The Luckiest No Matter What!

 Dear Carter, HAPPY EIGHTH BIRTHDAY!!! This year was a big one for you and brought about a lot of changes and a lot of growth.  Things You Are Loving This was the year you learned how to tie your shoes and play basketball on a team coached by Dad. During your eighth year, you discovered a love for magic. You got a magic kit for Christmas and you putting on magic shows is something I really enjoy. You’ve taught yourself many songs on the piano, but haven’t started any lessons yet. Hours and hours of doing the lessons the keyboard has. You playing me some Christmas songs was one of my favorites. You love Cat’s Cradle (a LOT). This was also the year you tried lacrosse and you seem to really love it. One of my greatest joys as your mom is to see you truly enjoy something. You also decided gymnastics wasn’t your thing, which was actually quite surprising considering your talent at it, but I’m glad you spoke up and let us know your needs. When it comes to being outside, you enjoy sh...

As I was scrolling the other day, I saw someone writing down things they wanted to remember from this pandemic time. It's obvious this time in our history will be wrote about profusely. I can't predict the future, but I have a feeling this time in my life will be monumental... something that will have definitely shaped who I become. I decided I wanted to take some time to write down some thoughts about this time in my life. To tell my own story.  What I Will Remember About the Last Two Years: The Earliest Days I remember first learning of the pandemic. It became a topic of conversation with anyone you came in contact with. I never thought it would even come to the USA. If it did, I thought it was going to be no big deal. Maybe my naïveté was a positive so that I didn't go directly to freaking out and losing my mind.... that took a few months to come.  Another big moment from the earliest days was when my kids went to school on Friday March 13th, 2020. I knew it was their la...

Dear Nolan, HAPPY EIGHTH BIRTHDAY!!!! I hope eight is so great. Meanwhile I’m sitting here trying to figure out how in the world anyone that I’ve birthed is eight years old. That’s a really old kid! When I wrote your seven-year-old letter last year, I had so many thoughts about the Coronavirus Pandemic and how crazy everything was then. How resilient you’ve had to be, how many things change all the time, how much you’ve had to roll with the punches. Here I am, thinking about your last year having many of the same feelings… SHEESH.  In the last year, you’ve had no school at all, online school last spring, a very different online school this fall and winter, one in person schedule, and now a second this spring so far. Adaptability is hard for me. Adaptability is hard for you. Sometimes I seriously think someone took out my brain, cloned it, and put it into you. You don’t like not knowing things, you don’t like not understanding things. There is a lot not to know right now, a lot not ...

Dear Judah, HAPPY EIGHTH BIRTHDAY! At Nolan’s soccer game today, I saw a family with twin boys that are two. It brought everything back to me, picturing you and Nolan that little, having you start to have big feelings and want to communicate, and being so mobile. You and Nolan always darted in opposite directions and I would have to try and chase both of you. Now you’re eight, which feels so old. Wow.  2nd grade, despite its difficulties with the pandemic, has been a big year for you. Your confidence in reading is continuing to go up and up and up. You are sharing your voice and your opinions in school becoming quite the participator. I love that. You have more strategies and tools and problem-solving ideas than I think anyone I’ve ever met. It’s so cool to watch you or listen to you as you work. We are still working on having some sense of urgency sometime during school work and keeping your focus on your task at hand. You will always do everything in your own time, my sweet boy, ...

One of my reasons for writing anything down is to preserve my story in this big, big world. Putting my fingers on these typing keys help make my family's memories have a place to sit so I can revisit them whenever I want and remember, soak it all back in.  Time is a thief! I can't remember the last time I captured what's going on with #hundtboysx4: what they are into, what they love, what's been challenging for them. It always feels overwhelming to do that kind of necessary memory preserving justice, but I always try and that's what matters.  Here's whats up with the Hundt Boys... NOLAN N loves to do these jumping pictures and I am always ready to say yes. This guy is more than 7.5 years old. This last year during the pandemic has arguably been the hardest on him of my four sons... outwardly anyway. He has lost sports, which he loves more than any other activity. He has only been able to build a relationship with his teacher over a screen, which is the most impo...

My kids have been learning remotely since March. There is no end in sight for us. I am working my tail off, the kids are working their tails off, their teachers are working their tails off. We've had ebbs and flows of things going pretty smooth and going like a goat rodeo, but one blessing (and curse) at this point is that we know the drill.  I know N and J will have zoom calls from 8:30-11:45 with a 15 minute break at 10:15. I know they will do literacy first and then math. I know what their asynchronous work looks like and about how long it takes. I know C will write about his weekend every Monday morning. I know he does Freckle on Friday. I know when he sees his new sight words. It is all predictable and known at this point.  I called this kind of monotony a blessing because consistency is important, routines are important. My young children can show a lot of independence when things are predictable. I also put that it is a curse in perenthesis because knowing exactly what'...

For many years, my favorite part of teaching has been doing Genius Hour with my students. Genius Hour is based on companies like Google or 3M who give time to their employees to work on passion projects. They allow for the time, choice, and space for people to use innovation to create. As teachers, we spend so much time with students on things we HAVE to do- genius hour gives some of their school time back to them to do with what they WANT. Giving freedom to my students is the best part of teaching for me.  Now that my own children are at home with me doing distance learning, I was trying to figure out a way to allow them some voice and choice within our own school constraints. Nolan was my first guinea pig in bringing genius hour into our home. Genius Hour At-Home My whole family has been super into Hamilton since we saw it on Disney + over the summer. The soundtrack is on repeat and #hundtboysx4 dressed as Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Aaron Burr, and King George for Hal...

I have two second graders and one kindergartner who have been in remote learning for about a week. There is a learning curve in this for us all: kids, parents, teachers. We are all learning technology. Each of us are learning norms, learning new schedules, and learning routines. The chaos of it all and the camaraderie of it all is unique and palpable. We are all working hard and trying our best and that is easy to see. I could go on and on about all the feelings present, what the kids have been doing each day, and how we are all adjusting. Whenever anyone has asked me how things are going, I usually have a lot to say.  However, I thought I would share some smiles and frowns from the week. We still share these about our day each night at bedtime and the biggest take away is that, no matter what happens, there are smiles and there are frowns each day. Reflecting in this way helps to find the positives when we may feel like there is none and invites us to examine problems that may...

During the spring shut down, we worked primarily at our breakfast nook table and dining room table. It was okay, but I realized, the more weeks we were out of school, how distracting that area was. My kids were just steps away from food and toys. Not to mention, for a good chunk of their day, someone was cooking something near them. It was way easier sometimes to watch mom making sandwiches than it was to finish a journal entry. The Space Because of that, we've been working to clear out our main room in the basement so that we can do learning from there. I wanted the space to be inviting, comfortable, but devoid of as many distractions as possible. I also wanted to be able to spread out my three humans so they had an area to clearly focus without getting too distracted by each other. Little by little we've been organizing, sorting, and getting rid of things to make that space work. Restructuring this room isn't necessary, but it has felt really good to feel product...