I can’t even. I’m fine with some mess because I know what I was like growing up but I feel like this is insane.
So she got her final ultimatum. This gets cleaned up this weekend or her dad and I will go in with garbage bags and she will lose it all and will be left with furniture.
Tonight was a fundraiser for the food bank—Woodland teachers and administrators read their favorite books on Google meets! Every 15 minutes you’d switch to someone new! We listened to Katie’s current teacher and her second grade teacher, Owen’s third grade teacher, the Elementary Principal, and a friend who is a teacher! We loved it, and the past teachers remembered them and loved seeing them, too!
I had grand plans then life happened.
The best part about today? It’s over in 21 minutes.
It’s been somewhat clean a half day here or there but overall this is what it looks like all the time. But look who sleeps in there? Can you even see her?
We just finished a 2 1/2 hour Zoomfest with the whole Schwalmlette and Schmittlette family! We visited and played a few trivia games
…and took our family photo.
Katie has started taking Maggie out for quick walks during her lunchtime. She even has to pick up poop!
Yep, I have to work at the table and babysit this kiddo since she’s not been in class as much as she should be. It’s a good thing I can pretty much work from anywhere.
OMG. So here’s a conversation with Katie just now as we are going over homework. After she’s been “working” on it for an hour (with me jumping in now and again to prod her to get back to work). And after we’ve already had drama about math. So I was already about at my limit with her attitude.
Katie: Has it been two weeks?
Me: Two weeks for what?
Katie: Has it been two weeks?
Me: Two weeks for what?
Katie, rolling her eyes and getting pissy: HAS IT BEEN TWO WEEKS?!
Me: Katie, we’ve talked about this. You aren’t being clear and I need more information so just repeating yourself more loudly doesn’t help.
Katie: HAS IT BEEN TWO WEEKS?!
Me, losing my shit: Yes it’s been two weeks since two weeks ago. But it’s been two months since two months ago. What are you referring to?
Katie: When we get our devices back.
Me: Why didn’t you just say that? I’m not in your head. No, you’re nowhere close.
Katie: Yes it’s been two weeks.
Me: No it hasn’t.
Katie: YES IT HAS!
Me: No it’s not. YOU wrote the date on the board. GO LOOK. Owen has two weeks. You actually have three weeks. Two weeks is the 21st. You are the 28th. Today is the 15th. It hasn’t been two weeks.
Katie, rolling her eyes and snotty: UGH. SORRRR-EEE.
I can’t even.
She said she just wanted to touch base because Katie hasn’t been showing up for class and when she is there she’s often not paying attention. WAIT, WHAT?
She said they can see how long kids are logged into class each day and it should be between four and four and a half hours. And she’s been getting 1-3. Most days are 2 or less. UM EXCUSE ME WHAAAAAT???!!
I mean we know she spends too much time farting around and we are constantly telling her to get back to class, but I’m here with her all day and she appears to be in class. Except apparently not. Her teacher said that she often doesn’t pay attention in class—half an hour in she gets called on and doesn’t even have her book open. So what is she doing???
Of course I’m home but I’m working and doing stuff so don’t pay close attention to her (just like I don’t with Owen) and yes we’ve had some internet issues but not hours worth. Or weeks worth. So it looks like for the near future she will be sitting right next to me at the table and I will be working on my laptop again so I can keep her on track. Just what I want to have to do, right?
The worst part of all this is that she’s waaaaaay behind on school work. She doesn’t do it in class when she’s supposed to OR in her asynchronous time in the afternoon (when she literally has a list of assignments from her teacher) so we’re trying to get her caught up. And that’s a complete joy as I’m sure you can imagine.
We have told her that we know this year is weird. And it sucks. And it’s hard. But none of that is an excuse to skip schoolwork.
Heaven help us.
Anyone want to guess how long this crap was on the stairs? Even after we told Katie to take care of it. DAYS. It’s exhausting to try and deal with this crap every. single. day. Over and over.
An entire bucket full!
