Day 32... Let it snow!

Because every good quarantine needs an April blizzard to celebrate the one month mark, amirite?

Sigh.

The past 3 days have seen us soldiering on through a week of online school.  I do think we are improving, incrementally.  The kids were great today, actually, working independently and productively with only a few breaks from 10:30-3.  (Their "to do lists" had gotten pretty long by Friday... Also we may have bribed them just a little bit with the promise of candy bars...).

Lest you think we are paragons of home-school virtue, yesterday Ivy and I got into 3 fights before 2pm and had to watch a movie for 2 hours in the early evening to restore our relationship. And today both of our kids spent much of the day in their bathrobes.  Which means they DID shower (go us!) but they did not leave the house once.

There is a lot of adjusting expectations around here.

At yesterday's press conference our governor got everyone into a tizzy by announcing that Ohio would be entering phase 1 of "reopening" on May 1st.  He then proceeded to be very vague about what exactly that might entail, leading to a firestorm of criticism that he'd abandoned his (surprisingly) measured and reasonable response to the crisis.  After further reading, I think the "phase 1" reopening measures do in fact seem reasonable, as long as we as a state/country do not rush past them in our hurry to get our economy and lives back to "normal."  The biggest thing that remains up in the air is whether school will resume on May 1st as well.  At this moment we are operating under the assumption that it will.  But when reading those "phase 1" guidelines (businesses must ensure social distancing, no groups of 10 or more) I am thinking a building of 500 middle schoolers might not pass the test...  And I am not sure how I feel about going back just then.   If you'd asked me last week, in the abstract, I might have said, heck yes.  Let's get back to real teaching because this hodge-podge online stuff doesn't work for ANYONE. The juggling act of assignments for my own kids and assignments for my students, the learning curve of technology, the frustration of not being able to reach some of my most vulnerable kiddos...  Enough already. 
But our surprising ability to adapt continues and this week really has felt easier.  Like we're getting the hang of it.  And 32 days in I feel like I have come to terms with social distance.  Embracing online socialization,  REALLY embracing sleeping in and no commute, knowing when to turn off the news to manage anxiety, even coming around on the prospect of wearing a mask in public for the rest of all time... We have been working really hard to train ourselves to do this!   So hard, that I am not sure I know how to do "normal" any more.  Especially if I have to teach in a mask while maintining 6 foot distances among middle schoolers every day.  We've been practicing the act of taking this virus seriously for a month now, adjusting to each new recommendation and each new piece of bad news about it...  the threat has gone from "a mild flu that only kills the frail and elderly,"  to "a weird-ass melange of ever-varying symptoms that lasts for 4-6 weeks and kills plenty of healthy adults in the prime of life."    I have been able to majorly upgrade my sanitizing, hand washing, and distancing game.... and now you're telling me in 2 short weeks everything is going to be ok and I should just plunk myself into a room of adolescent disease vectors for 8 hours a day? I love my students and I care about their education, I really do-- but I am frankly terrified of being back teaching them in just two weeks.  Looking at my sick time and wondering if I have enough to call off for the rest of the year because I'd rather keep avoiding this virus, thank you very much.

But if there is one thing we have learned this month, its that things will just keep changing.  So we are trying to take it one day at a time and not write the script of early May just yet.   Not really knowing end dates and trajectories is scary but also somehow freeing.  Can't plan, so may as well just immerse ourselves in this day right here.  Might as well stop and drink some coffee.  Might as well bake some cookies.  Might as well spend time reformatting worksheets into digital interactives, or read for a minute, or play Sims.  Might as well go for a walk in the April snow.   Who knows where we'll be on May 1st-- but we are here now.  And the snow on the flowers is kind of beautiful, in a way, and being healthy and safe and with my family in the quiet of it all, here in this moment, is beautiful too. We are insanely lucky and I don't take that for granted for one minute.  A little part of me, wrapped up in my privilege, isn't ready to give up this quiet, isn't ready to press "play" on this pause.  I'm improving, but I haven't mastered the quiet just yet.  I think I have a lot more to learn from this experience, and I might need more than 2 weeks to do it...

Photos from the past few (quiet) days:

This series is called "Ivy cooks in her bathrobe."  She's becoming a proficient little chef, making cheese-free lasgana and oatmeal cookies from scratch...

In the midst of a few snowy days, a cold but beautiful day yesterday.  We happily froze to take in this sunset.

 This is our silly little dog running up a near-vertical wall to get to us, despite the stairs right there to her left.  She didn't make it the first time but never fear, she tried again.  She still smells like skunk from her misadventure a week ago, and she can't walk nicely on a leash to save her life, but she brings me such consistent joy.  We've taken to letting her off lead at the approach to Cumberland Park on our daily walks to get lunch, because we've always had that park pretty much to ourselves and these days even more so.  Watching her race down the hill, ears bouncing, little tail up, gamboling joyfully in the grass... I am so grateful to have my dog to get me through.