Day Fifty-Seven

THREE MORE WEEKS. I CAN SURVIVE THREE MORE WEEKS.

Ahem.

I'm not talking about the quarantine or working from home or the home school thing or any of that, I am speaking very specifically about Mila's kindergarten teacher. Look, she's not my favorite. I have a whole list of reasons and those reasons are exactly why I'm not going to bother to address the thing that sent Mila over the edge today.

This morning was the third Zoom meeting for Mila's class. They have one per week for half an hour, and the entire half hour is the teacher trying to find the "mute" and "unmute" buttons. She isn't brave enough to lay out the rules and trust the kids to follow them, which sounds smart, but I've seen for myself that they do know how to be polite humans. Mila has Zoom meetings for dance and cheer and the occasional one I set up with her friends and they somehow always manage to know when to be quiet and when it's their turn to talk. It's impressive, actually. Like, they could teach some adults. Regardless, Mila's teacher hasn't given it a try, which means she is stuck with this awkward thing where she asks a question, all the kids raise their hands that they know the answer, and then the teacher hunts and pecks to find a kid to unmute so they can say one or two words before going back on mute.

It is every bit as painful as you think it is. But, whatever, if that's what it takes for the teacher to be comfortable, it's fine. The tediousness of the whole thing wasn't what sent Mila over the edge.

The thing that sent Mila over the edge is the thing where she never got a turn. 20 minutes into today's class, the teach had asked over 20 questions and Mila had raised her hand to answer every single one. But she didn't get picked a single time. Some kid named Parker had answered four questions, so ... well, I have a guess. I am guessing that it's a little hard to click and scroll through over 20 little circles in Zoom, so there reached a point when the teacher started repeating students. She very likely had no idea she had done it. I'm absolutely certain it wasn't purposeful.

None of that matters when you're five. Mila burst into tears and threw herself to the floor and that was that. She was done with seeing her class and refused to participate in any way, shape, or form.

I ain't mad. I get how it looks from her perspective.

Still, it's not worth saying anything because I do not have 30 minutes to be lectured by an incredibly condescending teacher who is way outside of her comfort zone and doing what she can to just get by. I may not like her, but I do see the challenges she's trying to work through.

The whole thing is just dumb. So ... Three weeks. We just need to get by for three more weeks.

Day Fifty-Six

Real question: Are y'all wearing different clothes every day? Because we super are not. I think I've worn a total of three different shirts over the course of the past three weeks. The shirt of the day is always clean; it's just that it seems dumb to put laundry away and rotate around when the only people who see me are the people who live in this house. Given that they also pull their wardrobe choices from the clean clothes basket every morning, why bother?

Nobody around here is judging anybody's fashion choices.

I'm certainly not judging Mila's.

She has worn almost exclusively her frog boots for weeks now. The only time she mixes it up is when she remembers that she owns flip-flops. As for clothes? She keeps wearing the same two dresses over and over. I could get her to swap things out, but why? She can wear the same thing every day if she wants. It's fine, just as long as she's generally clean, right?

GO WITH ME ON THIS.

Even Alexis, she of much fashion expertise, has resorted to a couple of sweatshirts and black leggings. The only difference is that I can't even tell if she's changing pants because every pair of black leggings looks exactly like the other.

I'm probably going to burn every one of the outfits we keep wearing when this is all over. Until then, viva la simplicity!

Day Fifty-Five

You know what this global pandemic needs? Especially when there is actual food in my house, which apparently only happens for pandemics? It needs a kid to choose to be vegan again. Why not? Why not render half the snacks in the pantry and most of the fridge off limits! Good job, Alexis!

Really, it's fine. She can eat or not eat what she wants. It's such a slippery slope from vegetarian to vegan anyway, I guess. (Not really. DAIRY. COME TO ME, DAIRY.)

Anyway, the one thing that Alexis has been struggling with since going vegan again is dressing. She loves ranch dressing and sorry, kid. That one can be made vegan, but it's better to find a new favorite dressing. Like Greek.

So I dug up this old recipe especially for Alexis. Greek Dressing is my personal favorite, so it's fine. We have a something like a gallon of it, but it's fine. I'll throw it on top of a salad with olives and feta and then let Alexis stare longingly at my feta. Because feta. Cheese. Mmmm.

See, this is why I'm not vegan.

Greek Salad Dressing

1 cup light virgin olive oil
1 cup red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried basil
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon onion powder
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons pepper
2 teaspoons dijon mustard (great recipe here)

1. Put everything in a jar, put a lid on it, and shake. And shake. And shake. It's like any other oil-based dressing and needs to be shaken right before use. You don't need to refrigerate it, by the way.

2. Be in awe of how easy that was and how much better that dressing tastes than any other you've ever had.