Owen’s teachers planned a goodbye meeting at a local park. People were really good about having masks and/or keeping a safe distance…
The kids were all really excited to see each other and actually talk to each other.
The teachers walked around to see everyone and say goodbye, and I was able to take the end of year pic. Not quite like other years…but definitely one for the memory books!
Katie picked out this fancy dress to go to school supply pickup. Of course she hadn’t showered in three days.
She missed her last class Zoom meeting where they were going to share their goodbye posters so I posted it to the school’s page and sent it to her teacher.
School supply pickup was more emotional for me than I anticipated. I might have gotten a little teary-eyed as we drove away. I asked Katie if she was okay and told her I was sad so it was okay if she was. She said she was a little sad but she was okay. Leave it to Mom to be overly emotional.
Then we had to go through a huge garbage bag of Katie’s stuff…including…a lunch bag. Thankfully it was empty!! We were all thinking we’d have to just toss the whole thing. Phew! Oh, and we had an outfit change!
Then it was time to take Owen’s pictures—-and he hadn’t showered in awhile, either. But Tom had given him a buzz cut.
Normally last day of school pics are just me and the kids…
…but since Dad is working from home, he got in on the action. #gonnamissthisbench
It’s Teacher Appreciation Week and…end of year I guess?! Mrs. Hansen got some beauty goodies from me and, well, since it’s Cinco de Mayo she also got margaritas (plus Katie’s memory book to write in). She only lives about a mile from us—and probably less as the crow flies.
Lest you think I forgot Owen’s teacher…I delivered hers last week! That was a story in itself. I transposed her address so I actually dropped off the gift—and Owen’s book!—at the wrong house!!! There were a few moments of panic on my end because Owen’s book is irreplaceable and I kept thinking WHAT IF… Plus with the Corona thing, it’s not like she could just go knock on the other person’s door! And I felt horrible that I screwed it up. Well, some quick googling got me property records and a name which got me to LinkedIn where I recognized the guy who had been inside the screen door at a desk (I had just assumed it was her husband) and his posted resume had a phone number! I called and left a message explaining everything…and he called back almost immediately—he had been talking to her! She had walked down and they had a nice chat! In a bizarre turn of events, his daughter’s name was Heather and she was a teacher so he just thought it was a gift for her and didn’t even think anything of it! But he was very nice about it and even joked about enjoying the margaritas!
Katie’s teacher sent a YouTube video of her reading a story so I asked the kids if they wanted to do one…and to my surprise they both said yes. Katie whines and complains so much about reading that I was FLOORED that she was excited to do it. She knew exactly the book she wanted to read (they’ve read it in class), she knew what one I should read (an old favorite), and Owen knew what one he wanted immediately.
I am so tried of every single little issue that I have to take care of or referee. Poor Tom gets an earful every time he ventures up for a bathroom or coffee break.
I know it’s just the start and we’ll get into a rhythm, but for now, it’s exhausting. I don’t know how parents with more kids or a full-time job are doing if I’m this much of a stressball.
Look what happens when you don’t wash for a full 20 seconds!
I did a daily schedule the first week we were out of school. It worked pretty well. The kids knew what time blocks came next and pretty much stuck to it on their own.
Then came the week of spring break and we got off the rails a little. I revised the schedule a little in preparation of the anticipated actual distance learning… Only to have the teacher’s schedule sent out after I had finished so I had to revise a little. After a day of no one really even following it…I came up with a new schedule that put all academics in the morning so when it was lunchtime, that was the end of school. I had been trying to break it up throughout the day but I kind of think it made it harder, so…we’ll see. I actually hate having a schedule at all, but if we didn’t have it, every day would be a dumpster fire as no one would do any schoolwork but they’d beg for tech all day.
I already see some minor changes I want to make, and I’m sure this will get edited a few more times before we get settled into our new learning routine. We have at least a month ahead of us…
I’m appreciative that we are able to do distance learning and that I am actually able to be here for the kids and it’s not a hardship for us…but it is frustrating that ALL the hard work I did to get the kids detoxed from tech has all been wiped away within two weeks.
Today Owen’s teacher did their first test conference call. This will be the new norm.
So the kids get two weeks off. We’ve cancelled our spring break plans. This is gonna be…fun.
Edited to add: This was the start of everyone getting canceled.
Owen’s school had a bingo night this year. It wasn’t quite the event the elementary has, but we still had fun (we invited Anna and the boys)…and Owen won one of the rounds!!
Initially he chose a gift card for 30 minutes of jumping at a local place but after talking to him and explaining that it would cost us more money to use it (because Katie would like to go, plus we usually go for 2 hours), he asked if he could switch prizes and they said yes…so I guided him to a $20 gift card to a local ice cream place!!!
I was volunteering in both kids classes for their Valentine’s parties so I made this game!
The second graders were a bunch of cheaters but everyone had fun!
When you’re volunteering in your daughter’s classroom for a Valentine’s Day party, why not have pink eyebrows?!
Even though I knew I was putting pink in my eyebrows, it was really very disconcerting to see totally pink eyebrows so I decided to add some fake magnetic lashes to perk up my eyes a little bit more. I never would have done this a few years ago…so SeneGence has really helped me step outside my comfort zone.
