Night before school sprinkles. This is happening people!
We are officially back to school, four and a half days in an guys, I'm
dying! Because of COVID-19 we are mandatory remote learning. We had
elected to do in person learning. While we went back and forth debating
the pros and cons (germs and Duke's viral induced asthma vs. in person,
face to face learning) we decided that Duke needed an in class
environment and attention that I just couldn't give him at home with a
three year old and a 10 month old. Two weeks before school was to start,
we got an email from the school board saying that we were to be 100%
remote. This was the first time that I was truly mad. For the most part I
have LOVED having my kids home, and we have made adjustments with Jakob
working from home. It's hasn't been easy, but I really feel like we
handled this pandemic with a very glass half full mentality. For the
first time I was angry and confused and thinking "how the heck is this
going to work?!" Needless to say, I have been pretty salty in regards to
going back to school. Jakob had a meeting the first day of school and
he wasn't home. Everyone signed in and I very quickly realized that this
was going to be a GONG SHOW! E was a rock star. She signed in and was
independent and awesome. Duke signed in and the first hour was pretty
calm. Sprout watched a show and I was feeling pretty confident. Foolish
Stephanie. Redd woke up and was screaming. I had put him in his high
chair to feed him but he continued to yell is true Redd fashion. Sprout
was having a melt down about a blue cup. E needed to sign in for
specials but her link want working. She came to me in tears and we set
her up on my phone. Duke's screen was freezing every two minutes, so we
were signing in and out constantly. She was also teaching about an app
that we were going to use for the entire year and I couldn't hear a
THING over Redd screaming. That was the first time I cried. Redd went
down and once again we were signing in for the next class. Duke was
crying because he was tired. Sprout wanted to play and run in his house
and all I could do was plug him in to be quiet. I cried three times that
day. I just feel this is so unfair. My baby (yes, my 10 month old) has
watched Dory 3 times today. That's six hours of TV. He's my last baby
and I am missing it! Sprout watched TV from 9-1 and then was constantly
sushed until three and 3:00 hits and I am dead. I'm so drained. And I
KNOW other Mama's have it worse and I can't even imagine trying to do
all this AND work. And while we have sort of figured out a tiny
semblance of sanity, my baby and three year old watch way too much TV
and I have started rocking my baby to sleep just so I can savor what
little time I have with him at this stage.
E making a cross word out of letters and not repeating any letters, very impressed with how many words she came up with!
More T.V for Roo.
I quickly relized that this system just wasn't going to work. I still needed to be close to Duke to hear what we happening but the big table was too big and the couch was too distracting. So it was time to move things around.
This table system worked great for the next two weeks. Duke had his own little corner, I had his schedule and passwords taped to the wall. things were a bit better after we figured out this groove.
And then on the weekends, Chaos reigns!!! Make all of the noise my loves!!
*Follow up a few weeks later* Once we got our groove down things were much better. For the first three weeks I sat right beside Duke all day every day. He needed me constantly, his teachers were then deciding what to do for Duke's reevaluation for his IEP and I decided to step back a bit and let him work a bit more independently to see how he did. Duke is awesome once he understands his routines. And he did really well. I am looking forward to seeing what his teachers say for his IEP. This is still really hard, but it has gotten better with time. In the beginning i felt like someone had stuck my head underwater and told me to breathe. Now I feel like I'm treading water a bit.
