Monday: Christmas Shepherd

 I'm enjoying Christmas Shepherd.  And the fact that Isaac can read.  

I was going to skip today's activity because I didn't really want to do it, but Isaac came in ready to do it.  If he's going to be that excited about something then we'll do it!  Today was hide the shepherd.

The house has gotten quite Christmasy over the last few days. :)  A few more lights to put up and it'll be done.  (These bulbs and stars are new for us this year; we got them free from church.  They've been a nice addition.)

I didn't really want to do anything this morning.  Getting out of bed after a long weekend was a bit rough, but not as bad as if the kids were actually going to school.  However, I did do quite a bit once I got going.

The weekend: in pictures

 Our shepard keeps leaving notes as to where the animals moved (due to Christmas magic, of course.)

This is our Christmas Lego table, although it's been added to since the picture was taken.  Joshua is especially enjoying playing with the assorted sets on the table.

Joshua wanted to make a Christmas tree.  Then he put everyone's name on it, including "I don't know" x2 [skull].  This was for his two fish that died...last year?

During Lego time Joshua just made ghost boats from the ghost school set.  They were very good.

Today's shepard activity was follow-the-leader.  The boys enjoyed it way more than I was expecting.

Friday: Christmas!

The boys wanted to put up the Christmas tree ASAP this morning.  Why not?  I let them do most of the work while I had breakfast, although I did direct a lot.

We started 'Searching for the Shepard', which is the Christian version of Elf on a Shelf that our friends got us.  Today we were supposed to make a chain.  I'm thinking the fun part of this will be to see our friends' pictures too!

We also spent some time working on Lego sets.  We moved into Isaac's room, which is much softer and isn't as annoying to walk around when the sets don't get finished.  Joshua's also had Ghost School out for months now, so I'm hoping he'll be able to finish it up with people around (both for motivation and to help).

Thursday: Happy Thanksgiving

 It was an excellent day, as days go.

Ben and I woke up to three signs that Joshua had written, but we had to wait until everyone was moving to read them.  Joshua was really excited.

The first one was about Pokemon Go, but I got stuck after that and Joshua didn't tell the the rest of what he wrote.  The light pink one says 'Minecraft thing on Joshua's account' because he had something to show Ben for his birthday.  The orange one says, 'Winter Muffin Joke.  What did the muffin say when d__[I think he forgot to write the rest].  Ear muffins!"

We watched church together.  They had the lyrics working again, which was nice.

Joshua and this snake taught me to laugh like a bad guy while I was making green bean casserole.

Happy Thanksgiving!  A Lego challenge from a week ago.

The Thanksgiving meal.  Most of it brought to you by a local restaurant, which was an excellent idea for us.  

Joshua was really excited for the pumpkin pie, but what I think he was really excited about was that he didn't have to eat all his food to get it.  I handed him his plate with the food and said something like, "Here's your food.  You need to at least pretend to eat it for pie."  He took this very literally, eating his 1/2 roll and moving his fork but not actually touching any of the food.

We ate while watching a movie.  I'm very thankful for my family and love them a lot, but I see them all.the.time.

We met up with Ben's family right before dinner (but it did not include dinner) for a very responsible, socially-distanced, mask-wearing get together outside.  It was nice to see everyone.  Isaac and Joshua did their own thing, as they often do, but I understand not wanting to just stand around and talk.  By the end my toes were rather cold though.

Oh, it's also Ben's birthday!  We got him some gifts and sang Happy Birthday, but it was rather low-key.

There are a lot of things to be thankful for this year, but the one that stands out the most is for kids that play well together.  Staying at home so much has been so much easier knowing that the kids will play together for several hours every day.  I really thought they'd be sick of each other, but, with the exception of a day here or there, they haven't been.  They even like each other so much that they're still sleeping in the same room.  Well, tonight they're sleeping in the tent. But they're still together.

Wednesday: days

 Well, there's been a lot (of good stuff) on my mind.  It might come out in a few posts tonight because it isn't at all related, or I'll save it for a slow day.