All sorted! We’ve learned over the years that you have to sort candy and chocolate because they can’t be stored together long term. And this is obviously too much candy to eat in a short time period.
We weren’t sure what trick or treating was going to look like because we knew a lot of people wouldn’t be participating but we told the kids we’d walk around the neighborhood to check it out.
There were a lot of creative solutions to managing candy delivery. Most were just on tables in some way, but we saw a bunch of chutes, some spread in the grass, and one on a truck bed (below).
I think Halloween may be forever changed
after Covid Style 2020 Halloween. The general consensus among moms I talked to was that we kinda liked it more than usual Halloween! I loved not ringing doorbells or wondering who was/wasn’t participating (the city had delivered red and green signs for people to put up to show if they were participating or not and a lot of people used them so that was nice) but most people were outside watching anyway. There were no huge groups of kids. All kids we saw were being really respectful and gingerly taking a piece of candy or a bag or whatever. And we loved how creative a lot of the houses were!
The weather was also gorgeous! We started with our winter coats but they got unzipped pretty quick.
We were out for about an hour and then as we were almost home we saw some neighbors around a fire pit in their driveway so we headed over to say hi—they are the guys Tom has played poker with but we haven’t really met the wives so we thought it was a good time to hang out. So we had a few drinks and visited while we sent the kids on without us to hit more of the neighborhood. (It’s so wonderful they can be out on their own! They came back and checked in with us a few times but pretty much were on their own for two hours!)
Then we left there to go to a nighttime outdoor candy hunt at our friend’s house—which had been planned in case trick or treating was a big fail. We literally just threw candy in the back yard and let them hunt with headlamps and flashlights while we had mulled cider and s’mores and visited around the fire.
The Primary and Elementary schools had a drive by parade today—teachers and staff dressed up and parents could bring their costumed kids through.
Sounds nice and easy right? Whoa. It was a traffic nightmare. The school is less than five minutes away and it took us an hour round trip! I think the turnout was much larger than they expected PLUS they had both schools (across the street from one another) at the same time.
The kids also made me shake my head in frustration. I thought it would be totally cool to let them sit in the back with the gate open so everyone could see their costumes. Nope, neither wanted to do it. Like AT ALL. And once we got there Owen refused to put his mask on because he was afraid people were going to make fun of him. And I told Katie she could hang out of the window to wave and she refused. Ugh. Kids!!
We had a lot of drama when trying to catch up on math homework tonight. There might have been screaming and crying. The rest off the night got better (after she had some cool down time in her room) but this was waiting for us when we came to bed.
Sigh.
This is the default reaction from both kids whenever we try to help them or teach them or tell them what they did wrong. We have no idea where it comes from (though I’m sure Katie says it because Owen does).
So I wrote this back.
Parenting is exhausting.
Either I haven’t been keeping track or the kids haven’t been saying cute things anymore. Or maybe it’s a little of both. So these are actually from last November!!! Enjoy!
Katie just called the sofa a loafa and I think she’s on to something.
Katie was up early today and crawled into bed with me.
Katie: You’re lucky.
Me: Why?
Katie: You have a big bed and a comfy cover. And I just have a little rectangle.
Ummmm WHAAAAAT?! It’s a pair of culottes that she figured out how to wear as a dress. I can’t even. We are in for a world of hurt as she gets older… Oh, and that’s the pose she struck when I asked for one. Sigh,
We had to go pick up a Facebook purchase for Katie’s room and I knew we’d be close to some parks…and it was finally a sunny day…so we dragged the whole family along. We hadn’t been here before but we will definitely be back! Lots of parking, lots of great trails (paved and wooded), pavilions, bathrooms, a lake…and a ton of Pokémon stops!!
And she’s turning into a little lady. Who loves lipstick and makeup.
Tonight was our first real movie on our new pseudo movie screen—the big 10×14 wall in our living room.
