Day 25: Holy Week

It's  Easter break!  Which is kind of meaningless but not really.  It's been actual real work this week, keeping up with online instruction and parent contacts and lesson creation every day, in addition to keeping the kids on some sort of productive trajectory.  So we are taking our 4 day weekend seriously, staying up late and sleeping in late and doing a whole lot of "not much" today.

I feel like I don't have much to add today, in my log of this experience.  This experience that is perhaps the most non-eventful major event one can imagine.  We are carrying on, doing the things, cleaning and puttering about with minor (and largely unfinished) house projects, trying to stretch out our food and avoid the store...We are taking lots of walks and runs and bike rides outdoors in spite of a new study showing a 65-foot distance is recommended around people who are running or biking due to micro-droplets in the air.  Yay...  My nod to the research today was to cross the street anytime there was a pedestrian I might pass during my run.  "Across the street" is not quite the new recommended distance but its better than nothing.  I also turn my face away from people I pass while I am running, to keep my micro-droplets away from them.  I still can't bring myself to run in a mask.

 We've been going to the lake whenever we can.   The upper lot at Edgewater has been closed and I fear for the rest of the parks because they have been mobbed with people who have not been doing their best social distancing.  I can't blame them.  I mean, who wouldn't want to spend time by this?

"Teaching" online this week was different with the addition of parent contact conferences-- phone calls or Google Meets to touch base individually with each of my families.  This week the phone calls were kind of like little therapy sessions, lots of acknowledging that this is hard.  Especially during holy week, a lot of my families were super stressed.  Others were super apologetic that their child was not keeping up.  There was a lot of telling them that whatever they are doing, it is ok. It's a strange experience, seeing this home-schooling from both sides.  I am trying to think of what I'd like my kids' teachers to do for me.  Next week's goals: individual "to do" lists of assignments and due dates for all subject areas for my "most stressed" families.  And finding a way to use the contact time to provide direct instruction and data collection for some of my kiddo's IEP objectives. Because in addition to the contact time, the lesson creation for 4 subject areas, and modifying work and tests (because we've given two tests already this week... no stopping testing for us!!) I also need to be monitoring my student's progress on the 60-some IEP obejctives I am legally obligated to report on.  Never mind that several of my students have yet to submit ANY work.  But its FINE.  I'm not stressed or anything...  it's all totally doable. ...  !  In all honesty, I am so grateful for this blessing of being employed, paid, insured AND safe at home and I really don't mind the work.  It's good to have a focus.  It just feels like a lot right now because everything feels like a lot right now..

Lest you think its all work around here...Social events online continue.  This week we had a West Shore Chorale zoom meeting, and a live-stream Maundy Thursday service.  And we dyed eggs with our friends over the internet because this has been a tradition for over a decade now and no virus is getting in the way of TRADITION, no way.  As I type Jack is engaged in a Fortnite marathon with several friends in the basement.  His favorite way to interact with friends even in normal times... The rest of us are playing relatively few video games (though I may have started a new game of Sims the other day...) Ivy continues to enjoy messaging with friends and has discovered the joy of playing games on her iPod.  She purchased a new case and popsocket for it and is all into her "phone" in a very "almost tween" manner.  Meanwhile I have immersed myself in domesticity and have been doing a lot of cooking and baking.  The past few days have brought vegan spinach artichoke dip, cauliflower curry and vegan strawberry bread, plus Easter cutouts that are going to be frosted tomorrow...

I think the most notable update today is the way that we are starting to adapt and feel like this way of living is normal.  Humans are so adaptable.  We can't sustain the level of high alert and fear that we were in for the first week of the shutdown... our nervous systems need routine and so we create it for ourselves, convicing our mid-brain that everything is fine,  that this is how life has always been and will always be. A few more weeks of quaratine life and we may completely lose our ability to get up early, go to work or school, and be busy and out of the house for 12 hours at a time.  In fact, typing that, it seems insane that anyone would do that!!  I wonder about what our "return to normal" might be like.  Will we just flip a switch, lift the bans and *snap*, life as it used to be?  We will go back to our routines but with masks and gloves and 6 foot distances the new norm?  Will we return to work and school but skip the rest, keeping the food delivery and virtual gatherings and stay-at-home lifestyle because people will realize just how very much they like pajama pants?  Not much to do just now besides speculate...


Well, that's not entirely true.  I mean, there IS excitement and action in our lives right now!  Like organizing jumk drawers!  And April Snow!  And the dog got skunked last night!  Never a dull moment...

 And, someone built this charming arch out of fallen branches in our oft neglected local park.  So many glimpses of the beauty of humanity, creativity, and togetherness in this time of envorced separation.

For now, we stay the course.  Big plans for tomorrow include getting takeout Ethiopian food and doing a trial run of yeast rolls so we make sure to have good ones for Easter Dinner.   Easter Day promises to be busy with 2 different online gatherings for church and our first annual Zoom family dinner, plus egg hunting and dragging children to see blooming things around our community. Happy Easter and much love to all of you!