First of all, this week has been terrible for me in remembering what day of the week it is.  Worse than normal.  There have been a few times I've woken up and am completely stuck because I can't remember what I'm supposed to be doing because I can't remember what day it is.  And other times it's not that I'm off by just one day, but I'm off by lots of days.  It's been rather annoying.

Joshua made a turkey had during school today.  I like the hat + earphones look.

He also passed his karate test with flying colors.

I'm not sure if you've seen any thing about a drunken squirrel that's gone viral, but our friend shot the video.  I've seen a lot about it because she and friends keep posting on Facebook the different places that they've seen it show up, but have only watched the one interview that I linked above.  Imagine how surprised I was to see it in my newsfeed this evening!

Tuesday: accomplished

 Today was rather productive.  I made cranberry sauce.  (Partially because I had gotten the cranberries before we ordered dinner from a restaurant and partially because Cheryl said it's really easy.)  I also made some Chex Mix.  It's always a problem because it is half gone and it's only been a day.

Joshua is thankful for food, house, brother, and sets [Lego].  His spelling is so fun lately.  He writes me notes for the smallest things.  The problem is that he can't spell well, has no spaces, and does crazy mountains for M/W.

Ben ended up winning two opened sets of one of the Lego sets Joshua really wants for Christmas.  He wasn't really planning on two, but that's how auctions work.  It actually worked perfectly!  Between the two boxes we have one full set that is in the unopened bags.  I think we have most of the second set, although there seemed to be a few things that might be missing.  The extra pieces will be put to good use though!

Isaac and I also tested for our next rank of belt.  I feel like we barely learned everything in time, but we did.  

Monday: the day

 It was a day during which I didn't feel like I got a lot done but what I did get done was important.

I proctored an exam.  While periodically helping the children with school.  Isaac laughed at one point when he came over to ask me a question...

One computer is Isaac's, one with exam instructions (that didn't have much use besides being the default screen for when students stopped their screen share), one to watch exams, and one that I actually did stuff on.

I also watched my aunt's funeral.  There have been a few deaths of people around me lately.  I was trying to find something profound to say about this, but they all felt flat.  

Sunday: furniture

 The boys moved the furniture.  This is not my favorite activity of theirs, but I suppose it really isn't a big deal.

Saturday: kids

 Well, I was rather fed up with the kids today.  I'll be honest, I'm not really sure what set me off.  My to-do list is larger than it's been since the beginning of the year.  It isn't all super important, but it does include things that I'd like to get done.  And the kids are just so messy.  I have enough to do without reminding them over and over to clean up.  Or, let's be honest, cleaning up for them because it's easier.

I called them upstairs a few minutes before dinner time to do a few minutes of extra cleaning.  They weren't happy about it, but they didn't really complain either.  Which was lucky for them, because my mood had gone down surprisingly fast and they weren't going to get any dinner.  At least, not dinner prepared by me.

In better news, Joshua ended up making his own lunch today.  I think I was taking too long.  Surprisingly, he cleaned up after himself!  (I understand that I just complained about them not cleaning up.  I still think my point above is a bit valid.)  He put the crunchy beans back in the chip area with the clip on...but neglected to realize that it works best when the top is folded. :D

Wednesday: we're all at home

 Hmm.  I don't have much to say.  I almost made both boys cry today, but they held it together even though they did want to do whatever it was I asked of them.  

It was Ben's first day of working back at home for a while again.  Sort of.  I mean, he was on medical leave and then back in the office for not very long (three days?  week and three days?) and then working at home for his cold and then back in the office for two days and now working back at home due to whatever catch-phrase we have now.  The boys can't keep straight whether Ben is downstairs working or at work working.

Tuesday: spice rack

 I got a new spice rack today.  I realized that the old one wasn't doing it for me.  It was a little bit too high and so I didn't put the spices away well.

I opened up the shipping box today and noticed that the spice rack box had been opened and was lumpy.  Oh, I must have gotten a return.  I hoped it was ok.

After I opened it, I found an extra spice rack inside!  It still must have been a return, but they returned an extra one in the box for some reason.

I don't have a before picture, but the before picture didn't look all that bad.  There's plenty of space in this cupboard because I try not to put too much in the deep corners.  The second shelf got moved up and now isn't super useful, but we're going to give this a try.

