Back to School

Like everything this year, back-to-school season was a lot different.  Cora's first day of school was delayed a week or two. They eased into the school year by splitting the class in two. They had an orientation day one week, then half a week of in school and half a week of virtual school the following week.  This was a great way to give us all a taste of how virtual school would work in case we have to do that in the coming months (spoiler alert: we do).  The school gave everyone the opportunity to choose in-person or virtual and we are lucky to have had half the class choose to be virtual!!! There are only 10 kids in Cora's in-person class! After the first couple days seeing how awesome the school and children were doing with the new rules, we were all feeling much better about choosing the in person option. 

Cora has moved into hybrid where she is at school half the week and at home half the week. It has been interesting to watch her learning style and how she interacts with the class. She is a go-getter and wakes up early to get a head start on her afternoon lessons so she can have the afternoon to relax.

Ida's school delayed the beginning of the year by a month, then had orientation days and partial days for everyone to ease into the new restrictions. Ida has been asking to go back to school multiple times a week since March, so she was happy to get back into the classroom. On her first day of school, she ran off into the classroom barely glancing back and saying "bye". Every single day I picked her up, she gave me one of the wild twinkly smiles and tells me "I had the best day today!" 

We will likely be moving back and forth between in person and at home schooling this year and I'm interested to see where the year takes us and how much my girlies learn.

QuaranSpring 2020

I am finally finding time to finish/share some blog posts... so while I normally prefer to post in real time, I'm going to share some stuff from the last 6 months.

Phewww! It has been quite the Spring. I look back over the last couple of months and it feels like it has been a long time, but also like no time has passed at all. My department sent me to work from home about the same time school was closed so a lot happened all at once. I took my weekly trip to the grocery store on Saturday morning and it was shocking to see the empty shelves in person in my usual grocery stores. After the grocery trip, we hunkered down at home.

I was sick for the first couple of weeks of staying at home (tested negative for Covid, but had all the symptoms and was exposed to an international traveler) and about a week after feeling better I threw out my back. So health-wise, this Spring has not been the most enjoyable for me. I had outdoor projects on my to-do list that I'm no longer able to do without lots of help. However, the forced rest has been really good for me. We spent a lot of that time inside, watching tv, crafting, and baking (homemade pizza was a quarantine essential),

With the warmer weather, we did our best to get a couple hours outside every single day. We have construction happening next to and behind out house... At the beginning it was just as entertaining as it was irritating. We did our best to enjoy outdoor picnics, gardening (more on our garden later), soccer, and walks as often as we could. 

Easter this year was weird. Normally, we do a big family get together and spend a large chunk of the day together. Instead we had some swing by Easter egg hunts, waving from the porch to family members, church online, and Indian food for dinner. The day was bittersweet. We enjoyed being at home and celebrating Easter in a new way, but missing our family.  

We celebrated Cora's birthday in May. She got to hug my parent's and siblings for the first time in over a month and that was a real treat. A couple family members stopped by my parent's house for a social distance happy birthday and present drop off. We had a great lunch time hanging out with my family then headed home to meet a couple friends swinging by for social distance happy birthday ice cream. We had some more cake decorated like a soccer ball (Cora declared her birthday soccer themed). Cora's final birthday wish was to have a date with mommy watching Full House and eating pizza rolls. She said it was the perfect day and I couldn't agree more.

Schooling was also weird. Online school was hard for our family to juggle with us both working full time and no childcare. Cora still needs a good amount of assistance with her schoolwork, so we did our best to struggle through. The school had a drive by teacher parade and we were lucky enough to be on route (and close to the beginning!).  Cora loved spotting some of her teachers and Ida loved waving to all of the cars. School ended unceremoniously, so our neighbor friends ordered shaved ice for the neighborhood kids. We were all happy that we would get to take at-home schooling off our to-do lists.

It was a weird season. We had a lot of hard things, but we really enjoyed all of the uninterrupted time together. We have always loved having an open schedule, so while we missed a lot of the regular spring activities (spring festival, soccer, end of school year events) we still had lots of fun.

Fall 2019

This Fall was busier than I ever expected it to be. Our schedule quickly filled up with school, soccer, and all the other Fall events. Fall has come and gone, but I still wanted to do a quick recap because I love looking back at the different stages of our life.  

CORA started first grade and we experienced the busyness of full day school for the first time. I knew we'd be busy, but I didn't realize that we'd be losing so much time together. Cora is out of the house until basically 4 and then we only have a couple of hours together before an early-ish bedtime. We still have to complete homework and prep her things for the following day, so it feels like we barely get to spend any time together. On the plus side, Cora loves school! She is making so many friends and she has so much enthusiasm for learning. I always find her practicing her writing or spouting off different things she learned at school. One of her favorite subjects (which is new this year) is Spanish. She is constantly practicing... which in turn is motivating me to learn Spanish.

I was able to join Cora's class for a trip to Gorman Heritage Farm. We both learned a lot during the tour and I enjoyed meeting all of her new friends. It is always fun to watch her in her element.

Another exciting new thing we participated in this Fall was soccer! Cora joined her first soccer team and I got to help coach. Cora improved so much over the year and loved making new friends on the team. I spent most of my coaching time tying all the shoelaces and reminding the kids to keep their hands to themselves.  

IDA started preschool this year! I was a little nervous because she is young for her class and this is her first year at school, but she really seems to be killing it. Ida always asks me when she gets to go to school and excitedly chatters about her teachers and classmates. Her school offers a bonus music class once a week and then they perform at church after each session. Ida loves the class... the performance not so much.

In October, the girls took an African drumming class. The instructor would share a lot of background information about different beats, what country they came from, when they would be used, and different types of drums. It was very informative and the girls enjoyed the class. 

We spent a lot of time enjoying Halloween activities in our community. The girls and I attended a couple of Trunk-or-Treat events, so by the time Halloween actually came they were kind of over it. We only went out for about 45 minutes before Cora asked to go home and told me she didn't really want candy. When we got home, both girls had a snack and put themselves to bed... then the following day they were both sick, which explains the lack of enthusiasm.

We filled a lot of our free time with fall walks around the neighborhood (or home from school), playing in the backyard, reading, community festivals, hanging with the family, picking pumpkins, making haunted halloween houses, and playing lots of Uno. Fall was good to us this year!

Starting Kindergarten

It's been three months since Cora finished with preschool and time has been flying by. This summer, she asked frequently when school would start again and told me how excited she was to meet all the new friends.

Before school started, all the kids had some scheduled one-on-one time with the teacher for assessments and to get introduced to the teacher and class. Cora insisted on buying her teacher a present for the first day. She picked out a little fake succulent and decorated the pot with paint pens. I love her enthusiasm and thoughtfulness.

The night before school started, I pulled out her extremely wiggly tooth. Cora gets so nervous, but loves the dancing and cheering that follows losing a tooth. I love finding her checking out her missing tooth in the mirror every chance she gets.

Girlfriend was so excited for school! She spent the entire morning asking when it was time for her to go to school. When we arrived at school, she spotted her class line and ran off to meet them. I had to quickly get some first-day-of-school photos while she rolled her eyes and ran off to join the line.

When we picked her up, Cora said she had the best day. She said her favorite part was making two new friends... even though she didn't know their names. I love how Cora takes each new thing with a tiny bit of nervousness and a whole boatload of excitement. She is looking forward to learning all the things and making so many new friends.