Hapde burfday Grant!

Dear grant, 

Today you are 8! 

8 is great kid.

You’ve learned to ride your bike this week, had a not so great pandemic trip to the zoo, eaten donuts AND cake and enjoyed one last swim.

You’ve done an awesome job adjusting to pandemic life and school at home. There have been a few bumps (why didn’t you turn in any work?!?), but mostly you’ve just kept on keeping on.

You and Sam have really bonded having so much time together. And I, too, have tried to take extra time to enjoy this time we wouldn’t have normally had together at 7/8. 

You enjoy math, video games, youtube, rising at the crack of dawn, are always helpful, live on sugar, are starting to get sassy, are a friend to everyone, are endlessly curious, love pizza and stuffed animals  and hopefully gaining confidence. 

I can’t wait To watch you grow even more this year! Hapde burfday g man!

Love,

Mom 

First day of school

 

The first day of school was today. I think we should call it the saddest pandemic day for me yet. 

No haircuts, no new outfits, no new shoes, no rush to catch the bus.

In fact, I sat on the porch and watched the bus drive by without my children in it and had a little pity party. The kids have ALWAYS gone to school, starting at age 2. 

Unlike me, they don’t care at all that they weren’t on the bus.

(Jack has decided he prefers glasses to contacts, but the blue coating was all you could see.) 

We’ve had computer issues (and the school says no more chromebooks). 

And I am back to driving jack to school every day for orchestra. It reminds me of the days when I had to drive him to school every day for kindy. That, too, was a difficult school choice, choosing the path only travelled by ten or so other parents in our entire district that year. I’m not sorry I did it. I’m sure one day I won’t be sorry I made this choice either. (It helps that during the ride he asks me about going to Stanford. He’s starting to dream of things beyond us! Hurray!) 

But, it did sting again at 430 when the schools started texting about how amazing it was to be back at school. 

Ah well. Someday they will all be at places like Stanford (god willing) and this, too, will be a rear view mirror memory.

Time warp

Time continues to pass in the weirdest fashion. It’s both amazingly fast and excruciatingly slow. We swim every day. The yard skinks are fat from summer bugs. The weather is oddly amazing. Americans continue to die at alarming rates. Everyone continues to fight about everything - numbers, masks, schools, economy, leadership. 

I continue to be thankful the kids are mostly sheltered from this bullshit. 

It truly feels endless at this point. 

I upped my back to school theme this year with pillows and some glass ornaments. There are no buses coming for my children though.

The kittens continue to grow (and get in everything).

We played around with some costumes I found in the basement. The kids have grown SO MUCH during this. Inches for them both. I often wonder if it’s coincidence or if being at home has been that much better for them.

Bolt is completely bonkers.

The garden has given us so many peppers! Not enough tomatoes though. The plants are starting to look end of summer terrible. I’m hoping the last peppers turn before I need to replant the greens.

 One branch is starting to change already. 

Summer definitely feels long in the tooth already.

I logged into blogger to discover that after 15 years there is a new interface. Here’s hoping it’s working!

Decisions? Check.

 The decisions about school are mostly done. After paying our kids therapist to help us make the decision with jack, our kids will be staying home. Some things are still uncertain with Jack bc of availability, but our part is done.

Things remain much the same here - stay home as much as possible, work on making some areas of the house more “always live at home” friendly (Dave’s office is the current project), swim, watch tv, play with kittens, putter in the garden.

 We’ve had a lot of peaches this year, but the never ending squirrel battle rages on. Still, there’s been enough to put some in the freezer, and feed us too,

 I bought a vase at goodwill, but it took two weeks to get in the grocery store to buy flowers.

 The kittens remain everything we never knew we needed.

The hummingbirds have returned  in Force.

 The thrifts have occasionally been very generous.

Cases of Covid in Missouri are exploding. The mask debate rages on. Schools and camps that have attempted to open find they are overwhelmed with Covid quickly. Baseball briefly resumed, the cardinals now have 13 positive cases and have had to shut down already. It lasted about ten days maybe.

Honestly, it’s easier to just stay home anyway. Here it’s easy to forget the absolute madness going on everywhere.

Some days

 Some days are better than others. On those days I have hope that right after Xmas we will start lining up for vaccines and we can start thinking of returning to things. On other days the kids are fighting, the weeks are stretching on into infinity, I am desperate for normal, I am fully on board the struggle bus trying to make impossible decisions regarding the return to school, I AM SO FUCKING MAD WE ARE IN SUCH A HOT MESS, and I choke on my “whats the worst that could hAppen?” When trump was elected words.

Our schools Plan at the moment is this - either you go to school for five days or you learn at home. Nothing in the middle. It’s a non choice for the little kids - home. My rheumatology doctor advised against sending them, and on positive days I tell myself it will be all good. They will have the entire fall with more freedom and actually we can learn a lot more at our own pace. On bad days I tell myself the kids are struggling. Sam misses friends, Grant seems to be worrying a lot about getting Covid when around people, we watch too much tv and everything is shit.

Jack is a completely different story. Not all of his coursework will be available on line, no decision has been made how to handle that, and my not really able to deal with change child says he must attend school then.

It seems like madness as we have more cases every day than ever, we are now a hot spot and have been banned from visiting many states, our governor does nothing beyond say your kids will get it but it will be fine!

So, mostly we still just sit and wait.

 I have been trying to go to the thrift once a week in St. Louis county - where masks are actually mandatory. So, I’ve  bought a few things.

And I’ve been trying once a week to take the kids somewhere relatively quiet to get some nature. The boys are very resistant to this, Sam loves it. We are all missing our annual road trip for sure.