We are starting our 7th week of in-person school, and it's been almost that long since I posted. It goes in waves, I've decided. Overall, I'd say we are doing pretty well......oy vey, I could not have written those words any sooner......I literally JUST READ an email from our school. We've got our first case of COVID-19 on our campus. Apparently they will contact anyone who had direct contact w/ the student or teacher, etc and are planning to clean and disinfect the entire campus. UGH! NO! I suppose it was only a matter of time, and likely there's been one sooner. The only reason we know about any of them is if someone uses the self-reporting tool. So, someone could have tested positive, not self-reported, and we'd be none the wiser. I'm glad they have at least some way to report, but clearly it's faulty since not everyone will be honest. At this point I can only hope that there is not any spread and/or a major outbreak. That was one of my big worries is that they will go back to school, someone gets sick, and the school closes back down. Just please no. Going to school is the best thing for all of us. I still read the website that has daily tallies of cases/deaths, etc. and it is showing the US is now has 219,775 deaths and 8.2 million+ cases. I remember not in the too distant past I was writing about 20,000 deaths. These numbers are mind-boggling. And so so sad. We continue to do what we've been doing, hand-washing, sanitizing galore, masks everywhere. I've got the kids wearing them everywhere we go. Other than school we are only doing the things we need to do like grocery store, etc.. Well, that's not totally true. We went twice to a friends house for a playdate. It's a friend who has a baby and a 4 year old, and she is headed back to work next month. Also, my girl has gone on 2 play dates at her best friend June's house. That's it really. It does still worry me because I keep reading it's the small group get togethers that are becoming spreaders.
My son's 6th birthday was a party/no party. We had his chosen theme of Saints Football: Football cups, Saints plate/napkins/cake, cookies/cream ice cream, etc.. and our old nanny came in town to visit. Even though we didn't have a group get together, our other friends that have a boy my son's age did a drive by and dropped off a gift. They came to the door with masks and didn't come in....but was still good to see them. I still enjoyed it, especially because I was able to surprise him with a driveway portable basketball goal. I ended up getting it off of a neighborhood app for $100 and $20 delivery the day before his birthday. We just had to clean it up and hide it at our neighbor's house. Then I texted neighbor when ready the next day and they brought it over to our driveway. I walked him outside backwards, turned him around, and when he saw it, processed it, he started jumping up and down and screaming with fist pumps! He was SO excited since he's been wanting one for about a year. Old nanny took a video, but sure enough had the recording button backwards and missed the whole thing. It was still a fun experience.
I've been learning what it's like to be a stay at home mom/having focused ME time again.....it's been a mixed bag of loving some things, and learning that some things are harder than I expected. For example:
--Eating at home for lunch and staying caffeine diet coke free. I find that I do well for about a week, then over the weekend if we get take out I always have a soda then, then I get tired the next day and want another, then I have the taste of it again and want another. It really is an addiction. The most I've been soda free is 7 days. I decided on Sunday I am going to challenge myself to 2 solid weeks. I want to see what happens. Sunday and today make 2 days down. YAY!
--At the beginning of September I started exercising for a goal of 30 minutes/5 days a week. I even made myself a sticker chart. My goal is to do it M-F, however if a day here and there just doesn't work I can make up only 1 day on the weekend. I am SO proud to report that I did 4x week for 3 solid weeks!! It wasn't perfect, and I really didn't want to do it on many days, but having the visual of the sticker chart really helped me. Also, in talking w/ my therapist she said to make the 30 minutes my priority and everything else can get scheduled around that. I did mostly walking, but some biking. The plan was also to do the exercise during the day while the kids were at school, but I found over time that sometimes going after dinner since my son wanted to be outside anyway worked too. It didn't HAVE to be at a particular time of day, just that it was accomplished. I'm learning that not meeting the set goal does not equal failure....I exercised more in the last month than I have in years. Did I exercise 5 days a week, No. Did I make major progress anyway? Heck yes.
--Another learning is that progress is not linear. As much as I really really expected this and want it to be this way, I have had to 'restart' many many times. Take the exercising: even with that amount of progress I quickly fell off the rails.....a few days I just didnt do it (interestingly enough it was after I filled up my first sticker chart--maybe it works better than I thought!) and fell out of the habit just that quick. Now, what I might have done before is say eh, I tried it, it didn't stick, for another time. Well, now IS my time....I need to make the most of it and plan to make me another chart.
