Thursday: lost

Joshua came in this morning complaining about his wiggly tooth.  (It started wiggling a bit less than a week ago.)  That's Ben's department, and Ben said he'd look at it when he got up.  Ten minutes later Joshua comes back.  Ben eventually got up and said it was almost ready but not quite.  At breakfast Joshua put way too much granola bar in his mouth but managed to get the tooth out.  He was so excited.  It's a good thing that Gov. Whitmer said that the tooth fairy is considered essential personnel.

Joshua was sleeping in the tent but the tooth fairy can't get in the tent.  So he put it under a pillow in his bed along with a note in case the tooth fairy goes to the tent first.

Isaac had a meeting with his class.  It's the first time they've tried this and it went better than I was expecting.  The students did a good job muting and unmuting themselves, so that helped a ton.  Isaac only went a little crazy at the end.

Joshua's challenge was to built a flower and flower pot, a ducky, or a person in a sleeping bag.  He put the ducky in the sleeping bag too.  (Does anyone have some challenge suggestions?  I have some from the internet but a lot of them aren't quite what I'm looking for.)

There was also a complex story that involved a carrot sword hidden behind flowers in case bad guys came.

Ben reminded me that I could use a blanket while teaching, so I used our zipper blanket.  It was much nicer.  Also, "teaching" was much nicer today...I gave them time to work on a small project but no one asked any questions so I was able to get some other school work done.

Wednesday: today

I went to the grocery store today.  We just needed a few things as we couldn't pick up our groceries until Friday.  (I placed the order on Saturday.)  Anyway, the two items that really caused me to go to the store were sliced cheese (I forgot to put them on the order) and tampons.  Since I was there I also picked up some yogurt, toilet paper (in case it doesn't come on our order), Mountain Dew, and fizzy water.  I'm going to be honest...I'm having a hard time going from groceries every week to groceries every two-three weeks.  I can't quite wrap my head around what we're going to need that far out.  I'm sure that I'd get better at it if I needed to do it for a while, but it's hard.  Oh, flowers were on sale and since I couldn't get them for Mom's death day I picked them up today.  Also, I was surprised at the number of people not wearing masks...maybe up to 60%.  It's possible that it's been all over my news feed because of the sewing aspect of it, but I really thought more people would be wearing something.

When I got home I found out that my boys had been turned into rocks and barricaded themselves in Isaac's bedroom.  They did a great job of it; I couldn't open the door.  So we had a late start to school, but it was nice because I was able to get caught up on a few house work things.

It snowed off and on today.  Not enough to play in, just enough to make it cold.  I was cold yesterday too and it was rather annoying.  When it's cold I don't want to go on the walk that I really should take.

Isaac made cookies for his life skill again.  He did a much better job.  He's also becoming less afraid of the oven.

Joshua made a dragon and a venus flytrap.  It's a bad dragon that breathed fire on the Venus flytrap.  I find it interesting how all his animals (unicorn, horse, dragon) look about the same.

Joshua also made scribble monsters for art.  They're trying to give you a hug.

Tuesday: made it

Well, I made it through the day.  I guess it wasn't that hard, but I was especially feeling the lack of work/home/school balance today.

It's probably in part because I didn't feel great about the lecture today.  It was a good topic, but super short.  The boys did a good job of giving me some time in the morning and later in the afternoon to finish up some stuff though, so I feel mostly prepared for the next several classes.

Horizon came to help me teach for a few moments.

Joshua had a lego challenge of a horse or a tree house.  He made a rainbow horse and a treehouse.  The person took all the leaves off the tree though.  The tree house has an inside floor and a roof floor that had a rope for climbing up to.

Although the window is at the same height as the horse's back, it is not for getting onto the horse.  Apparently that was a silly idea.

Joshua and I also got on each other's nerves tonight.  I was telling him to hurry up with the chores and he basically told me that he didn't want to.  (I'm not sure exactly what he said.  It hurts to do chores perhaps?)  So I told him that we'd have to stop screen time with Dad after dinner if that was the case.  This of course sent him in to tears.  And he spilled the Legos he was trying to put away.  I was helping him clean them up but he wasn't sorting them well (it was an easy sort) because "he couldn't see" through the tears.  I told him to finish his chores and he cried all the way through them.  He finally came up and sat on my lap and said that he was sad because it seemed like I was mad and he didn't want to do his chores because he has done them so many times.  I told him I was mad.  And that I do the same chores all the time too.  But I did agree with him that they're boring.  Anyway, all that to say something will need to change tomorrow and he won't like it.  I think I'll give him a choice though: nap, no screen time, or sleep in his bed instead of the tent.  I expect he'll choose nap, but we'll see.  At least, that's what I hope he chooses as I'm pretty sure he hasn't been getting enough sleep.

