Zooming Into A New School Year

We had an IT guy (Jeff) come to our schoolroom on Sunday night to make sure we were all connected to the internet, the printer, and to make sure our wireless mouses...mice?...were controlling the right computers. All systems were a go!

We got into a charter school this year, so school starts an hour earlier than we're used to. 8:00 rolled around fast! We ran out the door for some quick pictures before their homeroom Zoom calls started. Lincoln's an excited Kindergartner! 

Jonah's the boss of the playground. I had scribbled down some class rules with the boys on Sunday night and Jonah somehow ended up with those in tow for his picture. 

Carson is in 3rd grade!

He tries his hardest not to show it, but Carson loves school. He's really good at math and is excited for his weekly art classes. 

Eli's in 5th grade this year! He scored a male teacher. One of the first things his teacher told him was that he doesn't care about grades, he just wants the kids to try their best. Eli looked over at me, pointed at the screen, and said, "I like this guy." 

(He's wearing a bumper on his bottom teeth that is helping to make some space in his mouth for his new teeth to come in.)

Since he can't read or navigate a computer very well, Lincoln's teacher spends the whole morning on a Zoom call with the class. They practice writing their letters, cutting, and solving math problems on a little whiteboard. I've been impressed by how well the teacher can get all the 5-year-olds to follow along with her over Zoom. It takes some parental support, but Lincoln is doing a great job adapting to the circumstance. 

Carson gets to start his day in his special class. They have Music, Art, Spanish, Computer, and PE every week. 

Eli is annoyed because everybody has been getting his name wrong and keeps calling him Ellie. I find this so funny because with Eli especially, I was really concerned about wanting to name him a boy name that was only a boy name. At the time a lot of boy names were being turned into girls' names, and I wanted a name that was only a boy name for him. I thought the name Eli checked that box. 

Then at his very first doctor's appointment, the nurse that called us back into the office called out, "Ellie" when it was our turn. And I smiled. Because in all my stressing about picking the perfect name, not a once did I envision the issue of people mistaking the name Eli for Ellie. It hasn't happened too much since then, but I guess Eli's having a wave of Ellie confusion as this new school gets to know him. 

The days are chaotic. Basically I have three elementary school kids on a college course schedule. You have to find the right class at the right time and go into the right online classroom and hope you're at the right place and then class gets out early sometimes so you'll get 10 minutes here and there between classes. After class is over you have to hunt down assignments online and make sure you have everything turned in. There's a lot of accountability and responsibility resting on those little shoulders to be invested in their own education. 

And then there's the issue of them not being overly accountable or responsible. Like, they're all sitting there with their headphones on listening to their teacher's instructions...and then all of a sudden they yank the headphones off and they're like, "I'm done." 

And I look at them and go, "But are you really done?"

Because I don't know what their teacher just told them to do. And THEY don't know what their teacher just told them to do. Because they were playing with Lego mini-figures strategically off-screen. So then me and child just look at each other blankly in a game of chicken. Whose will power will win? Will I rummage through their online folders to see what assignments I can find? Once I do will they suddenly remember their teacher's instructions? 

And then there's the issue of them just, like, rolling around on the floor mid-lesson. Or forgetting their teacher told them to hop back on the Zoom call 20 minutes after they got off. Or having 25 tabs open on their computer while their teacher is talking. 

It's like college. But worse. It's like I'm in a college class with my kids in control of my fate. Like, I'm a big supporter of having my kids be responsible for themselves. At parks I never hold their jackets. At the pool they have to remember to bring their own water. Typically in school they need to be aware of their own schoolwork and get it done. 

But with distance learning it feels so unfair to expect them to be able to navigate a whole new system and way of doing school. So I feel responsible to help them find their assignments and quizzes and slideshows. But I don't know what's going on inside those headphones! So they have half of the puzzle and I have the other half and every time we try to connect the pieces we realize we're working from two different puzzles because it's just not matching up. 

And then times all of that by three. Five days a week. Four hours a day. 

With a baby on top. 

Lincoln is so cute doing his school work. He mastered the unmute button this week. And while sometimes he uses it to answer his teacher's questions, other times he uses it to scream into the camera. And every time he forgets to re-mute. I've developed obsessive-compulsive habits of checking his mute icon to make sure the class isn't hearing me yelling at certain children to "GET OFF THE GROUND AND SIT AT THIS NICE DESK IN THIS NICE SCHOOL ROOM I BUILT SPECIFICALLY SO YOU WOULDN'T ZOOM WHILE ROLLING AROUND ON THE FLOOR, SON!"

That's a wrap for week one! We can do this, we can do this, we can do this. 

Lofty Ideas

Let's give it up for 2020 for giving us a crash course in recognizing what our coping mechanisms are. For me, it's become evident I throw myself into house projects when I'm stressed. The triggering event? Learning we'd be starting the schoolyear 100% distance learning. 

Upon hearing this news, I got flashbacks to the end of the last school year when Carson was huddled up in a dark pantry eating cereal straight out of the box during one of his Zoom calls. We can't blame him, we didn't really have a great education station last year, but we were about to change that. 

