Here we are, a few weeks into our new normal. Routines are starting to set in and I can’t say that they’re good ones. What began as a slight inconvenience has turned into a bit of a free-for-all. Morning wake up and bed times are very blurry. There are no real meals, minus dinner, which I’m supposed to have a plan for, of course.
School is vague at best. There are “suggested assignments” for continued learning, but nothing will be graded. So you can imagine how motivated the kids are to get those assignments turned in. There are a million emails from three different schools, but none of them giving any clear answers. Bless the teachers who are doing their best to communicate and check in with their students.
I started these first two paragraphs a couple of hours before our governor officially announced that our schools would remain closed through the remainder of the school year. Andy was outside talking to our neighbor, Josie was doing her piano lesson via FaceTime, and Coleman and Judah and I watched the press conference. We had tried to prepare the kids for the possibility that they wouldn’t be going back to school, but the news still stung.
We’re dealing with a 6th grader in her last year of elementary school, an 8th grader in his last year of middle school, and a senior in high school who won’t go to prom, won’t have his senior awards, senior breakfast, or get to show his many art pieces he has been working on for the art expo at the end of the year. The list has grown of disappointments.
And yet we are safe and healthy, able to work from home, have amazing neighbors, family that are all healthy; so many things to be grateful for. Life could be so much worse and my heart breaks for those who are suffering right now. We will continue to give thanks each and every day, but for tonight, it’s okay to be disappointed.
