The Luckiest No Matter What!

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...

HAPPY 2022! I'm entering slowly, taking small steps with caution.  My family is keeping this weekend low key: trying to squeeze in last moments together before the hustle and bustle of real life starts Monday again. This winter break has been one of the best- a lot of togetherness, and an excellent balance of work and play. It has all felt so good for my soul and I can tell it was just what #hundtboysx4 needed too. It's time for my #oneword of 2022: PLAYFUL! PLAYFUL: The Why Throughout 2021, I continued to feel as though my sons were needing something more from me than I have been able to give them. Was it my time? Energy? Patience? Kindness? Yes to all (duh). What these things all have in common is the desire of connection. What my boys want more than anything, is me. But a better version of me than I've been showcasing. After a challenging day of supporting my boys through online school or, lately, a day full of learning for them and teaching for me, I don't have much...

2021 is almost over. I will remember this year as the one where my kids were in virtual school about as much as they were in person. I went back into the classroom in 2021. It was the year I pulled myself out of the breakdown I had towards the end of 2020. 2021 was when I did a ton of work on myself, said goodbye to my parent's cottage in Canada and our beloved Primrose the Cat. I saw Saint Augustine, Florida more than I ever had and explored the wilderness of Virginia. I visited our nation's capital. Josh, my three biggest boys, and I got vaccinated and witnessed so much change with the pandemic and also so much stay the same. Finally, I watched #hundtboysx4 learn, grow, and change a lot in 2021.  2021 was also the year I picked the best #oneword I ever could: small . I could feel that it was a winner way back in January, but I didn't know how much that word was exactly what I needed to focus on. Here are some of the awesome things that small little word has done for me t...

I'm sitting at the desk in my classroom... it's 4:43pm. My students have left and I am alone here, preparing for tomorrow, reflecting on today. Teachers are always looking forward and looking back. It's the little dance we do on a daily basis- did they get what I was trying to teach today? Do I need to give more time tomorrow? How does my storyline of yesterday help me know how to move forward today? There is always so much on the mind of a teacher as they take care of minds and hearts simultaneously all day long. But, as I sit here in my thoughts, I cannot shake the school shooting at Oxford that happened yesterday. 'Teaching the Days After' Teaching on the days after is a term so many educators use when you have to scrap what you planned because another big event has happened that you need to make space for in your classroom community. There have been way too many 'Teaching the Days After' kind of days in the last several years. Students need to process th...

The school year has begun. This particular year has, yet again, brought quite a few changes into our house. Last year, we were heading into our basement school to start online learning. Carter was starting kindergarten. This year, I have three boys in school full time. After not having that for over a year, it's been a B.I.G. adjustment. Preston is starting daycare. We've never done that before. I'm back to work- still teaching part time, but going in five days a week instead of two. How's it all been going, you ask? Everything has been A LOT. A lot of feelings, worries, nervousness, and work. Daycare and Back to School for P Preston's transition to daycare has been very difficult. He's refusing to eat there, isn't sleeping much, and has had epic cry sessions and breakdowns at drop off. I have walked away from him grabbing for me and crying. It doesn't help that the daycare is next to my school. I have exactly one minute to pull myself together before ne...

 I am a writer. As I type that out, I immediately want to erase it, take it back, and blush with embarrassment. I am not classically trained, or frankly, trained at all. Until a year ago, I had no idea what passive voice was (or how much I liked using it). I struggled to teach my own students writing conventions because I often didn't know them myself. I have learned more about prefixes and suffixes as well as Latin and Greek roots from my second grade sons this year than I ever remember learning in school. I hated my linguistics class in college. My writing was called "too fluffy" by a professor in one of my masters classes.  Yet, somehow, for as long as I can remember, I've always written. Writing has actually been a HUGE part of my life. I love it. I fall in love with it in different ways as time goes on. Because this time of year is full of love and thinking about our loved ones, I thought I would write a love note of some kind to writing. These are the loves of ...

I honestly can't believe we are nearing the end of 2020. Most of it felt so challenging, often shocking, and so pain-stakingly slow sometimes that I wasn't sure the end of the year would ever come. I'm sure this year, especially, has us all reflecting on a lot: thinking back to where we all started, how we first felt when the pandemic hit, when we were smack dab in the middle of it, and how we've adjusted to what is our new normal for the foreseeable future.  I have so much I want to leave behind and never revisit: the memories of all the time I lost my patience with my family, crying in the shower more times than I'd like to admit, the feelings of isolation and loneliness, the worrying. I chose right now, however, to focus on the bright spots of this year. It was hard, indeed, but it wasn't always  hard. Here are some of the things I'm incredibly grateful for in 2020... Starting 2020 on the Right Foot On January 2nd, 2020, I started taking care of myself. I...

Throughout this pandemic, I lost myself.  I lost my personal interests and my personal identify. It was a gradual process. I began to notice, through the spring shutdown, that the things that helped me balance out my role as mom were not allowed or closed. Seeing friends was off limits, going out to eat or drinks or dessert with adults was not an option, writing curriculum while I was taking a break from teaching was put on hold. Not having these things in my life, suddenly, made me really, really sad. As time went on and the weeks became months, I began to also notice the other things that helped full me up and provide respite were also taken away from me. Having time to myself to do ANYTHING like reading, writing, working out, or working on creative projects was non existent. One day, in early summer, I realized that anything I did or was interested in or spent time doing that was just for me was gone. Anything that helped make me who I was ripped from me.  Kicking and Screa...

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...

 In January 2020, I finally made the phone call I knew had been coming.  Preston was doing very little talking. At his 18 month appointment, his pediatrician wasn't terribly concerned yet, but did warn me he had some things against him: he's a sibling meaning that his older brothers would likely do a lot of the talking for him, he's a boy, and he wasn't in daycare. Because I was home with him, I knew what he wanted most of the time so he didn't NEED to work on his verbal skills. Here we were, a few months later, with little to no progress in his speech development since that appointment. I felt like it was time to get EarlyOn involved and get him some help and us some tools.  Speech Development Preston had a very small handful of words- a mama and dada here or there, a couple animal noises and that was basically it. The thing that was interesting about him was he was ZERO percent frustrated. It never bothered him if we didn't know what he was trying to communica...