Back to School (or not) August

[Taitai]

It’s already August. Somehow it seems like time is flying...but also not, because I feel like we’ve been dealing with COVID for an eternity.

Some are going back to school, some are not - what else is happening for O17 this month?

[Taitai]

curmudgeon No help on the baby gates, we’re all on one level over here. Good luck figuring it out!

CoachTsWife That DCP of yours! Thievery! As danvers said, $ is $ - I would not let her get away with this, especially with the crap she pulled over Christmas break and the fact you had a contract. And for her to not wish your kid a happy birthday when she is doing so for others. WTF. Either way - good luck getting your stuff back.

danvers - What a nice day - glad you had the place all to yourself! Enjoy your appointment at the salon - it is nice to have that time away and to yourself. Good luck with school starting too.

[CoachTsWife]

curmudgeon we have a gate at the top of our stairs where there is no wall on either side. I'll try to attach a pic. No idea what brand it is, but we've had it up at least 4 years and it still works great.

duskymonkey I'd asked you about my old bike a while back...the tires wouldn't inflate. Well, today I realized that a few weeks after I tried to air up the tires this spring, DH realized the air compressor was bad when he tried to air up the pool, so he bought a new one. Lightbulb moment today lead to trying the new compressor for my bike and they aired up!!! It wasn't the tires but the air compressor!! 🤦‍♀️ So I went for a short ride today. 🚴‍♀️

[CoachTsWife]

DH is not interested in fighting our old DCP about the money. He just wants to forget about it and move on. I get it. It'll take me a while, but I'll eventually let it go. I don't think he's taking it as personally as I am, but I did a majority of the drop offs and pick ups and had much more of a relationship with her.

[curmudgeon]

CoachTsWife yes! That’s exactly what I’m looking for. It doesn’t feel like it’s going to rip anything out if the kids push or pull on it does it? I have a rough child.

[CoachTsWife]

Aug 1, 2020 18:44:32 GMT -6 curmudgeon said:

CoachTsWife yes! That’s exactly what I’m looking for. It doesn’t feel like it’s going to rip anything out if the kids push or pull on it does it? I have a rough child.

There were a couple installation options, and we choose to strap it around the posts instead of drilling into the banister. (I don't think we realized how long we'd have it up, lol.) Our boys pretty much know not to mess with it. It is sturdy, but unsure how much abuse it can take. DS2 does stand on the bottom part sometimes and it holds him fine.

[danvers]

DD1 is so excited for kindergarten to start next week. I don’t know how long we will make it in-person though - three football coaches and a player have tested positive for Covid-19 in the last week.

DD2 is NOT excited for daycare. Absolutely adamant about not going. H has drop off so I won’t have to deal with that heartbreak next Wednesday. DD2 has basically reattached herself to me during this pandemic.

My FIL is watching the girls this morning as H and I both have a last minute training for how we are going to virtually teach and teach in person simultaneously. It will basically involve some poor kid watching me teach via GoogleMeet for 7 hours 😩 our school wants virtual learning as difficult as possible so they come back to in person instruction. 😑.

[Taitai]

danvers Bummer about how you have to teach in person and do virtual at the same time. I just can’t imagine that will be very engaging for the virtual students. What a tough time this is for students and teachers alike.

Things are trucking along okay over here - both boys got over that cold quickly and are back in school. They both enjoy going, and I am just praying that the schools stay open at least through the end of this term! The borders being pretty much closed does suck, but one benefit is that there are no cases here and everything is open/pretty much normal (mask use and temp checks everywhere of course).

[August Blooms]

How are we a week into August already? I have to decide what we are going with DD1. Cases are consistently below 100 for the whole province. So I have to decide if I want to send her full time or enroll in online or withdraw and send her to daycare on the days I work and homeschool and hope for the best. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Other than that we are redoing our front entry tile and connecting powder room. We are trying to find a tiler and it’s proving difficult because it seems this pandemic has everyone wanting to reno.

[Taitai]

August Blooms Ooh - exciting times with the reno! Picking stuff out would be really hard for me - I feel like I would make a bad choice. I’m not good at that kind of stuff.

