I’m going to start with happy things. Lorelei loves blue. She tells us that several times a day. Understandably so, blue is a great color. But she gets upset when Moriarty uses a blue bowl or plate. That’s less awesome. But the other night on the couch at bedtime books she said “I love blue” and I replied, “I love blue too”. “No, I love YOU...and daddy too”. OMGOMGOMGOMG. My heart exploded. Her language also gets better every week. She’s repeating phrases she hears with the same inflection and facial expressions. So when I was making her breakfast and she was whining about something, I said “whining isn’t funny” in a sternish looking parent face. She replied in a taunting tone with her face cocked slightly, “it is to me”. I had to leave the room I was laughing so hard. All her sentences end in substantial pitch rise at the end making it even funnier.
Now onto the less awesome stuff. Aug 30 Lorelei started daycare. We were all very excited, including her. When we got to her class there were other kids wailing which freaked her out. She separated fine. I cried in the car, of course. Sadly, she was crying when we got back. It was emotional all around. The next day Moriarty started 1st grade. He was very excited, I cried in the car. :-) For weeks leading up to this I’d gotten more anxious as the Delta variant surged. I kept telling myself this was the social connection the kids desperately needed. A month ago it was much safer and now it isn’t. The afternoon of Moriarty’s first day when I picked him up dozens of kids were huddled together waiting for a bus that was late. They were practically on top of each other. That was disconcerting. Day 3 of Lorelei’s preschool we got an email that a classroom had shut down for 2 weeks for Covid exposure. Pip couldn’t sleep that night. When I’m hyper anxious that could be my internal crazy, or reality; it’s hard to tell. When Pip can’t sleep, it’s real and serious. We talked to our old nanny, Debbie, that night and decided she would come back and we would pull them out of school. That weekend Moriarty mentioned, offhandedly, that a girl had thrown up on the floor of his classroom. When I talked to the school on Tuesday to unenroll him they wouldn’t tell me if that girl had been tested and was negative, or just didn’t get tested. We also got an email that another preschool classroom had closed for quarantine. The next week we learned from friends the entire daycare closed for quarantine. We 1000% made the right choice but it’s been an exhausting whirlwind to do all the paperwork, pay non-refundable deposits, get allergy info and epi pens to everyone, buy school supplies, etc. Then calling everyone back to unenroll, get epi pens back, etc, etc, etc. Debbie needed a couple weeks to wrap up stuff and quarantine from the kids after their high exposure risk. Pip took off those 2 weeks and hopefully life will become more normal when Debbie is back. Hopefully. Now that I feel exhausted and angry again, let’s move on to happier topics.
Moriarty started online school last week. He’s breezing through math and science. He hasn’t started Language Arts or Social Studies, but I have no doubt he’ll finish the curriculum much faster than expected. It’s a fully self-paced course with additional hands-on/worksheet stuff to do with the parent/tutor.
Up until now we’ve done a few Movie Nights with Moriarty and he can mostly sit through a movie now. Last week we watched the Sound of Music. It took 2 nights because it’s super long, but it started a conversation about Nazis, and what can happen when the government lies to the people. What can happen when people start thinking that other humans aren’t as good as them, for whatever reason. We talked about how both his great grandfather’s fought against the Nazis and how important it is to look for truth and reason in the things we believe. (We skipped the scary gory stuff of course) We had mentioned to some of our other parent friends we were watching this and they all said ‘oh, we are avoiding that for a few more years’. But Pip and I think it helps create parallels with the discussions we had during the 2020 election about looking for truth and not just believing what people tell you. That people in power often lie, regardless of their politics, and we want him to examine the evidence to make up his mind. Oh crap, we’re back on depressing topics.
We’re slogging through. We’re hooking Moriarty up with some online social groups and park meet-ups. Pip still has lots of PTO (we’ve done no real travel in ~2 years) so he’ll keep picking up my slack. My start-up has been in crunch mode for a month or so so I’ve been extra drained having to do all the school logistics too. But I always land on my feet. Occasionally I’m leaning against something heavy because I’m half unconscious, but we’ll keep doing whatever we can to keep the kids safe and sane.
Latest Photos Here, password “mal”
Fun Videos:
Lorelei kinda sucks at bubbles But is great with blow-up swords
That’s no moon, that’s a space station (slo-mo edition)