In other news, while I was making dinner Joshua decided he wanted to put holes in a box with a chop stick.  He was having so much fun that Isaac immediately joined him.  I'm not sure why Joshua wanted to do such a thing, but it brought them both joy.

Monday: remote learning

Yesterday the governor announced that all high schools and colleges would transition to remote learning as of this coming Wednesday.

Bother.  We were so close.  We got through everything except final exams.

Now, if this were just an excel class I wouldn't mind.  I've been giving remote exams all semester; I've got it down pat.  The problem is that we also spend a few weeks at the end using Microsoft Access.  1) Access doesn't work on Macs.  2) The remote desktops aren't working from off-campus for Macs.  (Why?  They used to work. I gave up for the semester.)  3) Most students have Macs.

If we could have transitioned oh, two weeks earlier that would have been great and I would have just pivoted the learning plan.  So now the students are getting fill-in-the-blank/short answer/multiple choice questions for the Access part.  It seems a bit dumb, because I feel as though even if they've never seen Access before they'd still be able to pull at least 90% on this part.  I suppose we'll find out; maybe I'm overestimating.  

A few things that I need to keep in mind...the final exam affects their grade but not by a ton and it will be significantly easier to grade.  And sometimes it's nice to give the students something easy.  It's been a hard semester.

Ah, the adventures of living through a pandemic.

(In other news, the boys' school is all going to be learning virtually for the week after Thanksgiving, which I think is a great idea.  However, for any students that are transitioning back to in-person school, they'll be at school for all of 2.5 days and then have Thanksgiving and then have a week back in virtual.  It seems awkward.)

Saturday: Lego sets

 We took apart most of the Hidden Sides Lego sets that were up for Halloween yesterday.  We realized we started the project too late.  So we started the Christmas Lego sets today!  Well, Joshua worked on his own thing, but we all worked at the same time.  It was a lot of fun.

Friday: negative

 Ben is negative for COVID!!!

The results came through at 4:30am.  Ben woke me up at 6:30 and I got to sleep in a bed for the last hour.  Oh, it was so nice to have him back.  The boys greatly enjoyed it too.

I hope this is the only time I need to say, "I didn't go* to work for a week and a half** because my husband had a slight cold."

*I still worked.  It was just virtually, which really was probably harder because a lot of things I'd normally just do I had to reassign.
**It was really 8 days, but it managed to get three class periods.  Since I only teach twice per week, I can say a week and a half.

Thursday: technology

 Today was the last day of classes!  I wasn't there because we still don't have results, but they were pretty small.  Review days often are, especially when the review is now on-line.

Anyway, remember a few days ago I complained about not being able to get remote desktop working for Mac users?  Well, it still doesn't work.  So we're getting creative.  Two students in quarantine are borrowing old laptops that the department still has.  The rest get to use their zoom skills.  We join a zoom meeting and then they take control of my laptop and do what they need.  (There's nothing important on laptop and I don't really pay much attention.)  But here was the cool part.  Today one of the students in quarantine needed the PC for a tutoring session.  So they both did a zoom meeting with my laptop and I gave the student control of the laptop.  It seemed like a super weird way to get around the problem, but it totally worked.  It's the small victories.  I need all the small victories right now.

In other news, we also had parent teacher conferences.  Video conferences this year!  Joshua is doing great and we actually finished before our time was up.  (Although I'll admit, there isn't quite as much to talk about because I'm much more involved and there aren't as many social skills to discuss.)  Joshua is coming out of his shell though in the smaller meeting that they have.

Isaac's teacher is really pleased with his progress too.  She said that he needs to slow down a bit with ELA, but based on everything I think they really need to tell him to use more words.  He is a boy of few words but we've been talking about it for the last few weeks and it's getting better.  She also said that the help that I'm giving him is appropriate.  Sometimes she very clearly directs a student what to write (minus actually giving it to them word for word) so that made me feel better.  It's a fine line between making them do it on their own and doing it for them sometimes.  She's also going to start giving him slightly harder math, which will be good.

Well, still no pictures.  Sometime I should take a picture of Joshua's desk.  I now understand why teachers want 48 pencils and two of everything else.  Joshua drops them all the time and then "can't find them"!  It's a treasure chest under there.

