School's out!

School is finished!!

Last week we tied up the last of the assignments, Google Meets, and farewells for the school year.  We had goodies for the assorted teachers who have adjusted and put in so many extra hours over the last 3 months as the shift to home learning was enforced.  We had a few distanced meet-ups to say goodbye to staff, catch up a little with friends, and enjoy the first days of summer break.

Sunday evening we started a new end-of-school tradition - we took all the papers from school that didn't need to be kept and we took them to burn. Cathartic and symbolic :)

Monday we started a major shift in the house. With the end of school, the return of living space as living space and no longer doubling as learning space, we put ourselves to the task of moving things around.  The idea was Hubby's.  In order to help make our space work for us longer term we needed to do some serious culling and downsizing of toys (don't judge me, I've been holding on to baby toys).  Hubby and I have moved our bedroom to the basement for a while so we shifted things this week so the boys finally, for the first time ever, have their own bedrooms!  The girls are still sharing, but they now have the larger of those rooms.  And are no longer in bunk beds. 

The change feels good.  The littles are more able to have their space and organize it the way they want without things falling underfoot.  We are now just over 24 hours after completion of the task and it feels amazing!

Tied in with that is that report cards went live recently.  Reading the teachers' observations about this crew, seeing the growth and development through the upheaval of lockdown and having life so significantly shifted.  We have such a terrific group of children.  Their personalities, their strengths, the way their wit and humour comes out in the class setting, it makes my heart smile.  They aren't perfect, we certainly have our struggles; but the smile I got reading those report cards, seeing the way they are growing into adults that I want to spend time with, I feel incredibly blessed and fortunate to have these 4 sharing space and time with us.  I might be feeling a little sappy.  And happy.

There are 10 or so weeks until the beginning of September, and it will likely be an interesting time.  I anticipate low key, some day trips, some fishing, some lake time.  Lots of walks and bike rides, Pokemon Go walks too.  Depending on travel restrictions we may get family visiting time in as well.  Really hoping that will work out for us.

A Handful of Birthday Reflections

37.  I don't put much thought into getting older, not since becoming an adult really.  In my mind and spirit I'm still 20 or so, which causes a little dissonance when I notice my first born is taller than me and is almost at an age to start driving... over the last year my hair colour has changed a few times, and I have an appointment tomorrow to change it again, but I watch my roots with an interest that I notice is less common. I see white hairs and they make me smile.  They are more coarse than the rest of my hair, more curly, and every few months I notice a few more. Hubby says I'm imagining things, as does Smarty. Sergeant sees them and tells me I'm not old enough yet to have them. 

They are badges though.  They show that the last handful of years have affected me differently than the previous ones.  It's that or everything is starting to catch up, I'm not sure.  I have lived and survived, am continuing to survive, even thrive in a lot of ways.  These interesting times we currently live in aren't really going to stop, children will always be children as will teenagers.  Family dynamics will continue to cause joy and frustration, and the learning and growing will never stop. 

Growing doesn't stop.  Girlie doesn't want to grow up.  This has been a consistent fear of hers, she has had bedtime tears surrounding it since she was 4.  However, she will be turning 10 in 3 months and needs to have some of the types of conversations she would rather not have; you know the ones I mean - age, puberty, body changes.  We have had them before, age appropriate but still very open as we are an open and body-positive family.  She really dislikes them but I think I have finally helped her understand that she needs to know and be aware, even if she doesn't like to talk about any of it. 

We try our best to set the kids up for success.  For fitness and heart health, for communication with others, for conflict resolution, for faith and spiritual growth.  This time of school-directed home learning has been incredible for my own growth and the kids.  A little more pushing than I'd like to have done on my part, but it's forced me to take a more active role in a lot of ways that I hadn't been taking and I have noticed bits of maturity changes in the kids, the older couple in particular.  I have enjoyed seeing the increase in awareness of what time some assignments will take, how to plan out the week so there is time for fun as well as work, pride in a really good test mark, paying more attention to detail.  I have grown as a parent and the children are growing into amazing people.

Start of June!

I have had my tonsils, adenoids, and part of my uvula removed! Before the lockdown started I was booked for this procedure to help treat obstructive sleep apnea. I have always been a chronic snorer, sometimes stopping breathing for a bit during the nights, which doesn't help Hubby's sleep... so after sleep study and diagnosis we looked at options. Trialed CPAP without much difference, looked into prescription mouth guards, got booked with an ENT to see what else could help. Strongly recommended this procedure, so I was put on the wait list. I was scheduled to have it done in March but with the shutting down of non-emergency procedures to try to slow the spread of the pandemic it was called off until things could safely resume. I am now nearly 3 weeks post-op.

It was a really difficult first 10 days. Hubby and the kids were fantastic, I slept a lot and that is about it. By the end of that second weekend I had turned a corner and I haven't looked back! I am sleeping without snoring (which has never, ever happened in my memory) and I'm not as generally tired, which is really cool.

