Tuesday: school? or no school?

Well, I had school today.  Day 1 went pretty well.  The worst part was that I forgot my water, so 2/3 of the way through the first class I was thirsty.  There's always a few oddball things that need dealing with, but overall it went well.

The boys would have had a snow day, had it been a normal year.  I was a bit surprised as there wasn't much snow on the ground, but I'm (very obviously) not privy to the decision-making criteria.  However, the boys did have an easy day!  Joshua had about half of his work.  Isaac had less than half of his work and it was more optional.  I feel like the state might be getting cheated out of a school day, because the students still had to join a meeting so they'd be counted as present.  But at the same time, there are some snow days built into the calendar so I'm not that concerned.

The boys apparently played outside for at least two hours with the babysitter this afternoon and had a great time sledding.

Monday: headache

I had a small headache that I couldn't quite shake until about 4pm.  I still got quite a bit done, but felt more distracted than normal.

Teaching starts tomorrow.  There were a ton of emails to deal with today.  I expect this is how it'll be until the end of the semester.  It's been very nice not having to work.  I expect that once I get past the first week it'll be nice working again though too.

Yesterday a squirrel finally found the corn.

There was no snow during the day, but we're supposed to get some/quite a bit/a lot over night.  We got an email from the school saying that if there would have normally been a snow day it will just be a remote learning day.  Burn.  I started wondering if they were going to do that in future years too, but decided probably not  There are a lot of technology things that need to be figured out, and it probably wouldn't make sense to do it if students hadn't already figured it all out.

Sunday: tropical storm Ben

I was looking through the tropical storm names here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone_naming).  I found Joshua's, who belongs to Australia.  I kept looking and suddenly let out and "Oh!" of surprise.  Ben asked me what was up.  I mentioned that I found his name in the tropical storm list!  He was not as excited as I was, to say the least.

His name is actually in the queue for Southern Pacific Storms (Fiji and New Zealand), so next time there's a B storm that causes significant damage his name will go in that spot.  Then we can all be in rotation at the same time.  (Although Isaac and Amanda can never happen in the same year.  Ben and Joshua are on different types of lists that go through all the names in four or five lists and then just start over, so they could come at any point depending on how many storms there are.)

Saturday: I missed it

 I missed Joshua's tropical storm.  :(  I didn't even realize they had English named storms in the Indian Ocean.  I don't know when his storm will come around again.  It makes me wonder about Benjamin, who is now the only one missing.  We're also in different oceans, so that really only leaves the Arctic Ocean for Ben too. :D  I'll need to see what I can find out about the Indian Ocean hurricanes.

Friday: absurd morning

 At 6:45 this morning Joshua yelled something at Isaac.  It wasn't the "I'm a little frustrated", but it was the "I'm really mad!"  I got up to figure out what was going on, and Isaac turned on a light that Joshua wanted off.  So we talked about it and everyone apologized.  Then they immediately went into their rooms to get dressed...and left the room with the light.  So I don't understand why either of them cared.

At 7:45 this morning I gave the boys a muffin.  Of course, they brought it to the table and then got up and did something.  Isaac came back and started eating Joshua's muffin.  I noticed, and decided that I'd move Isaac along with Joshua's old muffin to the place were Isaac had been sitting.  Joshua didn't notice that there was a bite out of his muffin, but Isaac was so sad because the muffin he had already been eating didn't taste as good.  There were tears.

Later in the morning I retired Ben's old shirt.  It's lasted about almost 25 years, but it now has too many holes.

I was late to Joshua eye appointment.  It was at three and at three I realized we were supposed to be there.  They still let us come, but it meant everything took a bit longer.  Joshua is a bit far sighted, but that's actually pretty normal with little kids.  On the plus side, kids muscles are really strong, so they can usually compensate.  So no glasses this year, but definitely going back in a year.

Thursday: all's well that ends well

Isaac woke me up from my nap saying Joshua was hurt.  They were rough-housing and Joshua had bonked his head on the floor.  He didn't just shake it off like normal, and eventually went to take a nap.  When he got up he was still a bit out of it, resting on the couch.  I called the doctor's office.  I didn't expect a concussion, but at the same time Joshua wasn't acting normal.  We went in after dinner, by the time he was acting normal, and he doesn't have a concussion.   I've looked up the symptoms for them many times, but this is the first time we've made it to the doctor's office.

Also, Ben got some new socks.  Can I tell you how much I hate sock packaging?  It's almost worse then the anti-theft shrink plastic.  These socks were especially bad.  The plastic thing that holds them in place was so tight against the socks I really thought I was going to cut the socks.  It probably took me a good ten minutes to get all the socks (two packages worth) out and the dumb plastic pieces out of the socks.  Some of them had managed to get an end inside the sock even.  I really feel like there could be a better package...or at least a slightly longer plastic thing.  I think I got them out without damage though.

Wednesday

 Isaac had to write his spelling words out of items.  The suggestion was Legos - the 2xn bricks.  When I came down he had decided to write most of his words out of assorted pieces.  I like the one out of people the best, but there are several that I really like.

We watched some of the inauguration.  I'm not sure I explained things all that well, but we watched it!

We also played outside for a bit.  The boys were not excited to go out, but they had an excellent time in the end.