Wednesday: shenanigans

We had quite the shenanigans in our house today.

Joshua is apparently doing a unit on spiders, so I told him to go in the basement and look for spider webs.  Of course, he doesn't just go down and look, he wants to clean them too.  It's not just a clean though, it was a banish.  Basically, he was playing a game with the spider webs and not learning anything at all.  (Of course, he couldn't find any so I had to go help him.  Perhaps what he was learning is where to look for spider webs, another important skill?)

During recess the kids were playing their new favorite game of delivering stuff to the door so they could be thieves later and steal it back.  I decided I needed a guard dog.  Of course, with no dogs around I used the next best thing...a guard kitty.  (The video isn't great.)



Soon after that I get a note from my guard kitty asking for his friend.  Now Tornado doesn't like the carrier, so at first a circled 'no'.  But Horizon "really, really" wanted him, so I forced him in.

I pretty much lost track of what was going on after that.  The thieves came into the house and stole THE WHOLE BAG of cat food.  The thieves decided the best way to get the cats back into the house was to stroller them down the hill to the back slider door.  Luckily, the thieves also decided to clean up after themselves.

We continued Joshua's spider theme with his Lego challenge by asking him to build a spider.  He continued changing the spider theme to suit his desires.  May I present the spider mech (i.e., robot), controlled by a spider.  It does at least have eight legs.

Isaac's life skill was to weight the loose lego.  Ben and I have been curious as to how much we have, so now seems like a good time to do it.  (It's not necessarily the weighing of the lego that's the life skill, but keeping track of what he's done and the results.)

It was nice enough to go on a walk around the lake this afternoon.  It was busy!!  I don't think I've ever seen that many people out walking at once.  But we all did a great job social distancing.  We were only 6ft away from someone a few times when we were going in opposite directions on the sidewalk, otherwise we were closer to 15ft.

Ben finished work right after Joshua and I got back, so Joshua (and Isaac) brought Ben on a walk around the lake.  Joshua takes his job of making sure we get exercise very seriously.

Tuesday: back to school for me

Hmm, I didn't get as many pictures of 'school' today.  It must be getting normal.  I did make the kids do the not-so-fun things first and I think it helped.  Oh!  We didn't have any tears today (except for a small injury, which doesn't count.)  I was going to have a special breakfast for them, but Isaac made bran muffins yesterday.  I guess we'll have special breakfast later.

I do have a picture of a dog house Joshua made for his Lego challenge.  Both boys got through more of their activities today...I'm not really sure why.  Life skills may have been shorter and recess may have been shorter, and when you add up a few other shorter things you can get through most of the items on the list I guess.

But I'm sure you're really all wondering how back-to-school went for me.  Well, it ended up going quite well, I think.  I'm obviously not 100% sure because I can't see faces or watch body language, but I covered all the material I wanted to.  At the end of the week last week I decided that I actually wanted to use Zoom instead of Google Meet.  I felt a little nervous about this decision, because most of the campus is going with Google Meet.  However, only one person can present at a time to Google Meet and I wanted to be able to flip through screens.  Zoom is far from ideal, but it worked fine.  I did cast to Google Meet too and one person chose that option, but most students went with Zoom.  Everyone from my second class even showed up, which I was slightly surprised about.  (Most students from the first class showed up, but I didn't get a final count.)

My children did a good job too.  I talked to them a few times, Ben helped them out a few times, but it wasn't excessive.  The worst part was that Joshua went to the bathroom and forgot to flush and I couldn't flush for him because I was using a headset.  I closed the door and that worked.  (Phew.)  The cats did a pretty good job of not interrupting me too.  Horizon even sat on my lap for a bit, which was a definite perk! 

I posted the lectures on-line.  I briefly listened to one to make sure the sound was working and I didn't sound as bad as I was expecting.  (Everyone always sounds terrible to themselves, right?)  Phew.

Monday: back to school

Well, we went back to school today.  Ben worked from home today.  A new normal.