Wednesday: still here

 Well, it has now been a week since Ben started his minor cold symptoms and we still don't know if it is COVID or not.  I understand that health care professionals and labs are doing their best to move all the cases through as quickly as possible.  But it's also a bit absurd.  Ben and I are lucky in that we can work from home (although apparently Ben is actually using his sick time, which he receives plenty of).   I won't start on a rant about people that can't afford to take off a week just to find out they have a cold.  I also won't start on a rant that if we knew it was going to take this long we might have not tried to quarantine Ben as much as possible in the house...because it is terrible.  I'll happily give up going to karate and going to church and going shopping if we don't have to do this again.

In other news, the rest of the day was fine.  The weather got cold again, which is really a bit sad.  Joshua had a hard night, and I'm not really sure why.  At one point he was crying (after 10 minutes of crying) because he couldn't decide whether to do his chores so he could get reading time with me before bed or not do his chores but then not get reading time.  I usually hold a hard line on this one, but usually it seems like Joshua is more in control of his emotions.  Today I told him he could just stay in his bed (with books) and he could still have reading time.  Oh, the relief was instantly obvious on his face.

Tuesday: the good and the bad

 Well, let's start with the bad.  Right?  Because that's were we should always start.

*Ben still doesn't have his test results back.

*My back hurts...a lot.  I think it's because I'm a stomach sleeper on an air mattress.  I'll be trying the couch tonight.  (I'm pretty sure it's just normal soreness and nothing more severe, but moving is hard right now.)

*Isaac took two hours to take his math test today.  I'm not really sure why...he knew the material.  It was supposed to be a half day, but was only a little shorter than normal because of this and he was very sad.

*I still had to teach via Zoom.

*The house is still a mess.

*My students in remote learning with Macs can't access the virtual machines that CIT and I set up.  I could access them a month ago when I saw this problem coming.  Now that the a lot of students are in remote learning something changed and it isn't working.

We'll move on to the good, because there was plenty of that too.

*It was a nice day out.  The doors were open most of the day again.

*I think Isaac is slowly realizing that he is working slowly and hopefully that will inspire him to work more quickly.

*Students seem very understanding of teaching via zoom and I have some great TAs.  It's annoying but working fine overall.  I realized if I was in their place it would be annoying but I'd rather have them take the precautions then come to school and that puts everything in perspective.

*The kids played so well today.  I was in a bad mood and they played and left me alone.

*Ben is still only feeling light cold symptoms.

*Joshua loaded the dishwasher for the first time tonight!  I gave him vague instructions to start with and when I came back to check on him all of the cups were right side up. :D

Monday: flag

 Isaac and Joshua made another fort today and then Isaac wanted a quest to go with it.  I told him to make a flag.  The first thing out of Joshua's mouth?  "Is it underwear?"

Sunday: church

During church.

 

After church.

 At packet pickup yesterday we got Joshua's hallway sign from wisdom.  It's always nice to see the reasoning behind why the child got the award.

Isaac received October's respect award.  This one makes a lot of sense to me.  Sometimes he's gotten awards and while I don't feel like they're wrong, I don't always see it as outstanding.  (I know.  Parent eyes are different than teacher eyes.)

It was a beautiful day today!  I had the windows open all day.  I finished winterizing the stuff, the kids played with bubbles, and I gave the last haircut of the warm weather.  (I try not to do it more than once during the winter because it makes a mess!)

Friday: virus

Yesterday I got out the crazy fort pieces to hold the camera for piano lessons.  Of course, they were new again and so the boys instantly started building with them.

That leads us to today, when all they did was play "virus."

The big one is the king virus.  I heard there was a prince virus and several other viruses too.  They attacked Ben a few times (from far away).  At one point I heard Isaac say, "oh, the virus changed.  We'll need new medicine now."  I feel like it's a great example of dealing with life through play.

I guess they did build a house first, after looking at my pictures.

The numbers of confirmed COVID cases are rising at a crazy rate.  I feel as though they'll have to level off sometimes soon because they won't be able to test any faster.  Hopefully someone smart is thinking about this in order to open up more testing/processing sites.  Then the numbers can just climb really quickly.  And we'll win!  We'll have the biggest numbers!

