How Things Have Been Going - In One Picture

 Well, we're almost done with our first week of online school.  In a nutshell - it's been a bit like this:

Just kidding.  I just thought this was funny.  Peter's favorite thing is to push the stool over to the fridge and dispense ice like a mad man.  Then he loves to get on the floor and send them skittering all over the kitchen.

In reality, this week has actually exceeded my expectations.  I have really seen the hand of God in our lives this week.  He has taken what I expected to be a miserable situation and has shown me how I can make it something special.  After the first day, I saw that although the kids have 4 zoom meetings each and thus are on the screen nearly all day, they nevertheless, have breaks between each one, so if I can have something to draw them out of their rooms between meetings, it affords me a wonderful opportunity to talk and interact with them, often one-on-one all day long.  Granted, I can't always be present at the right time because of Peter and other obligations, but it's worked out pretty well that I've had a snack ready or an activity or something for each child so they can come to me and tell me how the class just went and what they learned or something funny that happened.  It's been really nice.  Benjamin is the least likely to talk about anything, but Bella and Christian are quite talkative and I feel much more a part of their lives this way than when they came home after 7 hours and recapped their day.  Benjamin will tolerate one question.  If I ask a second he starts to get mad.  If I ask a third, he loses it and leaves the room.  So, I have to be careful and ask only one well-worded question at a time and hope it draws out enough interaction.  

This evening I came in to see Benjamin working on a coding project in Python.  It wasn't assigned; he just enjoyed what he was learning and wanted to work on it some more.  I was really happy to see that his computer programming class was going well.  He also likes chemistry so far.  His chemistry teacher is his favorite this year.  He apparently set his desk on fire on the first day.  That's always a hit with boys.  Bella has told me she really likes several of her teachers and she shared some funny moments as well.  Christian finally had some fun today in one of his meetings.  They played scavenger hunt so he was running around the house gathering items to show on-screen.  

So far technical difficulties have been minimal and the kids have been pretty good at keeping on top of their own schedules.  They've needed a couple reminders, but I made a color-coded schedule for each of them and I have a schedule hanging in the kitchen, so no one has been more than a couple minutes late for a meeting.

Getting my own things done has been challenging, but that's bound to sort itself out eventually.  Today I took Thea shopping in the afternoon rather than the morning as usual, so that I could go after all the zoom meetings were over.  I dashed in and also grabbed a few things while I was there. During the rest of the time I took Peter winter-coat shopping.  It's getting colder and I thought I'd get it now rather than wait until the first snowfall like I stupidly did last year.  It came so much earlier than expected last year and I was unprepared.  I found a cute one that fit him perfectly for $2 at the Salvation Army.  Another hand of God moment - only one winter coat on the rack and it was in perfect condition, the perfect size for Peter, and it had a yellow tag - the sale color for today.

I can't say that I like online school.  I don't feel like they are learning as much or as well as when they are physically in the building.  However, there are definitely upsides to this situation.  Not the least of which is that I don't have to navigate the crazy 3-kids-3-schools drop-off situation.  I had really been worried about how I would make all that work and now it's not an issue!  Glorious.