Let's see.  Isaac made bran muffins for his life skill.  He wanted to do it all weekend but I put him off.  I used a buttermilk powder instead of fresh buttermilk and it didn't expand with baking soda as much as it normally does.  Hopefully they'll taste ok for breakfast.

Joshua's life skill was making tater tot casserole.  He didn't like it, but Ben and I thought it was delicious.

Joshua started making a glue quilt for art.  He didn't seem to enjoy it as much as I was expecting...but he took a break and will continue it next art session.

It snowed out last night.  How nice of God to give us some new toys for the day!  The boys built a snow mountain...Joshua lawn-mowered the snow to the mountain.

Isaac wrote about the time Giraffe got lost and was found at Aunt Allison's house.  I could tell he wasn't into it.  I'm moving some of these 'have to do' items to the beginning of the day when everyone is in slightly better spirits.  (Speaking of which, the tears came today because apparently Joshua didn't think he could write an 'a'.  I've been rather surprised at how often he gets moody because he thinks he can't do something.)

Sensory this week is water balls.  They were a hit today.

Isaac's project for the week is Scratch programming.  He did it every free moment until dinner, after which we said he needed a break.

Tornado was found on Joshua's bed, but didn't stay there long.

a long time

This is my 4000th blog post!

🎈 🎈 🎈

Sunday: what will be first?

I've been insanely curious...what are we going to run out of that will cause us to get groceries?  I stocked up the a week ago Friday, but there tends to be that one item that you run out of the night you go grocery shopping.  (Sometimes you can live without it for a week, sometimes you can't.) 

We still haven't found it.  There are several items on the grocery list right now, although not as many as I was expecting it being over a week since the last grocery trip.  We're going through the snacks quickly, but I also think we could get rather creative with the snacks.  It might be granola bars, although I asked Ben to bring his stash home from work and I don't know if he did or not yet.  We don't have a lot of cream cheese, but I'm the only one that eats that and can *probably* find something else to eat.

With Ben home for lunches we'll be going through lunch food faster too. 

I've been trying to empty out the freezer of some of the old stuff for quite a while, so hopefully this will help that initiative.

Hmm, hmm.  It's a mystery.

It's the weekend!

So...the problem with the weekend during this social distancing time is that it is surprisingly like all the other days of the week.  The boys did play together quite well this morning though, so I guess there was at least a little bit of 'no school' that worked for them.

In other news, I've worn pajama pants for over a week now and see no reason to stop...at least not until it gets warm out.

I've warned the boys that spring break may be partially canceled.   There's nothing new to do, so we'd all just end up bored at home without structure.  That being said, I'm hoping to have two days of 'as much screen time as you want' so that there is at least a little break in there.

Day 5: field trip

I know, I know.  A field trip!  We went to the karate school and used their obstacle course.  It's one of Isaac's favorite things to do and Joshua was super excited to get to do it too.  (We stayed well away from the owners.  They had cleaned the obstacle pieces before we came and we cleaned them well before leaving.)

Isaac's life skill was laundry.  I only had him collect, sort, and start the first load.  It seemed like enough.

Joshua's life skill was to make take-n-break cookies.  Dealing with the oven was a big deal.

The afternoon was a bit rough.  Isaac didn't like/didn't want/didn't I don't know to do his stuff.  It wasn't that he wasn't going to do it, but he kept wanting to switch to something else.  I said no, he was in the middle of it.  We did stop on the earlier side though, after getting the reading/writing/math done.  I wish there was an easier way to tell if the kids are close to their breaking point without actually getting to tears.  Maybe I'll have to make a 'button' that they can give me and as long as it isn't overused adjust accordingly.  We'll see.

Unfortunately, we still don't get our special 'no tears yesterday' breakfast.  I'm not sure weekends count.  The boys also don't know there is a treat, so that might not be helping.

After prayer time tonight Joshua asked, "Why doesn't God just take the virus away?"  What a great question!  So we talked about it for a little bit.  Then Isaac asked, "How did God start?  What was there before God?"  So we talked about that.  Deep thoughts from these kids!