We are in week 10 of home learning, and things are slowing down for summer. We have a groove, it seems to work, but yesterday Smarty had a sudden thought: "What am I going to do to stay busy through summer??" I am positive between Hubby and I we can keep everyone occupied. Probably more than they'd like!

We have a couple birthdays approaching in the next couple days. There is a very excited almost-8-year-old, and a less excited momma. I don't hate my birthday, it just doesn't hold as large a significance as the decades pass. The energy for Monkey is contagious, though. Every chance she gets she tells anyone and everyone how many more sleeps until mommy's big day. Then in short order, how many sleeps after that her's is.

The weather has turned beautiful for the most part! We have had a fair bit of rain too, but a lot of sunshine and blue skies. I even managed to turn my shoulders a little pink already! We have started reminding the kids more and more to carry water bottles with them when they leave the house to play, even just in the back yard. Hats too.

I anticipate a fairly slow summer. We have some plans to move some bedrooms around to make our space more friendly for the ages and stages we are at, we'll do some fishing, go for a few drives. I'm looking forward to more bike rides and walks, generally just being outside. It'll be good to be done driving the home learning train for a bit, even though I think we've really risen to the challenge for it. There are books to read, minnows to catch, birds to watch, sun to lay in. Hopefully there will be more opening up of things so we can be with friends more and socialize too.

Interesting times

It has been a difficult couple of weeks, but not for the reasons most people are experiencing difficult times.  I don’t feel at the end of my rope balancing home school, house things, meals, spouse, and work.  I think that is partly because my work is currently dried up and so I’m not doing that, partly because we have amazing children and educators leading us, and partly because we are so used to having so little control over our lives that we tend to refocus on what we actually can control (like our responses to others). 

Our weeks have been difficult because it looked like Hubby was going to have to go away for an undetermined amount of time (he didn’t, but it was touch a go for a few days).  It was rough because when a soldier or soldiers are lost, the whole military family feels it and we lost 6 last week.  It has been rough because it has been FOREVER since the monsters have interacted with their class friends and teachers aside from online and it is taking a toll on them.

Feelings happen, and they happen strongly in this house.  Some fire up like dry tinder, others smolder like hot coals, but we all have had our moments.  There has been a lot of battles of wills between parents and assorted offspring, won always by the parents.  That’s hard too.  Parenting is not always finger painting and tickle fights.  But we have those too.  We keep laughing, keep tickling and cuddling, and it doesn’t seem so bad overall anymore.  Like the sun coming out after a grey and rainy day.

Every day I look forward to a walk or a bike ride with the littles.  Every day my highlight is a walk with Hubby as we talk and recap the day, week, and thoughts about life in general.  Every day the kids watch probably too much on screens, but we have reigned that in and reduced it compared to what we were letting them use before. 

The littles have been receiving baking and cooking instruction from both parents, we have planted some seeds to plant later outside (if they work out, I have bad luck with seed starts…), and we are consistent with running in the mornings.  I find that everyone gets along better when we start the day with that physical activity.

When we have our set aside school times we sometimes need to have a wiggle break, get the blood moving and refocus attention.  On our most difficult day we did baking break, made a double batch of muffins, and that was the best medicine for the soul for our most troubled child.  Sometimes all you need is something warm from the oven, baked with love.

Happy Easter!

It has been a really nice Easter weekend for us :)  The weather has been all over the place; sunny, cloudy, super cold wind, and snow... But it has been good to go out for our walks every day just the same.  We painted the living room window all sorts of colours, we made some chocolate eggs as we do every year.  We took the littles out for a drive to deliver some of them and just to get out of the house for a couple of hours.  It was a gorgeous, if chilly, afternoon when we went out and everyone was in very good humour!  It isn't easy for this social crew to stay cooped up all the time, but we are doing our best to maintain distance.

Feature window from the outside.

A secret note left for Momma to find during paint clean up.

Beautiful decorating effort by all the Kids>

Saturday brought quite a bit of baking.  I found myself unable to sleep early in the morning so I got up and started baking.  Bread and buns, because it's been a while and I wanted some fresh buns for supper over the weekend.  Then I had promised Girlie that we would make "bunny buns" like we have often done over Easter in the past, but that she recalled making with my mother a few years ago when we had been down visiting them once.  So we did that in the afternoon and they are nearly all gone now too!

We usually make the twisted bunnies and attempted "little bun buns" this time too. Didn't look terrific but they still tasted great!

 While I was working on those, Hubby directed the egg colouring. There was a wide range of artistic expression displayed, and all of the monsters had fun with Dad.

There was a Charlie Brown one, Pikachu, a few "people", a bunny, and some randomness.

