Around the start of “school” this morning, I look out the window to our little urban yard and see a magnificent bird of prey standing there, tense but still, stalking something in the underbrush.
Bam! It pounces. The kids and I watch as it shreds and eats it’s prize. The kids think it’s a red tailed hawk, and we hope the prey is not a bunny. After a few minutes the bird flies the rest of its breakfast up into a nearby tree.
ClaraJane goes down for a closer look and both she and the bird seem startled by this close encounter. She also determines the unlucky prey was a pigeon.
No doubt my photographic efforts fail, but it was riveting and exhilarating to watch; such wildness right under our noses.
My schedule is so open today it doesn’t even appear on the weekly view of my Google Calendar. After some substantial adulting online and in person, Manmeat makes other plans and I take the kids. We head out to our favorite establishment for a treat in celebration of getting through this first week of school. Also Gavin’s great performance in baseball last night.
💪
Boy is too hangry -and perhaps Tweenie- to engage in much human interaction before the meal. (Although the second a celery stick with tangy mustard hits his brain he springs to life.)
Meanwhile Girl -drunk with power over her newly inherited watch phone- peppers me with digital messages from across the table:
😹… I KNOW!
After eating I figure they’ll be more up for human interaction.
Not so.
While there are a few scant disadvantages to having Readers as children. But none that I would trade for.
CJ zips around the block on her scooter a few times:
Gavin apparently knows how to both tip well on the tab AND fake my signature:
And that’s a wrap of taking my kids out so I can stare at them by myself in celebration of everything they are.
Sadly there is no way in h#ll we can allow another animal to our family mix right now (3 cats and 2 bunnies being insufficient of course). Besides I don’t recall this being sent to Santa so he might not have gotten the message in the first place.
In a way, she got her wish for “NO SCHOOL” though, SMH.
My son just made a beautiful argument to forgo my suggestion to “Go Outside” in order to utilize most of his (currently) two-hour allotment of recreational COMPUTER TIME today instead.
‘He just did all this baseball yesterday, and is going to do more tomorrow, so…‘
I tell him it’s understandable he would feel that way, and then I concede.
What I don’t tell him is that I never would have imagined myself agreeing –to a child who has spent most of the day online for school– that he can have more time online for recreation.
I was a rower for chrissake. We had grueling workouts 6 to 10 times per week. And we subscribed to this edict:
First of all, I’m hardly an athlete anymore. For the past 20 years or so my primary exercise has been hauling props, blowing up balloons, juggling, and carnival barking my shows in backyards and public parks around New England. Most of which came to a screeching halt with this pandemic six months ago.
Also, I hadn’t remembered the quote was by a slave-raping plantationer. No doubt anyone who mines free labor from subjugated victims could also indulge in the privilege of two recreational hours per day,
But anyway…
Moments later Daddy comes out of his office and says to Gavin, “You want to throw a ball around? Or play frisbee? I’d love to play frisbee with you.”
Gavin smiles politely and says, “No thanks!” and proceeds to wash the dishes before “rotting” his brain.
AT RISE: Mom is in the kitchen turning on the oven and scooping two containers of beautiful looking school-lunch spaghetti into the iron skillet. The two kids are in the living room at their desks.
MOM: [Notices the time.]. CJ? Did you say your next class is at 1:30?
CJ: Yeah.
MOM: Gym class, right?
CJ: Yeah.
MOM: OK well you’ve got about 1 minute, because it’s 1:29.
CJ: Frick! Ahh! Really? That was 20 minutes?
MOM: Yes, time passes crazy fast sometimes!
CJ: Yeah it does!
MOM: I wonder if we need like Alexa or a cuckoo clock or some chimes or something to go off like every half hour?
CJ: Yeah.
[Several minutes later Mom sees CJ still hanging out at her desk.]
MOM: Did class not start yet?
CJ: Well I’m logged in, but Mr. Gil hasn’t joined the meeting yet!
MOM: Hmm. [Pause.]. I wonder if there’s a way for you to check in with any of your classmates. You know, like, “Hey Josh! We’re you able to get into the meeting?” or something.
CJ: There IS!
MOM: Oh great! Well I guess I can’t help you with that so… [Goes back to heating lunch in the kitchen.]
CJ: [Click clack clack.]. He CHANGED the link! [Exasperated sigh.]
MOM: That is so frustrating!
CJ: Yeah. It IS. [Click clack click.]
[Moments later, CLONK!]
CJ: Ahh! A little help! [The privacy screen has fallen over. Again.]
MOM: [Moves privacy screen and some other furniture to make room for exercise.]
