Mandy has been running her music class from her office which has been fun to listen in on. No instruments, yet, but it's only a matter of time. Especially when she randomly found a saxaphone in the back of her car that she didn't know was there? Who does that...? My wife. My wife does that.
She's so cute.
For me, distance learning has meant making a lot of videos about social emotional learning and assigning them in SeeSaw (an online learning tool) and YouTube. I've been doing a series on self care for kids that's almost done before moving on to more generic self regulation skills. Here's one that is an add on for my mental well being video about keeping your brain active by trying new things and having a growth mind set (I made bread!).
And I'm dubbing them in Spanish as well for our Spanish speaking families because I can't make it easy for myself, can I?
It's been fun seeing students respond and being able to comment back to them, though I miss being in the classroom and it is sad seeing a lot of the kiddos I work with not responding, especially those I know struggle at home.
A big part of me knows that school just isn't possible for a lot of families right now. Attempting to work from home with stressed out kiddos (while being stressed out yourself) is an insanely difficult task. And that's if you haven't lost your job or are an essential worker. I've made so many phone calls and sent so many text messages/emails to families and I get sent to voicemail/left on read for the most part.
I know it's not about me. But I am often feeling rather ineffective at my job right now. I strongly dislike that. Doing things to take care of myself and trying to support (and not just be ONE MORE THING for them to have to worry about) is proving to be a hard balance to maintain.
Taking care of me has involved a little bit of artwork, both in traditional and digital mediums. I drew a fun floral quote picture and put together a picture project for my school. I definitely have time to cross stitch, but I have NOT done that. Need to finish it by Christmas, though.
I've also been watching COPIOUS amounts of TV. Smallville, Criminal Minds, Good Place, as well as some assorted musicals (I think I've watched Newsies on Broadway at least twice since schools closed...).
One thing that I've noticed is the growing amount of quarantine commercials. Have you noticed that? They range from the boring, to the stupid, to the ones that just piss me off.
The boring ones are the ones that are like "These times are difficult... family important... we care about people... blah blah. Buy our stuff." You are annoying, but whatever.
The stupid ones are mildly entertaining. They might make light of a serious situation, but it is more familiar and I am happy to tolerate them.
Then there's the ones that piss me off. It's mostly the ones thanking their workers for being amazing. "We are an awful, horrible, bordering on evil corporation who should definitely be paying you more than we are or otherwise compensating you for REQUIRING you to go above and beyond during a global pandemic. But we're going to make a commercial saying THANKS, instead of any of that."
I mean, come on.
Overall, we are doing good in our house aside from the random cat fights (literally... the cats fighting), me sternly reminding myself NOT to cut my hair off until I have access to a professional, or the occasional squabble over how to pronounce "crayon." I maintain I'm right that it can be pronounced with either one OR two syllables, but Mandy refuses to see reason on this.
For the record, I pronounce it "cran," with one syllable, Mandy pronounces it "cray-on," two syllables.
I hope everyone is doing well out there and not joining in on any protests about opening businesses early or trying to inject themselves with disinfectant. Take care friends.
And don't cut your own hair. Seriously. Stop it. It just makes me think it's a good idea for me, too. And it's not.
Right? Right... right.
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