This showed up on my pillow tonight. I’ve only been asking for their lists for a month now…so the chances of her actually getting any of this is pretty low since I’m done shopping and I refuse to pay last-minute prices or go out shopping in throngs of people.
But just look at that list. It starts off all normal and then WHAM! Bunk bed and pool? And her own YouTube channel? And a hamster and kitten? I just can’t even.
I never use Snapchat except to have fun with the filters. A friend told me about the one that makes you look like a Disney princess which started today’s addiction (I roped Tom and Katie in to that one as well).
THIS IS SO PAINFUL. This literally took her HOURS AND HOURS to do. And she still didn’t even get the few things done that I asked.
Pick up ALL the clothes. ALL. From everywhere. On the floor, behind the door, between the dressers, in the closet. Everything. Every single thing. Put them all in a pile in the hallway.
I couldn’t have been more clear. But all I hear is OKAAAAAY MOM. I KNOOOOOW MOM. But she picks up some of the things and thinks she’s done?! I demonstrate how to do it. I explain again I mean every. single. thing. And still not done. I mean she says she did it…but when I check it’s obviously not done. And it took an hour or more—not minutes. Because she starts playing. Or needs to take a break. Or plays with the cat.
Pick up all the garbage off the floor. Same as the clothes, just all the little bits of crap—tissues, broken crayons, wads of hair, pieces of ripped blanket, scraps of paper, clothes tags she cut and just left on the floor. ALL OF IT.
Again, she says she did it…but there’s still just so much.
Pick up all the Legos, dolls, makeup, and put them in their designated bins.
I even got out her bins for her. And she did some. Over hours.
I had a serious heart to heart talk with her about it all. She knows we are serious about emptying her room because she saw us do it to Owen. She has no reason other than she just doesn’t want to do it (like the homework). But she doesn’t want to lose her stuff. She says she feels like we want them to have less stuff like we did as kids. I tell her that’s not true—we want them to have more than we did (and they do!)—but they need to take care of it.
This. Is. Exhausting.
Mom, take a picture of me in this hat from Grannie.
Not only is Katie’s room a disgusting mess, she has started filling other drawers in the house. OH HELL NO.
(These are in the hallways upstairs. I’m not quite sure what’s going in them yet—I’m thinking craft supplies—but I sure as hell know it’s not more of her crap!)
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?
Tom said he wanted to cut some branches or trees down so imagine my surprise when I look out and see the entire back yard covered!
Needless to say we have firewood again! (Both of these bins were empty.)
Burning some of it, even though it wasn’t warm enough to sit out and enjoy it.
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.
I wanted you to know that Owen is struggling to attend math class. Lately, he has been coming to class, turning his camera off and not responding when I check on him. For example, his icon is in my class right now but he is not responding to me when I am trying to help him. Anything you can do to encourage him to stay with the class would be appreciated.
UGH.
That was from 9:19am when I was putting on my shoes right behind him. And saw it on the screen. But couldn’t see if his camera was on or what he was listening to with headphones on.
So needless to say we had a HUGE discussion with him about it. Especially after his poor grades last marking period (two As, two Bs, a C, and a D). He hasn’t been doing his homework, he hasn’t been asking for help, and apparently he hasn’t been active in class.
I don’t want them in school because that’s just not safe but this remote learning sucks 100%.
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!!
Trick, or Treat? I’m seriously asking
Every day we reacquaint ourselves with our family’s ever-shifting needs. Every day we find ourselves at a place where we have to decide who we’re going to ignore, which way we’re going to triumph and which way we’re going to fail, what risks we’re willing to take for ourselves, for our kids, for grandparents who want to visit, for strangers who sell us yogurt, knowing that the best way to love our community is to isolate ourselves from it, and the best way to love our children is to let them connect, and the best way to get through this is badly and at great cost, making a fucking mess of it every day as we spin the wheel toward a harbor on the horizon between two untethered buoys that keep lurching in the swell.
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.
A few teeth back Owen asked the tooth fairy to sign his dollar (she did) but he lost it (ugh) so when he lost another tooth today they conspired and Katie wrote this note.
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.
But this time we know it was one of our neighborhood mom group… And this isn’t my basket but someone else’s because my kids tore into ours so fast I couldn’t get a picture. At least they handed me the wine.