CJ: Oh! I’m gonna go get on some actual pants. [Runs to get them then comes back and changes on the floor where she can see the class but they can’t see her. Starts to exercise again.]
CJ: Man I could really use some wire-free headphones for this!
MOM: Well, how ‘bout you just unplug them and you can listen through the computer speaker?
CJ: [Looks at Mom suspiciously.]
MOM: It’s okay honey. It’s fine! It’s gym class for goodness sake. You deserve to move!
CJ: [Unplugs headphones. Resumes exercise. Mr. Gil’s calming, kind voice wafts through the domicile as he gently coaxes the kids through the paces.]
MOM: [Goes back to the kitchen to finish warming up lunch. And to furiously Blog-for-Sanity.]
MR. GIL: Excellent. Now jumping jacks. 1…2…3… Garrett, please put that away. …8…9…10. Great! Now if anyone has any positive comments you want to say, just raise your hand.
[Moments later.]
CJ: Whew! Well THAT was short. And I think I’m done with school for the day! [Walks over to dining room table and sits down.]
MOM: Woohoo! Wow that was fast. Alright then honey here’s your lunch.
CJ: I love you Mommy. 💕 [Blows kiss.]
MOM: I love you too honey. [Bends over for kiss and hug.]
CJ: [Hugs back. Sprinkles grated cheese over her bowl of spaghetti.]
Day 5 of 4th Grade Distance Learning: ClaraJane ditches pants. Jammie bottoms it is.
Mistake #1) Don’t Cry Over Spilled Coffee
Though I avoid the phone “like the plague” (can we say that anymore?), I made the mistake of making an actual live phone call on Sunday, and in my distraction consequently spilled covfefe all over my Macbook. Now I have a $1,500 dead machine. My main portal to the world is temporarily closed. And ironically my only working device is… my phone. Yay!
Mistake #2) Getting Sick.
Apparently now that I’m practically 50, eating whatever I want may perhaps require some evaluation. Not to get too personal but I lost two days to crippling gastric-esophageal debilitation. It’s not that the pain was unbearable, it just prohibited me from sleeping at night OR functioning in the day.
Side Note: When you lament to your husband that the house is falling apart because you’re too compromised to walk around picking up every little thing per usual, and he comforts you by assuring that, “Don’t worry, it will come back together.” What exactly is he referring to? Some Magical Automated Domicile Tidying and Restoration Process? ‘Cuz if that exists, what are we waiting for? Can we use it when I’m not sick?
Double Side Note: Please know that I have a good and dedicated husband. He does all the cooking, most of the laundry, lots of heavy lifting, and a shit ton of childcare. He’s been our steady job holder during the pandemic and sometimes he even spontaneously steams the floors. And I’m sorry folks, he’s taken.
Recitative: But this is my blog and my home and my now “Distance Learning Environment” and I can kvetch about clutter emanating from its pores if I want to. Even as I know I am the chief culprit behind the mess… (aka: Projects-in-Process!), I am accustomed to having the strength to tilt at the windmill.
Now I am weakened and the walls and mess are closing in just as my kids are getting their first real week of “school” underway. And do I have a handle on what is going on with that?
No I do not.
Oh and I actually have work!
Like, not a ton, but a substantial amount. Without the tools or strength to tackle it properly.
Add to that one of my learners here who peppers with updates and queries on the regular (truly every few minutes and seconds) and there go the remnants of my ability to scrape thoughts together… with this splitting headache. Much less take action on them.
I *did* hope on getting the sink full of last night’s dishes done this morning, for starters, but I have only generated more by providing Les Snacks.
I have also managed to coax my son *off* the computer a couple times during breaks today for fundamental self-care actions.
Speaking of which, much as I need to start getting on hold for Apple Care Repair, I think I will rejoice in having hobbled these sentences together for my mental survival (on my phone), and go try to take a shower. It’s not like they can’t cone find me in there P.R.N.
But first:
More Snack.
And I know we are very, very, Lucky Ones.
And crazed as I am, I still would’nt choose to send my kids to school inperson during the pandemic.
And I doubt anything will ever compare to getting through cancer with a new baby and doing gigs while nursing and trying to pay exorbitant rent in the 2009 recession.
Then again, though we’ve been able to make all our ends meet for the first six months of this pandemic, that does not necessarily remain true.
Anyway, I might have 20 minutes here where both kids are immersed in their live online classes.
And OH BOY! REPUGNICANS HAVE SECURED THEIR VOTES for their next vile, regressive appointee to the United States Supreme Court. FAN-f#cking-TASTIC.
AT RISE: It is “recess” in the distance learning environment. The kids are wrestling on the couch and Little Sister seems to have eeked out a slight advantage over Big Brother.
circuskitchen 