--I expected things to happen a bit more naturally i.e. if Im not working then suddenly I'd be motivated to do all the things that I've been putting off. Losing weight, little projects at the house. Kind of unrealistic in hindsight, but I really thought that if I take off the stress of work and the kids go to school during the day, then I would have all this ME time, and I'd be so productive.....I always told myself, 'If I just had the time'. Well, that hasn't been the case. The first week I was crazy productive when the kids went back to school because the cleaning lady was coming and we needed a serious overhaul and organization. Starting the second week, though, I noticed that I started to come home and read my emails, take a nap. Then a few more days I was taking a nap, then it seemed like every day. I was starting to get upset w/ myself so after digging some more w/ therapist I've learned that I am very externally motivated. If there is a crunch time, or deadline, that is when I will go into action. If it's not there, I tend to stay at rest. I've been this way for as long as I can remember. I was a crammer in school, always waited until the last minute. Now that I am home and nothing is DUE, it is really hard, unnatural, and uncomfortable for me to be super productive when there is no real deadline. Ive worked with deadlines for a majority of my life. We've been working on this by figure out how to put some schedule in place, also adding some things like volunteering at the school if we can. Work in progress.
--The other thing that's at play here is that even though I'm sleeping a bit better, it's still not great. I still wake up a lot during the night and am tired/groggy the next day. Especially when caffeine is in the mix. I fully expected that I would have a lot more natural energy now that the major stress of work is off my plate and I've had some recovery time. Maybe that's unrealistic also because it's really only been 6 weeks that I've truly had the time off and kids are back in school. I haven't worked since April but the last 6 months were anything but a break. My body has been under serious fatigue and stress for so many years....it will take more than 6 weeks to turn all that around. Now that I'm thinking through this, I did have a crazy expectation that just because I was at home and kids were at school that everything would 'click' and I would jump into getting all of these things accomplished. I need more patience and grace for myself here. My body probably IS still tired....it probably does still need additional rest and relaxation. As for the sleep, I did try melatonin again and I'm not a fan. The one I tried gave me an emotional dip the next day, it felt like....so no thank you. I think at my next annual check up I'll ask the Dr. I did do a sleep study a few years back and they said that I have mild apnea and could use a machine during sleep. I did go back for the 'fitting' where they put one on you over night and unfortunately it was the worst night of sleep in my life. I will not do the machine, no way. So, there has to be other options, I would think.
--I LOVE LOVE having time where I can just sit, be still, and have no distractions. It does my sense of well-being so good to just have that decompression time.
--I'm doing so-so with the cooking. I find that I do much better making good meals during the week, then by the weekend, I'm like nah, I'm done cooking. I also need to branch out a bit more and try some new recipes. I can't even say it's because my kids are picky that I'm not trying....I am still intimidated a bit in the kitchen with making things. I'm not super comfortable 'whipping things up', so I need to keep at it. I've learned to make some really good things like pork tenderloins, couscous, and a vegetable. That's probably one of their favorite dishes.
I think those are the major experiences/learnings thus far. Some things are harder, progress is not linear, and I love ME time.
Back to school.....my girl is flourishing being back, however she's had a bit of issue w/ her school work. She's not been a fan of math and the teacher emailed me to say that she noticed she's not taking her time, which in turn is bringing her scores down. My girl and I talked about it and the poor thing was worried she was in trouble. I always tell the kids that if they tried their best, that's all I ask. I don't worry about the scores. The teacher told me she was going to implement a few tools in class to help her slow down as well, so we will see how it goes. As for my son, he's bored to tears. I think I am resigning myself to the fact that he will not learn much in kinder. Not sure if I wrote about this, but I learned too late from his current teacher that they had testing to see if he should actually skip directly into first grade now. I asked the teacher/counselor, and even escalated the issue to the principal that if I didn't even know about this testing, how could I have even submitted?? They sent the issue to whoever was in charge of this and they simply said no, missed the deadline. Honestly I was waffling on whether moving him up was the right decision because he does still need to learn social skills, etc.. and would it make sense to put him up where he'd for sure be the youngest in his class? I was torn, honestly....academically he for sure fits better with first grade, but not sure all the rest made sense. Anyway, moot point since they refused to test him anyway, even after deadline. The teacher said they would work on some more challenging things with him in small circle. It's funny he'll come home and say he did 'baby math'. I look at the sheets coming home and he's right. He did this stuff in prek 3-4. Shapes, numbers, etc.. C'mon. I'm really surprised at the curriculum and actually was able to talk w/ my friend who's daughter is 4 and goes to prek still. She showed me her daughter's journal that she writes sentences in every day. At 4! That's the kind of thing my son should be doing in kinder. I did submit the form to have him tested for Gifted and talented program due to his crazy math skills, so will see about that. Although, even if he's accepted, they only do a few hours a week w/ the kinder and it isn't until January do they even start it. So, I'll need to stay close to his teacher to be more intentional on what exactly he can learn that's extra now. The last thing I want is for him to not like school because he's bored.
Kind of reminds me of when I was growing up. We were in rural farm country in middle america and 35 years ago they didn't have any kind of talented and gifted program. My mom knew I was a bright kid, taught myself to read at 4 etc, and felt the same way about me when I entered school--I'd be bored. So, I don't know how all this transpired but my mom partnered w a friend to actually start a TAG program at our school--she taught some of it from what I remember. Now there's advocating or your kid.....no program available, so....go make one! And that was pre-internet.
Overall, I'm glad to be where I am right now. We're doing okay and I'm finding my way.
