I won't go into what's happened over the past 3 years, that would take forever, so I'll just update on our current situation.
We are quarantined due to Covid-19, just like most of the world! We've been home for over a month. I go to the grocery store a couple of times a week, but that's it. The kids' Kindergarten year was cut short, and we're doing school work from home. It's not as bad as it could be! They have to do 3 assignments a week and work on the iPad to do math and reading. Luckily we're all healthy and so are our friends and family.
We had some porch photos done by a local photographer. I tried to keep it as real as possible, but did do my hair and make up!
It's been very hard to have everyone home 24 hours a day for the past few weeks. I got very used to having time to myself while Mark went to work and the kids went to school. I'd run errands and volunteer at the school during the week. Now they never leave! The silver lining is that we are spending a lot of time together doing things that we don't typically have time for. We go on bike rides everyday and play in the backyard constantly.
Mark is a League City volunteer firefighter now, which has been keeping him busy along with working from home.
I've done some sewing, which I haven't done in quite awhile. I've got a few quilts in the works. I'm also cooking my kids what seems like 45 meals a day (They eat so much!) and making sure they get all of their school work and reading done.
Emily and Tripp are doing speech therapy through Zoom meetings with their speech teacher. It's been really fun to watch. A month ago Emily couldn't say her L sound no matter how much we tried to work with her on it and she has it now! They play Candy Land, their teacher gives them a sentence to say with the sounds they're working on and once they get the sentence correct, they get to make a move on the game. They love it!
It's been cool to see the differences in how they each learn and do their work. I had an idea, but hearing it from their teachers and actually seeing it is very different.
Emily is a people-pleaser. She does whatever she's asked and writes sentence stems exactly how they're supposed to be. When she has to draw a picture and label parts, it's usually a little messy, but she wants to make sure that her teacher can understand it. She practices writing her letters and numbers the right way and makes sure she knows what she's going to say before I start a video if she has to submit a video with what she learned. During the video she stiffens up and speaks quickly, then waves and says good bye. She's doing really well with this whole distance learning thing. She stays up in her bed at night and writes us notes that she gives us the next morning! She reads books that are way above her reading level. It's very impressive!
Ella is very much a little artist and it shows in all of her assignments. If she has to draw a rose, she draws a whole rose bush, complete with soil, roots, leaves, thorns, and a butterfly somewhere near it. She labels everything very neatly and makes sure it's spelled correctly. She sometimes focuses more on the art than on the writing, but she always fixes the writing afterward. She has neat handwriting and takes her time forming her numbers and letters. Her video submissions always start with "Hi Ms. Goddard, I miss you," and end with, "I love you Ms. Goddard!" She misses her teacher and her friends.
Tripp qualified for GT this year (we haven't told them that they were tested or that he is the only one who qualified this year). His brain has always worked a little differently. He likes to create things. Last week he decided he wanted a solar system in his room, so he built one! He found a book about the whole solar system and made each planet. They're now hanging from his ceiling around his room. His assignments take a little more time. He gets distracted very easily! His work is usually very messy and I try to get him to fix it, but he insists that his teacher will love it. He's right, too. Everything I send in to her she absolutely loves! I'm not sure how she reads some of it or differentiates between things he's labeled, but I guess as a Kinder teacher, she's gotten pretty good at it! His video submissions are always completely improvised. I try to get him to tell me what he's going to say beforehand, but he always says he knows what he'll say. His videos are usually longer than his sisters' because he has random ideas and facts that he shares in between sentences. For instance, today he was showing off his drawing of our pepper plant. He sat next to the actual plant during the video. He was telling her the parts that he labeled and his sentence stem, but kept interrupting himself to say things like, "Peppers are very spicy. These are the spiciest peppers in the world," and, "I will never eat these spicy peppers. We're only growing them for my Aunt Laina. She loves them," and, "Oh look, I found a new little pepper growing." It's difficult to keep him on task! I knew this before, but it's more challenging when I'm trying to get him to do work to turn in!
The kids were in separate classes for Kindergarten. It was hectic for us, but the kids did really well with it. They each have their own teacher and friends and their own experiences. The girls have decided that they want to be in the same class in 1st grade. Tripp wants to be in a class without his sisters again.
I'm going to try to update much more often than every 3 years. We'll see if I stick to it!