Monday: back to school

I thought Isaac would be starting the school packets that he got over break this week, but it turns out that it doesn't start until next week.  In anticipation I set up a table in his room so that he could not be as distracted.  Of course, he also hasn't been using his bed lately so he moved it over for a chair.  And a room would be incomplete without a ducky chair for reading time.

Joshua hit a whole bunch of Lego challenges: an empty tomb (that is empty inside), a lake (top part) and a chair (with a person watching a battle)

Sunday: Happy Easter!

He is risen!  He is risen indeed!

We had church on-line.  It's still a bit weird, but getting normalish.  They did a nicer job with the playlist today so we didn't have to go back and forth between different webpages.

Joshua made ...oh, what was he calling them; I can't remember...ginormousized snakes.  With a little snake on top of them.

The day was a bit rough...I was a bit grumpy which was probably the main problem.  Joshua wouldn't make up his mind about what he wanted to eat.  I don't want to decide what cereal he wants!  (Mainly because I always choose incorrectly.)  Then he couldn't decide what he wanted for lunch.  The boys always ask for things that aren't really options like pancakes and it gets so annoying.

I finally put candy in the Easter eggs.  The boys were very good about not asking too much about the Easter egg hunt.  They did a good job of both finding eggs...Isaac was a bit faster than Joshua but not by as much as in the past.  Afterwards they made an Easter egg hunt for us and it was the best they've ever made!  There were several eggs that we weren't able to find.

Saturday: Easter parade

We had and Easter parade in front of Grandma's house today.

The boys made cards to go in the mailbox.  They both put more effort into them than I was expecting.  I didn't get a picture of Isaac's, but he was making an intricate maze.

Friday: vacation

Today was another screen time day for the boys.  Isaac played Mario Rabbids all day.  Joshua stayed on the couch by him, but did a variety of things.

Ben and I also took it pretty easy and it was lovely.

Thursday: too busy?

It was a busy day today.  Most days feel like that.  Today though, I wish it hadn't been quite so busy.  A bit more time to remember would have been nice, but I've also found that memories come when they come and that is fine too.

Wednesday: back to school

Joshua's Lego challenge was to make a pizza.  First, he drew a picture of a pizza monster.  Then he added a guy the pizza monster was chasing.  Then he made it out of Lego.  The guy is smiling because he doesn't realize the pizza monster is behind him.  The pizza monster can shoot sauce out of his mouth.

The floor got sticky again, so Joshua got to clean the kitchen this time.

Isaac worked diligently on his math and reading packets.  Well, pretty diligently...better than Monday.  I'm now optimistic that he'll finish his required things by Friday.  He ended up in this corner while trying not to be distracted.  Of course, he let the vent distract him.  "Why isn't there an ant trap in the vent?"  "There's nothing in there that ants want."  "But couldn't they come in anyway?"  "It's not connected to the outside, but to the furnace."  "Oh."

I had the possibly stupid idea of using water in the marble run for today's water activity.  I think that if Joshua hadn't put the straight long down pipe in the set-up it wouldn't have been too bad.  Maybe.  A lot of water splashed out and the floor got a second cleaning of the day.

It turns out that when I'm not teaching I can handle the boys' school and keeping the house clean.  But I can only do two of the three.  The kitchen has been especially bad the last few days.  Also, Hope College canceled next Monday's classes (Friday was already off.)  I don't have strong opinions on whether or not they should cancel classes, but it feels a little unfair to have another MWF class off and not an TR class.  I'm a bit short on material.  I know, I could cancel.  And my classes have gotten rather short.  But still...  (Also, I've heard from some of the students that they are spending a ton more time with remote learning than if they actually went to a classroom.  I'm not sure why this is, but perhaps my short classes will give them a bit of a breather.  At least, that's what I'll tell myself.)

Tuesday: yesterday and today

Yesterday Isaac and I were struggling over some of his reading packet.  He had to read a story, list some things about one of the characters, and then using that information write what he thought of the character.  What did he write?  "I don't know what I think of the character because I don't know him."  I was rather dumbfounded.  I know I was busy and am not the best teacher, but seriously?

