The last two weeks have been busy and slow. Busy as the university starts up. My class has been up and running for two weeks. My students seem to have difficultly understanding the asynchronous concept and have needed a lot of instruction. For those who "get" it, though I have really been enjoying the discussions I am having with the students. I get to interact with everyone, not just the ones who like to volunteer in class, which has been fun. I only have a couple more lectures that I need to film for the semester. Unfortunately, my schedule has shifted for the spring due to a lot of very annoying drama and nepotism, and I need to teach another class for the spring. I decided to keep a small group of graduate students as well because I don't want that class to fall away. So, now, I need to prep another class, so there has been a lot of stress going along with that. But I'm going to have to wait until the kids get settled into school before I can even think about that.
We have tried to do a few fun things before school starts. Katsu spent a lot of time making delicious meals before we get down to our time crunch once school starts. He took the boys to Seth's soccer game and to see Black Lives Matters murals downtown. Katsu and I went on a walk to the new-ish eclair shop and tried out some eclairs (coconut cream and raspberry lemon). He really loved the raspberry lemon - very strongly flavored. It was a fun walk and Jack slept in a sling the entire time.
This past weekend, we went on a quick trip to Logan. We still had not made it to Logan since we moved in. We weren't sure what exactly we were going to do, but we mostly wanted to see how Jack would do with a longer drive. He slept pretty much the whole way there. Then, we stopped and saw the Logan tabernacle (from the outside) and then walked to the Logan temple. I really liked the architecture and was surprised to see the temple was actually open with a wedding party outside. I fed Jack and then, we drove to Richmond to try to find the Pepperidge Farm thrift store. It's currently closed, but they had a trailer outside that we found and bought lots of goldfish crackers and some seconds, huge bags of Milano cookies. The boys were also feeling pretty excited about our finds, so then we made our way over to the Fat Boys malt shoppe. It wasn't open, but they had a drive-through open. We decided to get the Yasso bars, even though we weren't sure what they were. Apparently, they were buy-one-get-one-free, so we ended up with 3 boxes for $10, so we got 75 greek yogurt chocolate bars. After eating a ton, we ended up needing ice for the cooler. At that point, we decided hiking was probably out (plus, it was super hot), so we decided to go get cheese at Gossner's and then go home. I nursed Jack while the boys went inside and bought tons of cheese. We were shocked at how much bigger it was than when I went as a kid or when we went with Grandpa with Katsu and I. Overall, the kids loved all the food. We hung out with Grandma for awhile before we went home and, miracle of miracles, were able to fit all the ice cream bars in the freezer and they hadn't melted. It was a nice change of pace.
School starts for the boys on Tuesday and life is going to be crazy. I am starting to get a little stressed and I think it's rubbing off on the kids a little bit (most particularly Seth). All the boys have met their teachers and have gotten their computers. So, now they are having these huge matches together on Prodigy (a math program). Meeting the teachers was unique.
Noah met his first grade teacher, masks on. He did some assessments (and passed with flying colors) while I filled out paperwork. His teacher seemed mostly concerned about meeting his needs since he is reading so well. Noah has gotten his room cleaned up (miracle of miracles as it's usually such a mess from all his playing and many many art projects) and even moved his desk in there himself. He drew all over his school white board today with regular markers, but thankfully they came right off. I think he's more or less ready to start.
Logan is having Seth's 3rd grade teacher this year. She was very very safe with mask and plexiglass. Logan took a couple assessments and learned his way about Canvas. His teacher was happy with his typing skills and also that he has been working on multiplication this summer. He is wanting to be very prepared and has made sure he can log into his computer and onto Canvas every day and explores around so he is ready. He also figured out how to use his school email and emails me when I am nursing the baby or doing office hours messages about wanting to eat ramen, or what is for dinner, or that his brothers are hurting him. Basically one email a minute. He is still a rabid reader - he finished the Michael Vey series, but has been rereading those and just started enjoying the Geronimo Stilton books. I put many on hold at the library, so we need to go do a hold pickup from the parking lot. Logan spent last Saturday figuring out how to connect with his friend on Fortnite and has been happy to play that. But the days of video games every day are soon going away ...
Seth met his 6th grade teacher. He always clams up and is super quiet and respectful to his teacher, but we'll see how long that lasts ... Again, he did his assessments super fast and passed with flying colors. We had some issues with his password, but got it figured out and he explored Canvas, too. He seems some what ambivalent about going back to school. He also met with his ELP (gifted) teacher, on Zoom, with me. I informed him that he will be participating this year and I think it will be more as a class instead of completely self-directed, so I hope that works better. He also has Speech twice a week (as does Logan), so we'll see if we can manage to make that work out ... so much to coordinate with virtual school. He has been doing soccer, but his coach seems kind of flaky (which is annoying since we pay so much). He got a goal his last soccer game and assist the one before that. And he is having fun with his friends. He is still spending as much time with his friends as possible. He had another sleepover on the trampoline at his friends house and came home covered with mosquito bites. Which he is not so happy about. Seth wanted waffles this morning and I assumed I was going to make them, but I woke up and he had already made the batter himself and after Katsu did the first few, Seth made the rest of the waffles. His were better than mine - very crisp - so I think he was more thorough about putting the batter better in the waffle iron.
Andrew went with me to orientation on Wednesday and got some goodies (school supplies, mask, yearbook). We went and met with each of his teachers. Found out that only 2 of the high schools offer Chinese, so we'll have to think some more about which high school he should go to. He got some good books to read (Stamped and to Kill a mockingbird) from his history and english classes. His math teacher seemed good - he will be doing Math 1 this year (9th grade math). He has PE first and for advisory. He has psychology (why it was labelled technology for tough times, who knows) last. And he was excited to find out that he has both home ec (which I think they call family and consumer science) as well as food science next semester. Although I think he wished it was more split out. Andrew really loves to cook and eat. He made banana muffins by himself this week. We have been talking to him about maybe being a food scientist and studying chemistry or chemical engineering in college. I think it would be a nice mix of his talents and interests. Andrew is still loving being with Jack and spends lots of time with him. He even put him to sleep in his crib the other day while I was doing office hours. I think he is ready to be back to school. Can you believe that one of his classes has 4 Andrews in it? The poor teacher.
Jack is just being an easy newborn. He sleeps a lot, but still not liking the crib. He did just take a 35-40 minute nap in the crib, so that's not too bad. He goes to sleep around 8, and then wakes up once (somewhere between 1 and 4) and then wakes up at 6 or 6:30. Sometimes he goes back down for a nap for a little bit at that point or sometimes not. He is probably nursing about 8 times a day. He loves his brothers, the sling, books with high contrast pictures. He does not like sudden movement.
Well, two more days until the world falls apart, lol ... Katsu is going to be home on Tuesday, but after that, he is planning on going back to work 4 days a week, although home late afternoons so I can work. Basically, it'll be a perfect store with about half the time we need to accomplish everything.
Our schedule this week (don't you envy us?) And it's still missing some things like Seth's ELP ...
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