Entries by burghbaby (5692)
Friday, August 28, 2020Day One Hundred Sixty
Mila super doesn't know how to live for today. As much as every minute of her life has been spent in search of joy, she tends to focus on the next big thing. Always. She plans birthday parties years ahead. She talks about vacations that won't happen for decades. The next three holidays? We have to talk about them daily.
That means she has been talking about Halloween for months. MONTHS.
The conversation has changed a bit now that the realities of COVID-19 are starting to mean something to her. She went from being dead-set on trick-or-treating to now being a bit more doubtful about what may lie ahead.
And she was worried. A lot worried.
She wants to dress up. She wants candy. Those are the two aspects of Halloween that mean the most to her.
And, thus, I morphed an old idea with a new one and proposed a little something to Mila. I told her that if we aren't able to trick-or-treat, I will still make it A Very Big Night. I have promised to hide candy all over the house, spooky up the place, and turn off all the lights. Then Mila, armed with a flashlight and a bucket, will get to find as much candy as she can.
Mila LOVED the idea. She excitedly explained it to Alexis, who instantly was all, "I hope we don't get to trick-or-treat! That sounds more fun!" and the two of them have been all in on the idea since. They have even given me a list of candy to buy because it occurred to them that they can control what they will find, rather than having to deal with the crap shoot that is the neighbors' stash.
And they've been planning costumes. Together. Apparently Alexis is more interested in doing the costume thing when she likely won't run into friends from school?
Whatever.
We shall see what happens, but I have to admit Plan B is starting to sound more fun than Plan A to me as well. So, screw you COVID-19. Frank the Spider will come out to play and I will end up with a nice stash of Watchamacallits. BAM!
Day One Hundred Fifty-Nine
Only time will tell if any of us got this whole school thing right, but the girls are trying REAL hard to make me start to form an opinion now.
It's been months since I made the decision to withdraw from our school district and go with a public cyber school. There were a lot of factors, of course, but a big one is that I needed some sort of stability. I can deal with the girls being gone all day, home all day, needing a ride, not needing a ride, whatever ... but it needs to be consistent. I don't have the schedule flexibility or brain cells required to be at the mercy of other people and things right now. When so much is unknown, one thing needed to be known.
There have been lots of times that I hesitated when thinking about that decision. The fact of the matter is that anyone who says they know what to do is a liar. Nobody has the answers. We're all doing the best we can with limited data and ugh. UGH. It's a lot of suck.
The girls have had moments of thinking the decision sucked, too. Of course they want to spend their days with their friends. Mila's understanding of the situation is different from Alexis', of course, so it's a frequent topic at our house. Still, GLOBAL PANDEMIC. Be glad you have each other. This will end. Embrace the suck!
They have both embraced the suck. They had orientation today in preparation for school starting next week. Spending an hour learning about how to access their online classes led to them both logging in and ... starting their classes. Alexis already finished her first two days worth of school and Mila is done with one.
On their own.
Without my help.
Because they wanted to do it.
They might miss their friends (...we all do), but it looks like they're really going to like this new approach to academics.
