Day 118: Summer distraction

Hello, dear ones.  We have arrived at the last week of our vacation and these first two have gone so fast that I don't know how we do it most years, with so little time.  Even with this long trip, as we enter into "countdown mode" there is a sense of urgency, to fit more vacation into the vacation. I get so greedy about my time off. Especially this year, as the countdown hurtles me closer to all the unknowns and anxiety of the school year, I want to hold on to every moment of distaction and freedom here at the lake...

 Looking back at our 2 weeks, we've "done" very little.  Mostly because all those places we might go and visit are too crowded, or indoors, and so are off the agenda.  Instead, we've been embracing the Point and sinking into the ease of being at the lake, all the time.  It's a simple routine:  sleep late, eat outside, swim or kayak, read, lunch, sit outside, read,  play with the cat and dog, swim or kayak, make dinner, socialize a little, drink cocktails, go out in a boat, campfire and stargazing. The children have pretty much gone feral, doing what they please and eating what they please and staying up late.  We've had no complaints from them. I think "doing things" may be overrated, actually.  

Here are some of the ways we've been spending our time this week:

There's a raspberry patch at the end of the Castle road and we've been enjoyig stops there on walks.  Jack joins Nat and I for walks pretty frequently, which is super sweet.  But it may be more about the raspberries than our company.

The girls spent about three days creating a youtube video of themselves doing the "three color challenge".  It was hilarious to  hear them parroting the videos they watch, down to the inflections. 

I've continued my running challenge.  (Just finished 9 for the 19th today) Long distance running isn't so bad when you get to enjoy the lake at the end.


Paddle-boating has been a huge hit!  The paddleboard works like a charm behind the Tin Can and the kids have had a blast.  South Cove  has been our playground this trip more than any other.  Without the raft on the other side to give a destination, we have just been enjoying the shallow, calm waters right outside our door...

Got me a new two piece bathing suit!  I have been working on the nerve to wear it with ease.  I am pleased to be more confident in a two piece at 43 years old than I was as a teenager.

Barb treated us to a boat ride and a swim "in the deep end"- There's nothing more "summer-as-advertised" than this.

Sleepy kiddos are at their very cutest in the gentle light of the cottage.

We've had a total of two rainy days and one good storm the whole time we've been here.  And on one of the rainy days we got a rainbow as a consolation prize. 

Sleepy children in a cottage with a kitten.  You can't handle the cute.

An actual outing!  We caravaned to Toughannock to let the crew play in the creek.

And then, as seems to be the tradition, we stopped at the goat farm on the way home. 

 And we got some ice cream, too.

 Just a little bit!

 Some views I will never get tired of...

 Second outing of the week!  Great gully!  Walk ALL the creeks! 

But first spend an hour climbing and jumping off a giant, slippery log. 

 They had SO. MUCH. FUN.

 The upper falls proved worth the hike. Tons of water from the recent rain made for a deep pool and pummeling "showers" of water.

 If there was sound with this photo you would hear Ivy screaming with joy over the noise of rishing water.

 This place is magic.  And its just *there*, a mile down the road, free for the taking...

 Activies back at the pointt the past few days have centered on a nail and hair salon.

 The other exictement this week was the return of the Morehouse boat!  It feels like summer for real now. 

 Evenings bring campfires at our friend Sarah's beach.  This week the viewing- and photographing-- of the Neo-Wise comet has been the entertainment.

 We are so happy to get so soak up time on this boat, and in this place, for another week.  Whether we "do" anything or not.

 A gloriuos distraction indeed.

Day 112: September on my mind

In the midst of all this...

...we have been thinking a lot about school.  Even as we live our long and aimless vacation days, summer is flying by and the start of school looms, rather like a tsunami, over our heads.  In the last week school districts (CH-UH included) have published their plans for the great "reopening" of schools.  Drama has ensued. Parents are clamoring for a return to the classroom, citing a need for socialization, a fear of "falling behind" and mostly, somewhere for their kids to GO as adults return to work.  The CDC issued vague guidelines for opening schools safely, and educators nationwide immediately realized that those guidelines eradicate school as we know it, and may well be impossible for many districts to enact.  The president determined that all schools MUST reopen! and decided the guidelines were too tough, and asked the CDC to rewrite them.  The Education Secretary threatened to withdraw funding from districts that did not fully reopen.  And educators continued to raise their hands in the back of the room, wondering if anyone who'd been IN a classroom might be able to have a voice in all this? I have been viewing/obsessing over all this from two sides, as a parent and as an educator, and I am overwhelmed.


