Day #182: The First Day of School

 I refuse to call it the end of summer. I just keep saying, it's still summer, now we will add school. But the last couple of weeks were a whirlwind...including a 16 hour day in which we drove for 9 hours to eastern WA and back. But today was a big milestone all its own...the first day of school.

I have been trying not to approach this with dread. I have been trying to stay upbeat. I have been trying to give the new online school version a fair shake. I have been trying so hard.

You know what's weird, though? It's like...everyone talks like spring never happened. Look at this new paradigm! Look at these kids doing something completely different! Look at teachers reinventing their jobs! (Feel for the teachers, man, but really, who isn't?) And I'm like...did I hallucinate April? Because I feel like we've been through this before...

I do get it. We are trying to move forward and try something new and hopefully less disastrous and more sustainable. But I feel like to deny this collective educational trauma that happened is to deny the baggage kids and parents carry into this school year with them and that feels kinda pointless.

Apparently the solution to whatever happened last spring is more scheduling and more live teaching online. Which to the mom who survived 45 minute long kindergarten Zoom meetings last spring sounds awful. But we are supposed to forget about that, so onward!

We logged in at 9 this morning per instructions and the teacher started at 9:10 as she said she would. The first session had several movement breaks and ended at 10:10. I sat with him through it because he was very nervous and I had promised him I would...knowing this would not be a luxury we would have every day. By 10:10 *I* was super done so Josh sat with him for the 10:20-10:50 session. This was followed by lunch, during which we got an email asking parents to please not sit with them during class. He wasn't happy about that, but okay, it was gonna have to happen at some point anyway, rip the Band-aid off. I wasn't there anyway...I left shortly after he logged in at 1 for the library and vet with Max and Lucy. I hear the afternoon session wasn't that long and involved drawing which he was angry about.

When we got home we went for a walk and processed. He told me going to school on the computer is boring and no fun to not get to play with your friends. I hugged him. Hard to argue with that. When we got home we called Grandpa as we had promised we would and Grandpa told him not to think that way...to just think that tomorrow will be better than today and the day after that even better, which is the best way to approach both learning and life. Leave it to Grandpa to have the best line of the day. Maybe when I'm 80 I'll be that wise, too.

Then we had my favorite part of the day, where he and I cuddled in the hammock and he read books to me. He's become such an awesome reader over the summer, like a light switch has flipped.

So it was long and exhausting and had some good moments and bad moments...and today was a pretty light day. I am very not looking forward to the regular schedule which is supposed to involve a 3 p.m. Zoom every day. 3 p.m. is NOT a good time of day around here. In the spring that's when music happened and that's why we never went. But we're not supposed to remember spring, so onward.

All week, the voices of Mrs. Lynde and Marilla Cuthbert have been in my head...What is to be will be. And what isn't to be sometimes happens.

Media consumption: I had the librarian pick out a selection of easy reader books for him that he read to me today, it was so delightful. I don't remember the last time I updated you on my reading. I finished August with a run of books with LGBTQ main characters for kids and teens. I read Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera on Monday, all in one day because I wanted to finish it before August ended and I did! Before that I read Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo who I love so much and before that was Felix Ever After. Yesterday I started Miranda and the Movies which is both something completely different and the perfect brainless reading for the first day of school. Written in 1989, it is set in 1914 and Miranda crashes a moving picture set to land a part in the film. It is sooo much better than I was expecting...not life changing at all but a nice distraction. Speaking of which, my TV rerun banality of the moment is Frasier.

Today I'm grateful for my dad, my kids, my husband, James's first grade teacher, librarians, being read to by James, sunshine, another awesome day, that tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it, good health, and good books.