My goal was to create a space where each boy had his own area to have a sense of pride and ownership over, and that would provide a clean, organized learning environment. If we were going to do this distance learning thing, we were going to give it our all and do it right! Especially since we had a little time to prepare for it this time. 

Jeff got right to work bringing my vision to life. 

It gave him an excuse to buy a new saw and drill, so I think this project turned out to be a win for him too. 

One week of nonstop work and the room was done!

Eli now has a Dodger's player's picture in his frame. 

Yay! I'm so happy with it and it really did ease a lot of my anxiety about distance learning to have a designated learning-friendly space where we could spend our days. I started out the project pretending I was doing it all for the boys, but let's be real, the boys don't care what their study space looks like. I did this completely for me so I have a cute, inviting area to work in while I play teacher. 

I love it! Have we already busted open a beanbag? Yes. Yes we have. I have a feeling we will be spending our weekdays doing schoolwork and our weekends fixing all the things we've broken in the house after being home all week. 

My mom kept reminding me I have four kids, feeling like Jonah was getting left out in all the homeschooling. In an effort to appease my mom, I bough Jonah a little toy box that doubles as his desk should he choose to spend the morning coloring. So far he has only used the toy feature of the box. 

Once the schoolroom was done, I used all my anxious energy to clean and organize every space in my house. I sorted through and organized all of our clothes, rearranged the kitchen cupboards, and tidied up the garage. I had everything we own perfectly in a designated place. Because taking control of the things I own is apparently how I feel better about having no control over the school year. 

And with everything perfectly ready for the main event of my stress, the first day of school, I self-sabotaged and started another project the weekend before the big day. 

When we first moved into our house we had Eli and Carson sharing a room and Lincoln and Jonah in the other room. We have since discovered everybody goes to sleep a lot faster and quieter if we split the younger and the older kids up. 

This presented a problem because I had created a Batman room for Lincoln, but he ended up going into the black and white space room with Eli. That left Carson and Jonah in the Batman room that I never totally loved. I had drawn that skyscraper scene on one wall and to be truthful, I never used a level and most of the buildings could have been good friends with the Tower of Pisa. 

Being home all day every day has a way of making you really want to take care of the things you don't like in your house, so I took a paint roller and my last free weekend before we were tied down to school and got to work. It still has a little bit of decor work to go, but I love walking past this room now. 

I want to add two long shelves here next to the picture, and I'll probably hang some navy curtains. I loved this picture my brother-in-law, Dallas, took. It reminds me of Carson because he always runs ahead of everyone when we go on hikes and he loves to be the trail leader. He's adventurous and free-spirited, so I liked the idea of a nature/mountain room for him. 

I did lots of speed painting and was able to finish this room in a weekend! With all my house projects done, I was ready to start my new job as Mrs. Excell on Monday. 

Ute Again to Me

It was with much hesitation and regret that we left the cool, mountain air to return to the desert heat. As soon as we were home and saw the week's weather forecast of consistent 110+ degree days, we were wondering why we hadn't stayed in Utah longer. We built a bike ramp to give ourselves a little boost as we returned to quarantine life. 

Our library opened back up for browsing. Much like a sassy first-grader, the library makes it very clear you look with your eyes and not with your hands. Anything you touch that you don't intend to take home with you must go immediately to an infectious shelf to be quarantined for three days before anyone else touches it. This proved to be a difficult concept for the five-and-under crowd. 

The heat became a lot easier to endure once the pools opened back up! We found a community pool that allows 50 people in for a 2-hour block of time. Plus, it's only $2.00 per person, so I pencil it into our schedules twice a week, call it swim lessons, and feel pretty accomplished by our afternoons splashing around. 

My boys have NOT been great swimmers. Last year they couldn't even tread water in the deep end. This year Eli made it a goal to jump off the diving board. I was super nervous by his ambition, but he was determined and spent the whole first session practicing to pass the swim test (swimming from wall to wall and back in the deep end) that would allow him to take his big jump. 

The mad man passed the swim test, but then I was nervous he wouldn't be able to figure out how to get himself to the top of the water after jumping off the board into deep water, because he wouldn't be able to push off the bottom of the pool to reemerge. As I explained this concept to Eli, I unintentionally psyched him out and got us both nervous about his goal. 

He kept going up to the diving board, and then turning around before stepping up onto it. Then he would step onto it and run back off of it. Then he'd walk to the edge, look down, and laugh and scurry back to safety. Before long the lifeguards were giving him pep talks, his brothers and I were cheering him on across the pool, and fellow swimmers were rooting for him. 

He finally did it! I was so proud of him for setting a goal and going after it even when it was scary. Now he's a diving board wizard! I can't keep him in shallow water anymore. His next goal is to actually dive off the diving board instead of just jump and I have full confidence he'll figure it out by the end of summer! (He's showing the sharpie they drew on his hand that shows he passed the swim test.)