Cleveland Heights has presented us with 3 options and is asking families to decide on their favorite by the 24th:  A hybrid plan where kids attend in the building, with 10-11 kids in a class and social distance/masks, 2 days a week and then work online the other 3; a "synchronous online" option where kids attend class with their CHUH teachers on the in-school bell schedule, and an online option with flexible work completion.  As parents, with Covid cases on the rise in our county, and in an effort to conserve in-building resources for those families who need them most, we are currently leaning towards option 2.  We'd love to see the kids have even two days a week with teachers and friends, to "go back to school" in some real sense.  But-  school this year will bear little to no resemblance to what we are imagining in our hearts.  We want kids to have socialization- yet how much of that will happen with masks, distancing, no collaborative projects, no gym, no cafeteria, constant supervision to ensure safety and hygiene...  We want kids to engage in rigorous learning yet how much will they be able to get done in those two short days, with their overwhelmed teachers balancing instruction and Covid-behavior support, supervising hand washing and redirecting mask mis-use and not getting within 6 feet of the students and having to repeat their mask-garbled words 400 times?  How much learning will they be able to get done when they are constantly reminded of the fear and trauma of this pandemic, each time they look at their teacher or stop to sanitize or someone in the room coughs or they get their temperature checked or.... We need kids to have a safe place to be while parents work, a place where they can access the social support services that so many children rely on schools to provide: food, medical care, mental health services.  But two days a week in the building-- while potentially plenty of time to be exposed to a deadly virus-- is nowhere near enough to actually meet those needs and leaves working parents in an unworkable scheduling bind.

And so the risk-benefit analysis of the hybrid version is weighted significantly on the "risk" side in my opinion.  Sharing air and space and germs with all of those kids and teachers -- and all of their networks while you're  it-- just for those two inadequate, strange, possibly traumatic days?  Not worth it.

Right now we are planning to do synchronus online to give the kids a sense of structure but we have many questions before we commit.  What is the model/ interface for insructional delivery?  Will kids REALLY have to be seated in front of the computer for all 6 hours of the day, for EVERY class?  Will it be a livestream of the classroom instruction going on with the hybrid kids?  Or something more individualized for the online kids? Will our children do any better with online learning now than they did in the spring (given doing it from day one with structure in place)?  Because it was HARD, the online learning.  But- we are in a position of privilege, with the technology and parenting resources at hand to allow our kids to do this (even if they do it badly!) and so I think we are going with it. As sad as it makes me.   Both kids are in a "transition year" next year and it breaks my heart to think about all the social milestones and clubs and sports and music they won't be able to do in their last year in their schools.  Freaking breaks my heart.  But you know what would break my heart more?  If someone in our family or our circle gets sick and dies because of exposure that we have the power to limit in any way possible.  Learning and social skills and musical progress and extracurriculars are the stuff that makes life good-- but you need to be alive to enjoy them.

Meanwhile. My district has not yet announced its plan for reopening, so I sit here in anxious suspense.  This is compounded by the fact that I am changing positions next year, making a move to mild/moderate interventiion at the elementary level.  In the best of times this move would be a huge change, full of unknowns.  This is not the best of times.  Due to ... everything... my new principal literally has no idea about my room or caseload situation, leaving me unable to start planning IEP goals and instruction or even to pack up my old room. Not only do I not know WHO I am teaching, I don't know HOW I will be teaching them.  I generally spend my afternoon down-time here at the Point starting a lot of mental prep for the year.  Pacing guides and data collection sheets and parent contact lists and all the other paperwork I like to have in place for the start of the year.  Instead, this year, I drift.  The one consolation for all this unknowing is that even if I were staying in my old job (one I know pretty darn well after 9 years, and with more than half of my students continuing on with me), nothing would be the same there, either.  This way as I leap into the great unknown (times 2) at least I don't really know any different.