So one night a few days ago the doorbell rang and we didn’t think much of it since Amazon always rings the bell and we get lots of deliveries. But the kids usually run out to see. Today Katie did and said she saw a kid running away—but he left a bag of Halloween goodies with a note that we had to pass it on! We looked at our camera feed and saw the kid but we have no idea who it is! Well the kids were super excited for TREATS! CANDY! SLIME! and definitely wanted to Boo other people.
Thankfully Tom stepped up and did it with them because while I did want to be a part of the neighborhood, I didn’t really want to do all of it. He took them shopping. He supervised the building of the baskets. My contribution was printing out the instruction. Then Tom took them to the houses where they successfully delivered the baskets without being seen!
Katie needed watercolor paints for art so I got her some nicer ones from Amazon. She wanted to use them before art class of course… But she’s quite the little artist and did these really neat pages and I told her I wanted all of them!
One of the kids cut this tumeric this morning. Both flat out deny it. I know it’s not a big deal but OMG I am furious that they can’t just admit it.
I didn’t even get mad. I told them they weren’t in trouble. I wanted whoever it was too help me decide how and when to use it. They both still denied it.
I told both of them that I didn’t care that it was cut but that because we had discussed the staining issue last night (when they first saw it and asked what it was, I told them how badly it could stain everything) I wished they would’ve washed the knife. They both still deny it.
Fast forward to that evening.
We talked to them both. We said no one was getting in trouble, we weren’t mad, we just want them to tell the truth. Both still deny it.
So then we told them they needed to talk to each other and then tell us together who did it. After about five minutes they both said they didn’t do it. GRRR.
The thing is that it’s ALL THE TIME about stupid and annoying stuff, nothing that’s a huge deal. Things that happen all the time?
It’s exhausting.
Why? Because I’ve asked her about six times to clear all the clothes off the floor and the dresser.
I picked out everything that was too small and put it in the donate pile. The rest went in a garbage bag which I told her she could have back if she finished cleaning up her room. She liked that idea…but it never happened. (And still hasn’t happened as of 10/21.)
Owen came downstairs in a brand new blue shirt and jeans. Bestill my heart. Of course there was hair and outfit drama with Katie…so that was fun.
She was in such a state that I told her we’d try her photos another day and then headed out in the yard (I made him take one photo with the collar up)…
And then it was down the street to the park.
Where Katie finally joined us. In a different outfit and a much better mood!
I told Katie to tickle him…
Tried to get them both jumping. It was a riot.
Her turn…
Back at home…
I know I’m not supposed to care what their rooms look like but I CANNOT handle this. I am ready to clean it all out myself. As in empty it.
There were basically two schools of thought on Facebook:
It’s just so frustrating. We’ve tried random and various rewards and prizes and money and everything is glorious for 2-3 days and then it stops. We’ve tried chore charts and boards and tokens and iPhone apps. Nothing works. Part of it is we just don’t have the energy to police everything. We also do it strong for a few days and then we miss a day and then it all goes to hell.
We do make them pick up their rooms every so often—they are supposed to do at least 5 minutes a day but they don’t even do that. Her room was decently picked up less than a week ago. 🙁
I have also bought a nice kid book that tells HOW to clean it. I have walked her through it (and done it with her) multiple times. She knows. And every time I try to help her or guide her, I get “I KNOOOOOOW MOM” but she doesn’t do it.
She did recently have a totally clean slate as we just moved in two month ago. But it’s pretty much looked like this since Day 3. I have told her she will not get a nice pretty new girly room (we are prepped to totally Pinterest her room) unless it gets and stays clean. And again, it works for 2-3 days and then…this. We moved at least five garbage bags of stuff we removed from her room already that she literally SOBBED over but hasn’t given a second thought to since.
Owen HAS lost everything in his room one time already (at the last house) and his isn’t quite this bad but it’s bad enough. But they know I’m serious when I say I WILL do it.
She assured me she was listening to her teacher even though she was playing with her doll during class. GRRR. It’s so hard because you want them to be comfy but it’s also school. And you wouldn’t do that at school. But this is also unprecedented. You pick your battles…
