First Day of Real School

 The schools have finally reopened and so the kids are back in class.  When school started online at the beginning of September, I was very pessimistic about it.  I saw it as endless wasted hours online and a terrible disruption to our happy summer routine.  However, the teachers were exemplary and things went far better than I could have ever hoped.  The excellent teaching combined with my careful scheduling resulted in some very pleasant days.  I made sure to always have lunch ready to go during the small 30 minute window that all three kids were free and I made sure we often found fun things to do together in the afternoon.  I especially loved being able to see each child after each class and talk to them about how it went, help with homework, check over assignments before they were turned in, and otherwise just spend time with them one-on-one during the day.  Then the schools made good on their promise to reopen in October.  I never thought they'd do that.  I thought they were just postponing the inevitable.  Strangely, now I'm sad to be losing the online plan that I so hated only 4 weeks ago.  However, I know that in person schooling is best for the kids and after 2 days of it so far, they seem happy with it.  Everyone was so nervous about it on their first day that everyone left without the breakfast I'd made claiming they weren't hungry. 

I can't believe I have a high schooler!  He was rushing out to his friend's car so I didn't make him take a picture, but I got ones of the other two on their first real day of school.  It was too dark out still to do it in the back yard as usual, so the kitchen/mudroom had to suffice.  They say that keeping the mask on all day hasn't been an issue.  They are used to it.  The teachers seem to hate it more than they do, Bella said.  

It is definitely fall here in Michigan now and with that comes the pine needles.  It looked like it was snowing the needles all day today and so I tried to rake them up a bit and especially to get them off Barb's yard because it drives her crazy every year that they fall on her yard and hurt her grass.  However, despite my efforts, it was like shoveling in a snowstorm.  They cascaded around me as I raked and by the time I was worn out, it looked as if I'd done nothing at all.  I introduced Peter to our family tradition of filling the baby pool with pine needles and playing around in them, but he didn't like it at all.  This was always the other kids' favorite part of yard work, but he wanted nothing to do with it.  I tried to get him to smile, but he wouldn't.  So, I snapped the picture in time before he crawled out.  To each his own.  Not having him throwing the needled around made it easier to rake them than it was when the others were little.