7:00 - I get dressed to run. Try to wake Kevin. Go downstairs, make coffee, feed the fish and turn on the turtle light (unbeknownst to Peto, he is now our class pet), clean dishes. Read the news. Remind myself not to read the news so much. Organize the school table and make sure I wrote plans in everyone's notebooks and that DJ did his "night job" of plugging in all the devices.
7:45ish - I just start to think seriously about heading down to the treadmill when I hear the first set of feet on the stairs. Then starts a cycle of making breakfasts and pouring juice and helping kids in the bathroom. That's why 7:00 is too late to wake up. Eventually, Kevin and I go running, then I eat breakfast, make breakfast for the later risers, and barely make it in and out of the shower before Kevin's meetings start in our office/bedroom. Okay, I am using "in and out" loosely, here. The shower is so very quiet. I'm not proud of its effects on the environment or our water bill, but even Kevin has noticed that my showers are twice as long as usual.
9:00 - I'm showered and dressed, and it's time to drag Annie, our night owl, out of bed. It's not really clear to me why, but I dress for teaching every day. I think it helps me separate work and school time and "off" time and weekdays from weekends when the days mostly feel the same. There's also a nagging fear that my boss will email me and be like, "We need to have a Zoom meeting in 3 minutes." I don't want to be in my pajamas or running clothes only fit to see my basement. I do work in slippers, though! Until school starts at 10, I flit between responding to emails, snuggling kids, making sure my messages to students went out on time, getting ready for "school," cleaning the kitchen, starting laundry, and anything else that urgently needs doing.
10:00 - This is the fastest-flying part of my day, every day--time for homeschool. It's a not-unpleasant whirlwind. Everyone starts out together each day. We have a "razzle dazzle," which is the preschool version of a star student, who leads the Pledge of Allegiance, chooses how we count to the date, shares a show-and-tell, and reads the devotion. Five kids, five days of the week--it's perfect! Nellie especially thinks this plan is perfect. She just loves this part of the day. 😀 Then I support Nellie and Annie with whatever they need and check their work. I read DJ his words to practice, make him go back and spend more than one minute on science and social studies, upload photos of his work, and help him navigate Google Classroom. There are videos of Eddie and Mary's kindergarten and preschool teachers and all kinds of corresponding projects and worksheets. We measure and chart our little plants' growth. I do my best at piano lessons for the boys and do puzzles and read with Mary when she runs out of "school work." Although it's pretty chaotic with five devices and five kids' questions to manage all at once, I am super thankful for this little window into the kids' more formal learning. I love hearing how the older kids think and seeing what they're like as students and learners.
12:00 - The kids are usually finishing up their schoolwork and its time for lunch. The girls each have a day on rotation to make lunch so I can get ready for teaching. I try to eat and get things cleaned up pretty quickly, then make a "must do before screens" list before heading up to work.
1:00 - We've officially hired the girls to babysit every day for a few hours each afternoon so I can work. Nellie's room has become my office, where I teach lessons on Mondays and Thursdays and plan, attend Zoom meetings, and/or work on other non-teaching responsibilities on the other days. It's been going okay. I definitely feel better each day knowing that I'll have at least a small window to focus on my own school work. The kids have assignments like playing outside, doing puzzles, cleaning, playing board games, and reading before they can watch TV or play Switch. How well it works depends on how much the girls feel like enforcing it. I'm learning a whole bunch about teaching remotely every single day.
4ish - I'm back downstairs for the most "fun" part of the day. By now, the kids are bored and I am feeling stressed by all the work there is to do. It's a challenge to pull the kids away from their shows or games. We go for walks or pick up the house or any number of other things that keep us occupied. There's a lot of baking! Time always gets away from me and we don't eat dinner until later than I intended.
6:00, or 7:00... - Dinner time. Together, around the table. Every night. To me, this is one of the greatest parts of staying home, though I'm reminded how labor-intensive it is to actually cook something new every night. It's very different than "normal life." I have to plan way ahead because Kevin's doing the shopping and only going every week or two if we can manage it. So I have to come up with the ideas and make complete shopping lists. We eat every bit of leftovers on the rare occasions there are any. I've gone through all of our favorite dinners and tried a few new ones. I don't take for granted the privilege of having food on the table every day and night or this opportunity to spend time together.
7:30 - Inexplicably, the kids get along the best they ever do in the after-dinner hours. They always go sort of insane for a while and inevitably Kevin and I order them to run around outside or in the basement to get all the extra energy out.
9:00 and 10:00 which turns into 11:00 - Bedtimes. The goal is to get the littles in bed by 9, at which point I sit down to do grading, respond to emails, and work on whatever projects are going that day. The big kids push their bedtime back as late as they think they can get away with. By the time one of us notices, it's usually well past when all of us should have been in bed.
We feed the fish, turn off lights, remember to switch the laundry to the dryer, take care of the dogs, tuck in the big kids, and chase down water bottles and books. There are usually about five minutes there before falling asleep when the adults get a little peace and quiet to read or check the news one last time.
Quarantine life is basically an odd variation of our former life that is at once calmer and more crazy. DJ is sitting with me right now and he disagrees. He said it's just weird. He's not wrong. I think that we've just focused on doing our best with one day at a time. Every couple of days I really feel the weight of what's going on, but by necessity I have to shake it and keep going. There's a lot to miss, but so very much to appreciate.
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| These girls are bold bakers and I love it (though it still usually involves extra work for me!) Nellie asked if she could make cookies, and ended up trying apple strudel, sticking with the German theme. It required a lot of new skills and turned out delicious! |
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