I also went outside my box and used three (not two!) colors on my eyes today. Here’s to stepping outside your comfort zone!! #nofilter #tanfoundation #fawnfoundation #makesense #pinkhibiscusshimmer #shellglitter #champagneshimmer #shadowsense #plumerialipsense #pearlgloss #cherryblushsense #livinglippy
So this is what the Holiday Shop at Owen’s school looks like at the very beginning. It’s a LOT of work to get the whole thing set up in three days. I don’t know how they do it every year so I volunteer for about 6-8 hours.
All great things to say from both of his teachers!
Teacher says she’s doing great—she’s a great reader. Huh? What?! Well, we know she is…but we can never get past the complaining. She doesn’t complain at school, of course. Here are some of her projects.
It wasn’t nearly as bad as one would think. Honest!
My favorite song was their encore, which actually sounded like something you’d hear on a football field!! And best of all? No performance anxiety!!
I had to borrow Grannie’s car to take Owen to his Lego class before school and their car is packed to the hilt for Florida so he had to sit in the front. Frankly he’s as big as some adults so I wasn’t worried bit it did feel odd. He liked it of course.
I volunteered to do Owen’s teacher’s door for fall! I hadn’t thought that I’d get to choose what I wanted, so of course I started overthinking. I like Pinterest but it’s just so overwhelming. I ended up asking Anna to help me since she did a door for the same teacher last year…
It’s not perfect but it’s not bad for my first time! It was great having an extra set of hands, otherwise I’d have been there twice as long! Owen helped a little bit but honestly he wasn’t that much help (tape circles proved to be a huge challenge).
We didn’t really plan for her hair to be pink, but earlier in the week she wanted half purple and half pink hair and I didn’t realize when I agreed that school pictures were coming up. Over the summer the color never lasted long because we always were at the pool and the color comes out pretty easily in the pool in one day. But we had no pool this time, so her hair was still really colored…so we just went all pink!
So Owen has a mohawk but he never lets me put product in to actually show it off so I’ve just given up asking. But today…today he said it was Crazy Hair Day and had a smile on his face.
“Soooooo, can I do your hair today?!” And he smiled big and bright and said yes. So we washed it with purple shampoo, then I loaded it up with Gorilla Snot gel, and then sprayed it with not one…not two…but three hair colors.
My boy is growing up and slowly turning into a pre-teen before my eyes (he’s almost 11) so I’ll grab these chances to do something fun with him.
Parents who do their kids school projects for them? UGH. Our second graders had to create a square about themselves/their family. Are you kidding me with these?! I mean she they’re GORGEOUS and amazing but c’mon.
The letter Katie left for me:
All the things she references are other projects hanging around the room:
Baseball sheet:
Her shirt (her goals):
And she wins the most organized desk over Owen:
When we all walked in it was sunny and nice. Then we were in the basement and couldn’t see because it was getting dark out. Then everyone’s phones started going off…
Then there’s nothing like being sent into the hallway to wait out a tornado warning! There’s a first time for everything!
I checked in with Tom because they had been at baseball practice and he said it had been cancelled so they were actually already at home…eating dinner in the basement. And Owen was showing Tom what to do in case of a tornado. (Interestingly he wasn’t nearly as scared as he used to be with wind issues. So that’s a bonus.)
They ended up cancelling the rest of curriculum night as we had had ended up waiting for like 30 minutes. Thankfully our teacher had been about done.
Add just look at this messy desk. /shudder But why am I not surprised?!
Long story short, the school schedules all got mixed around this year. Owen used to have to get on the bus at 7:35am (which was perfect because he wakes up around six and he can get himself completely ready all by himself). And then when he was leaving the house at 7:30, I was waking Katie up if she wasn’t already up (which, more often than not, she was still sleeping) to get her on the bus at 8:20.
This year…Katie has to get on the bus at 7:25am…and Owen doesn’t need to get on the bus until 8:50!! Katie has a little bit harder time getting ready on her own (showering and washing her hair) so I have to get up with her—which means I actually have to set an alarm for the first time in two years. At 6am. YUCK.
I had no idea what to expect, but the morning went well. Katie was up by 6:15 and was ready in plenty of time to take first day of school pics. (I did find out after-the-fact that she skipped breakfast so that was a bit of a fail but other than that it went well.)
Usually I take sibling photos right before they get on the bus but Owen had to get dressed quick before she left because he had another hour and a half to wait.
On his way up to shower, he told Katie “If you have to leave before I get out, I love you!” (All together now…AWWWW!) He managed to shower and get dressed before she left for the bus, so he’s now in his first day outfit. Plus he wanted to go to the bus stop with her (and to see Enzo).
And then it was back to the house to waste an hour and a half before his bus.
And with neighbor and friend Nate at the bus stop:
And the official Facebook photo!
We have heard all great things about both kids teachers so we’re very excited for the school year. (Good friends of ours told us that they would take Owen’s teacher for every grade from here on out!)
Katie’s was first thing in the morning. If you can believe it, she was super shy. Like SUPER shy.
Owen’s was in the afternoon. He was only somewhat shy. But he was most excited to check out all the names on the desks to make sure that his least favorite classmate from last year was not in his class (she wasn’t).
And then it was off to his first band lesson—a super quick half hour of how to put the saxophone together and make some noise. There were probably 25 kids just for sax alone! Our fingers are crossed that he doesn’t hate it.
Well I’m gonna. It’s just a gym shirt.
It was fun going through the pantry to find fun stuff to include!
One of the back-to-school events…
Owen took over pushing the swing and then Katie joined as well. He had a blast.