As for the childcare - tough choice indeed. My friends in Japan feel the same way. There are cases in Tokyo, but it’s like not good and not bad, just enough to wonder if you should send your kids to school or not. Nobody knows what to do!

[danvers]

I feel like I fell off the planet and now it’s the weekend. Everyday this week has been 15+ work emails (a lot for us teachers here since we’re still off contract till Monday). I spent 10 hours both Thurs and today in my classroom trying to get things ready for... whatever is to come 🤷‍♀️

DD1 did have a “get to know each other” Kindergarten Zoom call and she was SO excited. It was so cute to watch her sit there and wave at her classmates.

DD2 told me tonight she doesn’t want to go to school next week because she loves me the most and will miss me so much. Which is adorable and also heartbreaking.

[curmudgeon]

We had a virtual meet the teacher last night that was extremely frustrating. I expected some sort of organization, an overview of the first day and a q&a at the end. None of that happened. One parent dominated by asking questions back to back to back and interrupting the teacher, no one would mute so there were screaming babies mixed in to people talking over each other. I lasted 5 min before I just closed it. The only thing I learned is that we don’t have log ins to the learning platform and class starts tomorrow. This is such a shitshow.

[CoachTsWife]

Dang curmudgeon , I can imagine how frustrating that was! Good grief.

This is DS2's last week at home before he starts at his new daycare. I'm dropping him off for an hour tomorrow morning so that he can meet some of his new friends and get re-acquainted with his new provider.  DS1 doesn't start preschool until the following week. Things are about to get interesting as we get used to getting up and out the door for drop-offs.

[Taitai]

curmudgeon WTF to that video chat. Ugh. I hope they get more organized. I love that our school will just boot people from group virtual meetings if they don’t mute their mic.

CoachTsWife Good luck with the new DCP tomorrow! I am sure your DS2 will have a great time.

danvers Sounds like things are getting busy for you already! Good luck as you kick off the school year. How cute about your DD1 waving to all of her friends on zoom!! 💕💕

[curmudgeon]

CoachTsWife That’s good you’re able to ease him in a bit for the first day. I’m sure he will have a blast with all his new friends!

[danvers]

curmudgeon digital learning is a bit of shit show everywhere. I’m frustrated, as the teacher, because we’re being told to make this a difficult so they return to in-person learning - which I have huge problems with because I do think the majority of our families picked the online option for valid reasons (a few thing it will be just like the spring which was packets and busy work and not learning)

Also as a teacher I’m like, what did you all (admin and committees) do for 6 months?!!?! Why were none of these things/issues/routines/procedures discussed for the last 6 months?!?!

As both a parent and a teacher - I’m frustrated by it all too!


I hope your learning experience improves soon And they get the kinks out quick


*im sure some districts are doing it wonderfully. We are not.

[danvers]

Our first day was today. It was a bit of a shit show and I’m pretty convinced we should not be in person because we can’t adequately do things like “wash hands frequently” as it takes 20+ minutes a class to socially distance hand wash and bathroom breaks. We have 2 water bottle filler stations for the entire 300+ kid school and no drinking fountains.

I will say, I am not in a “mask positive” area but ALL my kids did great in their masks today. We can space far enough apart in the rooms they don’t have to wear them when seated and facing forward but not a kid complained or argued when it came time for bathroom breaks, hall trips, the bus, etc.....


.... a few adults could stand to watch them perhaps 😑

[CoachTsWife]

My gosh danvers - I'm....appalled that you're being told to make it difficult so that virtual students return to in-person. I'm sorry your district is letting you (and all the other teachers/students) down.

DH's school is doing an AM/PM thing. Kids are assigned either AM session or PM session for in-person instruction and then they have a virtual component for the other session. It's a logistical nightmare, but since a majority of the population wanted in-person learning on the surveys, they came up with this idea to try to get students in the building safely. But they're making it really hard on working parents who now have to find care for their kids for the other half of the day while they're supposedly doing the virtual component. SUCH A MESS. And they are lengthening the workday for teachers, who are now in class from 7:30 am - 4:00 pm. DH's school day every other year has been 7:30-2:30, so he's in class 1.5 hours MORE EACH DAY. It feels illegal to me and I'm very sorry for all the teachers.

