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!)