As I drift along, unable to get my ducks in a row for my upcoming year, I cycle through all the different scenarios:  Online teaching? How will I work that with little kids?  It's going to look super different for Kindergarten vs 4th graders so it would be nice to know which grade I'm teaching! My middle schoolers sure struggled to learn online, I wonder how it is going to go for little ones who may very well still be non-readers and non-writers and who need manipulatives to learn the material....  Most of my intervention strategies, in fact, use manipulatives.  Or at least sitting side by side with a child and sharing materials.  There goes everything I have been trained to do....  What about if we are in- person?  Will it be hybrid, where I'll be working in real time with kids 4-5 days a week and simultaneously managing and providing instruction to the cohort at home?  Or full time regular class sizes because our district wants to mazimize achievement? Since I'm doing mild-moderate intervention I won't have my "own" class and quite possibly I'll be pulling kids out 1-1 so that bodes better for maintaining their attention while wearing a mask and staying 6 feet away (from children with ADHD who won't have gym or recess or lunch to decompress and who need constant teacher proximity, high engagement and prompting to focus and learn)... and 1-1 instruction also will limit my exposure so that would be cool.  But, I might be in the classroom, pushing in to 4 or 5 different homerooms with different cohorts ... and bringing back all those disease vectors to my family.  Especially if I'm working with K-2 because they won't be wearing masks....  Better order some N-95s and prepare a "decontamination tent" outside our laundry room door... What happens when I get exposed, or sick?  How do I plan for a two week sub? Or a 6-8 week sub if I get a bad case?  How do I protect my family?  I guess we will need to go back on isolation from our extended family and network of friends to protect them...Oh, and I need to familiarize myself with the K-4 standards so I'm ready to support my students with disabilities in the rigorous curriculum so they can do well on their state tests once we teach them to not play with their masks or interact with their friends and while we spend 15 minutes 4 times a day helping them wash their hands...

Welcome to my brain right now.  September is ON my mind and I am frankly terrified.

Oh look!  A lake! Time for a swim.  I'll drift on the waves and try to enjoy this moment.  These are the good times, right now, my friends.

Day 108: Lake life, the 2020 edition

We have been at the Point for just over a week and we were noting today that it's around this time we actually sink in to "Lake Life" most years, finally putting aside the desire to go-go-go for a while.  This year we are overachievers, I guess, because we've already got a good 8 days of full relaxation under our belts.  It helps that there is nowhere to go this year-- but we've not left the Point other than shopping and a visit to Long Point, for the last week.  We have been in training for this since March, of course!  Learning how to just exist in our own family without all the distractions of meetings and practices and rehearsals and outings and, and and... there's no need to get anything "done" here because time has no meaning and its a really small cottage to clean.  So no rush.  And our bits of work we are doing  (teaching and tutoring online) just dovetail into the day and leave plenty leftover for swimming (3+ times a day) and paddling (1-2 times a day) and sitting with a book and a drink or chatting amicably with friends.  The days are long in July and we are soaking up every minute.

The weather has been phenomenal, one bit of rain over the whole week with blue skies that go forever and sun that makes us reapply sunscreen endlessly.  It is hot hot hot! But it feels like SUMMER and so I am trying not to complain even as I melt...I have to say that we are hoping, more than a little, for a thunderstorm in the next day or two.


Lake Life this week:

Mornings in he adirondack chairs...

The cat who loves windows.

An evening at Lulu's house with our cousins.

Claire wrote a book!  It is about history and architecture of buildings in Aurora and its lovely. She's so cool.

This boy and his soft heart for animals.

Tubing behind the Tin Can.  It was a hit for everyone.

Waterskiing with Barb.  Both kids tried, Jack managed to get up on his third try!

The cat loves shoes, too.

Sunset evenings...

Fire nights at Sarah's...

Lots and lots of running (so hot! so humid!)

Park time with friends...

Group swims in the South Cove.

Shaving cream and a hose = fun.

A very involved, days long game the girls played where they acted out their futures.  Mostly babies.  They skipped college because it was kind of boring.

Boating in the Tin Can as we wait for the Morehouse boat to finish some repairs and get in the water.

Dinner al fresco, pretty much every meal.

A tired dog is a well-behaved dog.

Loving our time here in this perfect place.