[Taitai]

CoachTsWife Like was in agreement with you that it’s awful for schools to make it harder to do online learning. To you and danvers - wow, that all sounds awful. It makes me really thankful to be where I am - our schools are basically open like normal, because there has been no local Covid transmission for over 10 weeks here. Kids must still wear masks at all times and parents are not allowed on campus, but that’s not very difficult to deal with at all.

Hoping that things smooth out for you both and curmudgeon. This is going to be a hard school year on so many families in the USA I think.

[curmudgeon]

Day 1 turned into a day full of video games and painting. The platform STILL is not working so he had a 45 min zoom call with his teacher and that was it.

I would love to have a daily schedule or SOMETHING so I know what kind of routine to expect each day. And if they can’t get the online platform to work, have a backup. Go to what was used last semester.

[duskymonkey]

danvers I too have appeared to have fallen off the planet. I am so sorry that your admins are making it difficult for you and everyone else. Keep us posted. curmudgeon I am sorry the first day was tough and I agree they should do what they did when all went to shit in the Spring. I thought our school after the first 2 weeks of shuttering, did a pretty well managing teaching online. We opted to sign up DS for Virtual school so there's that for us. We start next Tuesday and we still haven't received anything and I am anxious because I don't want to be loading apps last minute and I haven't a clue what the schedule looks like as well. Not sure if there's going to be synchronous learning or independent or flex?? I don't know if he has a teacher assigned? because I will need to speak to his teacher about his learning curve since he doesn't have an IEP yet and will take a while since there's like an 8 month wait list for evals at Children's. His K teacher was really accommodating and as she saw how he was progressing, she changed his assignments to suit his learning curve. I am also frustrated that we haven't even gotten onto the Eval waitlist because for some bizarre reason, referral from my ped hasn't reached Children's??? Someone or something is amiss and I am pissed. Ped said they faxed it over 4x ( I called them 4x ) over the last month and every time I called Children's they said they never received it. I totally went mama bear on them a couple of days ago, Got all numbers and info I could get to send communication, relayed it to my peds office again, had them cc me on emails to children's. I am going to call Children's again tomorrow and email them the referral and if they haven't received it, I will personally drive to the city and hand it over to a living breathing human person and video it all
Taitai , again BIG WOW! over 2 months with no cases...that is incredible. Meanwhile it's a complete shit show over here and the coming elections will make matters worse yet.
August Blooms keep us in the loop with your renos...I am excited for you. I love working on home renos and cannot wait until it's safe for us to start finishing our basement. BTW I've also discovered photowall and thinking about incorporating it in our house decor....once the boys stop ( I hope ) destroying things. Also all decisions are so tough at the moment. I feel like there aren't any good choices at all in the current pandemic. 

[danvers]

Daycare keeps the worst “early” schedule for lunch and naps that was unsustainable during “stay at home” so DD2 has been a nightmare when we pick her up. It’s basically whining and crying through dinner and until bed. I’m ready for the weekend where she can sleep in a bit more and we hopefully have less crying!


** I don’t actually blame daycare for early lunch and naps because I would totally do that myself if you gave me 10 two year olds!

[duskymonkey]

CoachTsWife the AM/PM schedule does sound like a nightmare. There really isn't a good choice currently and everyone is still going to be upset no matter what the solutions are because it isn't going to work for them either way. When I was in school, we actually had an AM/PM system due to lack of space and furniture. AM was 7.30-12.30. PM 1-6. We still didn't seem to have enough chairs and tables which often resulted in an entire class stealing them from classes that went to lab but then we also had chickens wandering into our class, rats and feral cats scurrying through with the occasional python slithering in and the rare cobra appearance
We finally got some info from school this evening with expectations, supply list and digital platform so I guess, I'll be doing some last minute online ordering and loading apps and checking for compatibility. More info and login will be available Monday afternoon and school officially starts the next day. Talk about last minute. I am a planner so all this last minute stuff is making me really anxious. I am also having anxiety thinking about how to keep lil fella from distracting DS. He's really getting naughty and creating chaos a lot these days. ???

