the kids in tow, not because I couldn't, but because of the stares and judgement I feel when I go. I think people think it's outright crazy to go out in public with kids during COVID and while I think my kids would be fine, grocery pick up is so much easier and faster. We've adjusted to the norm of having everyone around all of the time and between playdates, everyone gets some time away for a bit. It's going really well. Oh, we have our days. But I truly am enjoying it. I miss exercising and am still trying to get that in, but I get way too short-tempered trying to exercise at home when kids are interrupting and climbing on me. And I have not been able to sustain getting up before everyone. Seasons, right?