Thursday: quarantine

 Well, here we are.  In quarantine.  Of course, we don't actually know if we should be in quarantine.  

Ben came home yesterday with cold symptoms, and those symptoms overlap with COVID symptoms.  He made an appointment last night to get tested and the first available was Saturday.  SATURDAY!!  It takes 2.5 days to get tested...that's absurd.  It'll take another 3-4 days to get results.  Case numbers are sky-rocketing and there's no end in sight because people can't even get tested in a timely manner.  (I know there are a lot of people and they can only test so fast.  But it is still so annoying.)

So Ben is by himself a lot.  (Let's face it, I kind of wish I was by myself a lot.  I had to go on an Easter egg hunt today and then do silly things that were in the Easter eggs in order to get shiny rocks.)  I'm sleeping in Isaac's room.  Um...we canceled a few things on the calendar but we were already pulling back so those aren't too bad.

I taught from home today.  This went fine.  The class is set up well for remote learning anyway and I have some good TAs.  It's a little hard to not see the students to know if they need a bit more time to catch up with what I just did, but I think I did ok.  The second class asks a lot more questions than the first class and I could hear most of the questions too...so it didn't always have to go through the TA.  (Now that the second class isn't quite so slow I have been enjoying it a lot more.  They ask good questions, and questions make the whole class a bit more enjoyable.)

Isaac had his first piano lesson today.  It was going to be by zoom anyway, so nothing had to change there!

Pictures.  I should be taking more pictures because it makes the blog more interesting.  But let's be honest, I can't even keep the dishes from piling up or get the laundry put away right now.  I'm not sure why.  Yesterday I felt quite productive, but then I looked around and it was a mess.  I was probably productive on things you can't see.  Yeah.  That's it.

Wednesday: writing a book

 Joshua is writing a book!  It's called "The Adventures of Isaac and Joshua".

Also on the cover is this very important note: "This is not a library book."  As Joshua explained it, library books are made of paper and his book is made of paper, so he wanted to be clear.

Tuesday: opinion

 I was unwillingly listening to Isaac's lesson about facts and opinions today when I heard the teacher say, "'I love to dance' is an opinion."  After thinking about it for a few seconds, I realized that no, I think that is a fact.  It's one of those weird ones that is right on the fence.  It could change into an opinion with one slightly different word ("I should love to dance."  "Everybody loves to dance.") But saying it about yourself is really a fact.  It was bothering me so much that I emailed Ben, who confirmed what I was thinking.  (Now, I get what the teacher was trying to demonstrate.  It just ended up being a poor example.)

The babysitter woke up late and called in sick 45 minutes before she was supposed to arrive.  I frantically called all the people.  Some were unable, some were able but it'd be a pain, and so Ben came home.  It was actually a good thing, because Isaac's chromebook was acting up again and it took some work arounds to get Isaac in the meeting he was supposed to be in.   There was supposed to be a second meeting, but Ben never found the link to that one.  I think there were some network issues today at the school, but a little more communication would have been nice.  (It wasn't quite as important though, so not a big deal.)

Friday: downhill

Well, COVID seems to be doing downhill in our county.  I guess I should really say uphill, since we are increasing at a crazy fast rate.  Our seven day new case average is double what it was last week at this time and we keep breaking our one day records.  So our household is pulling back a bit.  My grocery trips will go back to pick-up (after my single week of getting them at the store).  Karate is going to Zoom.  I might even do curbside pickup for the library.  Ben is working at home every other week.  It's rather annoying, but it is what it is.  (Also note that we are doing (mostly) fine being at home.  While we make these decisions mainly for our safety, we also realize that by not being "out there" we also free up space for people who are unable to stay home, whatever their reason may be.)

Joshua wanted his nails painted.  I did it in such a way that it would come off rather quickly.  About two hours later, the first one had come off and Joshua peeled the rest of right after that.  I had been hoping it might stay on a bit longer, but that was long enough for Joshua.

 

Sunday: first snow

Today was our first snow!  It snowed a surprising amount of the day, but it was just flurries.