Jonah is a wild man in the pool as well! He's surprisingly coordinated in the water and with his little puddle jumper, he...well...jumps! The first day of swimming we worked on going underwater and then we slowly worked up to him jumping into the pool. He loved it! He can now climb out of the pool and jump back in all by himself. It looks funny to see such a little guy uninterested in the kiddie area, but Jonah has always been one to keep up with his brothers, and he's done it again!

If you visit us in the summer, this is where we will go! 

We'd only been back in Vegas a couple of days before my brother Jacob began his persuasions to have us return. He'd decided to bring his family out to Utah and it's a lot easier for us to drive to Utah to see him than to Nebraska. We hadn't quite had our Utah fill yet, so we turned right back around to join in on the fun! Only trouble was I left Jeff behind this time as I road-tripped and adventured on my own with all four boys! 

Jacob did warn me that they basically wanted to do all the exact same things we had just done two weeks before, but we were down for some repeats! Deuel Creek Canyon (again).

Slurpees (new). 

We went to a park for an evening of kickball (new). 

Followed by a quick run through the sprinklers that eagerly cooled us down after we were done playing. 

If you didn't know Jeff wasn't with us before, you'd know it now by looking at Eli's hair for church. Jeff is the designated boy-cutener-upper, especially on Sunday mornings. 

Look, I did cuten up a couple of them. 

It's so fun to do church with my mom and have her use her old singing time props (again). 

On Monday we went to Bear Lake (again)! If I can make it to Bear Lake once in a summer, my summer wishes have all come true, twice in a summer = BEST SUMMER EVER!

Then we went on a new hike up Cottonwood Canyon to see wildflowers. Ideally, we would have made it to Cecret Lake as well, but the heat and the heated temperaments suggested we make it a shorter hike. 

"B-E-A-UTAH-Ful!" -Pinterest

If you sing "Make way for Prince Ali!" from Aladdin but substitute "King Jonah" for "Prince Ali," you will have recreated the soundtrack of our wildflower hike. Give Jonah a stick and he turns into King Jonah. Give him a flock of cousins bowing down to him as though he's really a king, and this three-year-old's happily on a high horse that he's never coming down from. 

You can feel his unauthorized power now that you know it's there. 

I loved this hike! The wildflowers were so pretty. It felt like we were at girls' camp. With family. And with showers. 

Something we did not have on our list the first time we went to Utah (and maybe shouldn't have been on the list the second time either) was a trip to Dugway, Utah to hunt geodes. Did I know what geodes were before my trip to Utah? No. Did I think I could travel 6-hours round trip by myself with four boys? Barely. Did I know I'd be driving a total of 100 miles on a dirt road? Yes. Was I up for the adventure? Absolutely...

Because I had a sneaking suspicion my boys would jump at the chance to swing a pickaxe. 

As it turns out, this day trip was Carson's favorite part of our Utah 2.0 vacation. So was the Dugway excursion worth it? 100%. 

Would I do it again? Definitely not in the summer. Highly recommend this outing in the spring or fall for those brave enough to do it.

Becky threw shade at me the whole day. And by that I mean it was her idea to bring the canopy. Prayer hands to Becky.

You know we had to do a Mueller Park Cookout again! But what we didn't know at the time of this picture was that Lincoln would fall off of that log Becky's perched on.

Dallas actually happened to get a picture of The Log of Doom. While we took the above picture, I saw the log and I was like, "That log is really high. It would be bad if somebody fell off of that with the jagged rocks underneath and everything." Becky agreed. Then we were like, "Okay kids, have fun! See you later! We're going to go eat Starbursts and marshmallows. Live your lives. Peace!" 

And we ate. And we chatted. And we had a merry old time. Until we heard a shriek coming from the direction of the log. As the shriek persisted, I realized it was Lincoln's shriek. My motherly instincts reminded me kids overreact and he was probably fine. But then I remembered The Log of Doom and I was sure we were headed to the hospital.

 Jacob was the first to arrive to the scene where kids were yelling, "He's bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeding!" Lincoln hobbled over towards us with blood running down the front of his face. I picked him up and was too scared to look at him. Jacob, Becky, and Haley all tended to his injuries. There was a lot of blood, but once we got him wiped up it seemed like he just got a bloody nose and maybe bit his cheek and had blood coming from his mouth from that. It looked really bad at first but he was back to his normal? self in no time. :)

We realized Lincoln wasn't wet after he fell, and Eli confirmed that Lincoln hadn't fallen off the highest part of the log, he had fallen right at the beginning onto the dirt and not onto the rocks. Thank goodness for that! I'm so grateful that didn't turn out to be a scarier situation, and I maybe should have paid attention to those initial concerns I had about the log when we first saw it. 

After another fun week in Utah, it was time to go (again). The boys started their road trip back home early while I cleaned up the basement. They were "in a Jeep driving to California." They played like this for two hours that morning and upon reflecting on our week, Lincoln announced the Jeep as his favorite part. Ha! 

We came back to Vegas to learn our school had announced all distance learning for at least the first quarter of the school year...which kind of made us want to turn right back around to escape Coronavirus reality one more time.