[Taitai]

duskymonkey DS2 is getting so naughty lately too! He has taken to picking fights with DS1 by snatching things away from him without asking and yelling at DS1. And then that makes DS1 upset and they start fighting....ugh. I remember when DS1 was 3, there was this whole emotional/“angry period,” and I was hoping we wouldn’t have to go through that as severely with DS2. Maybe history is due to repeat itself....sigh.

Sending positive thoughts to everyone getting ready for various back to school situations. It sounds really difficult, and I’m hoping everything will smooth out as the year goes on.

[doodlemommy]

Hello O17!! I’ve been mia for awhile but doing well overall. We are super torn on what to do for school (DD is going into grade 1). We were feeling ok about sending in person, but then all of a sudden our city’s numbers started climbing. We have to decide next week what we are going to do. We have 2 options: full time in person (lots of safety protocols and masks are encouraged and requested but not required until grade 4) or online. We get to decide each quarter which option we want and if we start in person and want to stop mid quarter we are given materials and are responsible for teaching it ourselves like traditional home school until the start of the next quarter when we get to decide back to in person or move to online. My gut says to keep her home for online for quarter 1 but her 2 friends are going in person and for her mental health I really really want to be able to send her. She is super bright and way ahead academically so the actual learning side is a non issue but i am so torn. We are waiting to see what the city’s numbers look like Monday (when we will get the data from Friday-Sunday) and I have a list of a few questions about the protocols for our specific school and then I guess DH and I have to make a tough choice. I am going back to work part time in September and DH is home on parental leave now until April so if we do end up choosing online a lot of it will fall on him three days a week and he will also have both the boys home too. My mom is willing to help him out no problem either with the schooling or watching the boys and as long as DD does anything live when it’s scheduled we can catch up the other work once I’m home or on my days off. Basically all choices suck and I hate it.

My MIL is doing chemo and doing well with it. She will have a scan done aug 31 to see if it’s working. Hopefully it is and she will basically just keep doing chemo until it doesn’t work

[Taitai]

doodlemommy Good to hear from you! I was thinking about your MIL and wondering how she was doing. That is great to hear that she is in chemo and it’s going alright! I hope that the scan on 31 Aug brings good news that she is responding to the treatment and making some progress. Please let us updated if you can. 🤗

On the school thing - that’s a tough choice indeed. Kids (especially at this age) are very resilient, and I am sure she will be okay either way. That said, I’d also be torn on what to do, especially as your MIL and mom are immune compromised and you want your kids to be able to spend time with them. Very tough choice. Fingers crossed for the numbers to go down in your area!

[danvers]

duskymonkey good luck on the virtual schooling. I agree as they approach 3 some of them are getting particularly ornery. 😑

doodlemommy it’s such a tough spot to balance social emotional and physical concerns, especially with extenuating factors like your MIL. The ability to reevaluate the decision at 9 weeks is nice though. Our online learning is a mess here but if a decent one was in place than I might lean that way... maybe? Would she be able to do things like GoogleMeets for some social interaction with peers?

[CoachTsWife]

Well goodness duskymonkey, that sounds like quite the experience. I guess DH is lucky there's enough equipment and no animals on the loose....?

I'm still worried about him and all the other teachers with the extra 1.5 hours of teaching every single day. Teaching is challenging in a normal year, and will be so much more challenging this year. And now their days are so long, I just....ugh.

I just keep having bad luck with DCPs. DS2 was all set to start today but I got a text from the new DCP on Saturday that she "totally forgot" that she's closed today, "so can he start Tuesday instead?" COME ON.

[August Blooms]

CoachTsWife Hopefully she works out, that’s not a good way to start out.

[August Blooms]

School doesn’t start until September here but we had to decide between online and in class. DD1 is doing in class, I feel ok with the decision since cases remain about the same here.

I work shift work and my employer has decided this is a good time to mess with our schedules... like we really need all that extra stress right now 🤪 It will be resolved over the next few day’s but it was totally unnecessary.