Sunday morning saw lots of chocolate! We have been doing Home Church online with a few friends scattered in various places, and it was wonderful to be able to see and worship with them all through the sugar highs of children.  We are certainly blessed to be able to have a community of faith through the distances of country and pandemic.

After lunch, Hubby and I hid some eggs in the backyard for the crew to find.  All had sugar, some had scripture in them.  Their task afterward was to put together the story that we had gone over in pieces over the last few days and they did that, reading it all for the parents.  My heart was very full as I listened and helped the youngest with some of her reading. 

We went for a walk later in the afternoon, and then Hubby and I made supper.  Delicious chicken Alfredo.  Because it was still so bright and sunny we went for a drive, just because, and it made us smile listening to the kids talk, sing, and laugh with each other while we absorbed the setting sun and took the round about way home.

Teacher-led homeschool!

We have survived a week of teacher-led home schooling!

Between the 2 of us, we prepped and organized the space we have to facilitate learning.  The monsters each have their stuff from school in a set area, the tech being used to communicate assignments and concepts is charged and set for the new day, and all apps needed were installed.

No adjustment is perfect.  Everyone was happy to connect with teachers and friends from class, not everyone liked the new rules about what gets turned on when and where they needed to set computers up at.  There has been some adjusting for parents reading instructions from teachers versus what the teacher might suggest in class.  It has been very positive, though, and I am incredibly grateful for the teaching staff at our schools for working so hard to get the rest of the school year done in this way.  Improvise, Adapt, Overcome.

As this is all becoming routine now we have fewer complaints about the self-imposed schedule.  Staying in PJs all day during the week is not an option here.  Gaming all day long is not an option either.  The first couple weeks was mostly anarchy, and anything went.  Now we have pulled ourselves back up and are making routines to help us through.  There are daily walks, they aren't complained about quite as much as at first.  When weather is nicer (which it really isn't right now...) we do some running.  Showers happen, cleaning happens.  Regular scheduled bedtimes don't really happen, but they don't get really late nights unless it's a weekend still. 

This enforced time of not being busy has been interesting.  We are a close-knit unit all the time, but it has been neat to see the way the interactions between siblings shifts and changes with the zero physical interaction with others.  There are days of "I just need my space away from everyone" and days of "I can't get enough of talking and being close to my sibling."  The fire and gasoline duo of Girlie and Sergeant has mostly tempered and they have been best friends these last few days.  They go up ahead when we go for our walks and make up rhymes about things and people.  Just because.  Smarty is loved by his sisters so much, and he is so good natured about it, he gets mauled and hug attacked and he plays back.  Monkey is her regular monkey-self and because she is younger, she is having the most rocky adjustment.  Nothing huge, just really tired of all this stuff that she just cant even. 

Overall though, it has been a good week.  Hubby is doing some work from home, some office hours.  I am working what little I can with job volume significantly reduced.  Yesterday Sergeant helped me start cinnamon buns.  Girlie helped make a salted caramel frosting for them.  OMG, they really are the best thing in the whole world!!  I'll see if I can get a pic before they're gone and post it. 

Social Distancing!

It has been almost a whole year.  Yikes!

We have survived Husband going on deployment.  We have survived a lot of holidays apart.  We have entered "the teen years" and the preview isn't promising... Just kidding.  No one's teen years are the best.

I am off of Facebook until Easter, so I will just write for the sake of writing instead of sharing the posts to that site.

We are in the midst of social distancing.  With COVID-19 and the precautions strongly advised we now have the children home from school until further notice, we have Husband working from home, and my work is incredibly slow as people in the medical field shut down everything but the most crucial to help reduce the spread.

There have been daily walks as often as possible with the weather, there has been a lot of reading.  I am grateful for teachers adapting and working to move learning online for everyone.  

It has been only a week so far and I think I have cooked supper once in that time.  Husband loves to cook and it has been a long time since he has been able to do as much of it as he is now.  I help, I do clean-up, but it's mostly him and that's a nice shift.

Because there is no set end date for all of this we are doing our best to have some sort of routine.  It is really easy to just say "meh, do whatever", but that is a horrible idea.  Weekend rules are a little different than weekday rules, timelines are fluid, as long as some rules are observed everyone is good.  Piano still needs to be practiced and chores still need to be done.

So far no one has threatened to murder a family member.  So far everyone is going a little stir crazy.  I am finding this a good exercise in figuring out how what we can control and what we can't. 

 "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannnot change, the courage to change the things I can change, and the wisdom to know the difference." 

As I was talking Sergeant through some things this morning about feelings of being powerless I reminded him that yes, there is a lot out of our control right now as we listen to leaders (both political leaders and leaders in the field of epidemiology) and follow their advice- we control ourselves and how we choose to do that will affect others.  We can do so making the best of the situation or we can be grumpy and bitter about it and lash out at family members.  Not always an easy lesson.