If you told me 6 months ago that Emmy would be starting middle school and Ryan 3rd grade STILL from home, I'd laugh in your face. Well, here we are... two weeks down and we are all still at home. We prepared the best we could and tried to get the kids with motivational posters and school supplies. I have to say, they've handled it like champs! Emmy's first zoom is at 8a and she hasn't gotten out of bed before 8a all summer to let's just say its been an adjustment. I wake her up by 7a, she eats breakfast, gets dressed, cleans her room and then flips the sign on her door that says "on a zoom", shuts the door and we usually see her around noon after her 3 classes. After a few hiccups the first day its been pretty smooth. She is now working off my Mac while watching zoom from the district issued computer so she's getting herself into a routine.
Ryan starts at 9a so we've been trying to take Sadie for a walk together after I drop Owen and before he starts. His teacher is awesome and he has a lot of buddies in his class so I've actually heard him giggling during zoom calls (laughter really is an amazing this - especially these days!). He is using a monitor I brought home from the office so he's got a good set-up too. It really amazes me to watch him trouble shoot zoom and move between applications, downloading documents and turning assignments in. We all break for lunch every day and then finish the work in the afternoon. So far so good but I can see this becoming old pretty fast so we are trying to keep things interesting in the afternoons!
Owen has had a tough time. I am not sure who cried more the first day - him or me. The first few days of the week are brutal. One morning I had to drag him out of the house with no shoes on because he was screaming and crying. Another morning he woke up crying that he didn't want to go to school. It breaks my heart. In all the years I've been a "working mom" I have never felt to guilty. And every moment I thin about just keeping him home and then I think about how important it is that the older two remain focused for school and how busy Josh and I are at work and how important it is that he socialize with other kids his age and I tell (convince) myself it is the best thing for him. I try and pick him up everyday by 3:30p so we can have some time together still. I am also trying to take days off so he only goes 4 days a week. Hopefully one day he will understand all I've done to try and juggle it all...
On the first day of school everyone got dressed and put backpacks on to make it seem like Owen was not the only one leaving the house (Shhhh)
