Captain’s Log 22 March 2020
To see yesterday’s post, click here.
Today’s post is going to be as dull as dishwater. You know why? Because I am in a bad mood and I haven’t done squat. All. Dang. Day. I took a shower, got dressed, made breakfast and lunch (so far, so good) and that is where it ends. Mark on the other hand made the last 6 of his videos for one of his classes that will go live next week. The two boys have played video games and watched TV since they woke up. And all three of them are driving me nuts. They are perpetually making messes, Mark is all mushy and annoying, Caleb is in his room being all teenager-y, and Liam keeps asking me where Dad is (HINT: probably IN THE HOUSE where he has been FOR NINE DAYS!).
On a normal Sunday we would have gone to church, come home and invited friends over for a lunch that would roll into dinner before we all rushed the kids to bed because they have school in the morning. I would be chill, happy to watch the kids play with their friends while we adults hang out in the kitchen snacking and talking with a side of hot wine (because on top of everything, it’s snowing). Instead, I am cranky, my shoulders are so tense they are residing somewhere north of my earlobes, and you know what, I have absolutely NO reason to be a giant cranky B right now.
We have a roof over our heads, clean water, nourishing food to last a week, Mark’s job is stable, and we are all healthy, Praise God! But being stuck with these wonderful men of mine is too much today. I want to go back to bed and wake up on the right side. I want to spend some time with a person who has more estrogen than testosterone. I want to go somewhere and do something. But I cannot do any of those things and that is why this sucks. And as I type that I have The Guilt because I know my life is so very good and yet I want more.
-Paris, France
I want my sunny disposition back. The posts on social media are sucking the Happy right out of me. I went to bed last night angsting over some troll who virtually screamed about my last blog post being too lighthearted. I woke up to her making another snide comment. I marked her as Spam.
-Meow Wolf, Santa Fe, NM
You know what? I know how bad it is. I am in contact with people I love around the world. I am heartbroken for my friends in Italy and triumphant for my friend in China, I am fearful for my friends and family members who are high risk and relieved for those who are not. I am writing this for my descendants, for the sake of history. I am not here to report the numbers, those will be in the history books. I am here to tell the story of my family and how this looked to real people in the situation. If I choose to show my emotion, happy, cranky, mirthful, sad, lackadaisical, overwhelmed, joyful or maudlin that is my choice—you’ll just get me as I am.
Now that all that is off my chest, I feel slightly better. I am looking to starting school tomorrow with just a little anxiety. We have been cruising so far because it has been Spring Break. Our kids have done little of consequence, unless you call moving up several levels in random video games consequential. Being thrown into some strange amalgamation of homeschool and regular school is not something I look forward to. As a matter of fact, it makes me want to pour a stiff drink. I have tried homeschooling before. It wasn’t the worst thing ever but it wasn’t awesome either. I always thought Liam would do rather well in homeschool. I guess we are about to find out.
What I do know is that I am going to do the basics. I will happily read the lessons with them and answer questions and work through things. I will not be the mom who creates intricate lessons, I will be the mom handing them the lesson from their Amazing, Educated, Actual Teachers. I will not correct their work to make them get better grades. I will support them and help them find new ways of looking at things. I will not pretend to know what the heck I am doing. Except in Art. I will totally give them some cool art projects—cue the dropcloths and turpentine.
I have the idea that the kids should take 20-30 minutes to do each lesson. Their classes are only 50mins long so I figure about 30mins of that is the teacher explaining the theory with discussion and lecture and the rest is work time. You have permission to laugh at my naivety. I know it will be like pulling teeth to get Caleb to listen because we are not his teachers, we are his parents and we do everything the ‘old fashioned’ way. (This is where I will pour myself an actual Old Fashioned and hand the teaching off entirely to Mark) Liam, who eagerly soaks up knowledge in the classroom, will whine every time we ask him to write anything. He will instead want to tell us the answers and that be enough. But both will get it all finished and be just fine for next year.
All the piles of books.
I have a sneaking suspicion that we will be doing this the rest of the school year. I pray we won’t but realistically my kids only have 7.5 weeks of school left. I can see this continuing that long unfortunately. We in the US have only just begun this. In China they went on hard lockdown and got things under control in a few months. A few months takes us to June…
Until Tomorrow,
Jocelyn