On the first day of school I woke up early to go for a bike ride. Ya know, nothing like a little early-morning exercise before the 11th plague descends on your house — virtual learning. While cycling, I took a wrong turn and ended up going down a big hill. Not a huge problem, except
This weekend we let the kids plan something to finish out the summer with a bang. They chose a backyard campout with s’mores. Then they threw in a night swim for good measure. I feel like our kids are still the age at which they definitely get excited for s’mores and night swimming and a
School supply shopping for Thomas: a new hose nozzle. I called the school today and officially withdrew Thomas from kindergarten. I cried, of course. (I always cry.) I waited as long as I could. Hoping, perhaps, that on September 2 I would wake up with news that everything was back to normal. Schools would open
This past week we decided to take a long weekend-ish and spend time with my family before “school” starts back up. Once again, the bizarre time-warp of 2020 snuck up on me, and what is, on one hand, “The Longest Summer Ever,” is also “Hold Up, It’s September?” We timed our trip to fall over
Anna is two years old nine months old. That means she’s Over half-way through the terrible twos and well on her way to being a three-nager. Anna is really settling into her role as our resident up-ender of peace and quiet, and Captain of Witching Hour. Her new favorite schtick is to stand a foot
The other day Mary followed me out to our garden while I was planting some broccoli and Brussels sprouts. Last year both plants were complete failures, but I decided to try again. After all, it’s 2020! Anything is possible! Mary was chatting to me about her new stuffed animal obsession (bunny surprise) and I gave
I realized the other day that I included Anna in her very first Semantics post without absolutely any pomp and circumstance or even a mention. Anna is talking a lot these days, and even though a lot of what she says only a mother (or 5-year-old brother) can understand, she’s grown a lot since we took
Sometime in July I started feeling the walls close in. It’s 2020, I’m sure you can relate. In fact, I probably felt like that even earlier than July, I just didn’t realize it. It was hot, school was on hold for the foreseeable future, and our routine of having no routine was feeling claustrophobic. Since
Two days until David’s ninth birthday. Not that anyone is counting. At the beginning of the quarantine, when the kids’ school was closed, I made a paper countdown to Easter. We were all excited to see the holiday creep closer. For me it was a secret countdown to when this would all be over and
Well, here we are. Summer is nearly over; we’re in the countdown to back-to-school for the strangest academic year ever. That’s a true statement, right? I’m pretty sure I can say that without fact-checking. School has never been so strange, uncertain, controversial, and wildly different from one district to the next. My kids’ school will