We made it through though.  Isaac's life skill was to make the frozen cookies...but I didn't give him any help at all.  Well, a few comments.  What I was surprised to find is that he thought the cookies stopped baking once he turned the oven off.  He was going to leave the cookies in there until it was a little cooler and not so scary.  We had a fast discussion about how it was the heat that was still in the oven that cooks them and the cookies would burn if he left them in there.

Today was a screen time day.  (Almost) as much screen time as they wanted.  They spent most of it playing or watching the Switch.

Yeah, they were in those spots a lot today.  They did go to the beach for a bit, took a walk around the lake with us, and had a karate lesson, so they weren't there ALL day.  (Isaac considered going to the beach in his footie pajamas.  While I wasn't going to forbid it, I did ask him if he really thought it was a good idea.  He changed his clothes.)

I tried catching up on my work.  While I'm not caught up, I'm at least closer.  At one point I was looking through my files to see if I had any back from when I was at Hope.  (I was looking for some data to import into excel, and I knew the instron had some.) (I know there's a lot on the web and I did find some of it, but wanted to see exactly what I had in case it would act differently.)  About twenty minutes later Ben put a whole bunch of old CDs on my desk for me to sort through.  What was on the top?  My files from Hope.

Monday: Spring Break?

Today was the first day of spring break.  Hahaha.  As though I'm going to let the kids off that easy.  I know times of rest are important, but we can't do much other than what we've already been doing.  So we had school.

Now, I did remove some of the normal school items and replace them with slightly more fun items, like water play, watching a show while taking apart Lego sets, and games.  But there was still stuff to be learned.  Isaac didn't finish his packets for school that came home three weeks ago, so I told him he needs to finish by Thursday in order to get screen time Friday.  He also needs to have his bedroom cleaned by then.  It might be a struggle as he isn't on track to finish and doesn't use any 'extra time' to do it.  We'll see.

Anyway, today's challenge for Joshua was to build something using only green bricks.  He built a dragon on a dragon mech.

Horizon enjoyed sitting on the laptop keys today.  It was a bit of a problem.

Sunday: Palm Sunday

Happy Palm Sunday!

The boys made palm branches and then we made them walk around the couch shouting 'Hosanna'.  They were not thrilled, so it was more of a saying Hosanna.

Joshua really likes these Lego Challenges and asked for another.  I gave him sun or lady bug.  He did both, although with a rock and some dirt for the lady bug.

Saturday: low key

Today was a pretty low key day for us.  We did a little work, but mostly just lazed around.  Everyone was happy, so it was nice.

Joshua wanted a Lego challenge - he ended up with a unicorn.  It has a rainbow stand.

Everyone took a real rest time today.  Before he actually starting sleeping, Joshua made a party house.  (It's a party house due to the lights.)

This is a fun dip stick with lots of different flavors on it.

Friday: a better day

Today went much better than yesterday.

Friday's special reading this was 'flip and sip'.  He's wanted one of these Gaterades for a long time.

Joshua made a ghost for his Lego challenge.  The ghosts in the Hidden Sides sets are all green, which is why it's green.  It also has evil eyebrows.

Joshua and I cleaned out the chip cabinet today.  I keep forgetting to take 'before' pictures, but needless to say it was much worse.  We added the clip hangers.  I don't know if they'll help, but it's worth a try.  These clips are not super strong, so we'll see if they even work.

Horizon followed me all over for a while.  He usually doesn't do that, but it was fun.

It was up to 60F today, so we went to the beach.  The boys dug a deep hole and filled it with water and then dug it wider.  We went on a family walk and after that the boys went back to the beach and dug the hole again.  Isaac said it wasn't quite as fun the second time, but he was still out there for over an hour so it can't have been that boring.  Oh yeah, and in pajamas.  Because that's how we roll in this house.  I had to buy Isaac more pajamas because he runs out by the end of the week.  (Joshua just wears pajamas that are way too small or way too big.  He's switched over from always wearing footies to never wearing footies so that he doesn't have to get dressed when he's forced to go outside.)

Thursday: life

Today...was a bit rough.  Isaac was in a grumpy mood.  It's ok to have grumpy days, but it's hard to deal with at the same time.

The life skill for the boys today was scrubbing the floor. (Shamelessly stolen from Liz.)  Joshua did a great job, Isaac did an ok job.  They both loved playing with the water though, so it was a good choice.

Joshua was supposed to build a flower.  Instead he built a flower shop.  The cashier has a flower hat and there are people lined up all around the outside to buy flowers.