63 days of homeschool total
4 Google/Zoom meetings today (but all fun ones)
3 offers made on our current house
2 days until moving day
1 day until we close on the new house
1 accepted offer on our old house
0 days until our final walk-through of the new house!
0 days of homeschool left for the year!
To quote Barry Manilow, "looks like we made it!" We survived 63 days of homeschool, 96 days of quarantine, and buying one house and selling another with minimal human contact. And through a combination of hard work, good luck, and support from innumerable other people on many fronts, we're all still reasonably happy, healthy, financially sound, and talking to each other.
We rock.
As is nearly always true of the last day of school, we have no intentions of doing anything productive today. We have minimal desk equivalents to clean out, merely a couple of clipboards, a few pencils, and a large carrel of magic markers that can be tossed into a box. Our goodbyes to classmates and teachers will be part of a few virtual meetings (one for my son's whole grade and one for each child's class). My husband and I are heading off as soon as those calls finish to do our final walk-through of the new house, which also happens to be only the second time I have been inside the house in person (admittedly, I have been touring the online 3D Matterport presentation OBSESSIVELY for weeks), so I am excited enough about that to be completely useless otherwise anyway.
So here's the little that we did do today, as we bid farewell to grades 3 and 4, and to Northeast Elementary and all the lovely teachers and staff we had the pleasure of working with there.
7-8:30am: My son set his alarm for 5:45am and attempted to immediately creep downstairs. Unfortunately for him, an insomniac mom will not let you get away with that, and he was sent back to bed until 6:30 - except that I heard him creeping down again at 6 and I was too tired to yell again so I just let him go. Not the hill I want to die on today. (I have, however, committed myself to checking his Alexa alarm nightly when I go to bed in the future.) I had promised to make French toast for breakfast (mainly because I want to use up the open carton of eggs and most of the last loaf of bread), so I made myself a cup of coffee (only 2 K-cups left on the counter now!) and got cooking. I realized that I had packed the nice pair of pants that I was planning on wearing to both the walk-through and the closing, so it looks like I'll be wearing either jeans or yoga pants to the lawyer's office tomorrow. Oops. At least I'll be wearing a mask so they won't see how embarrassed I am.
8:30-10am: I'm letting them do pretty much anything they want as long as it's not video games. I was going to prohibit screens entirely, but they both like reading on the Epic website, and they even like playing math games some of the time. Also, the teachers have posted a few virtual field trips that they haven't taken yet (including Disney's Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom), so I'm leaving all those as options. My daughter found some more virtual field day activities, and he joined her for a bit but then I found them outside, just chilling like this.
While they do that, I'm packing up the approximately 300 mugs that survived my initial mug purge. OK, it's not really 300, but it feels that way when you have a limited amount of bubble wrap. I also took everything that's left in the kitchen and put it on the counters. And it FITS there. I consider this a major accomplishment. I'm rewarding myself with a bag of peanut M&Ms, mainly because I found it in a cabinet and I don't want to pack it but it seems a waste to throw it out.
10-11am: My son is back to virtual field trips of various Disney properties. My daughter has requested a swim in the pool, so I'm about to sit myself in the sunshine for a while and supervise.
11-11:30am: My son joined my daughter in the pool. It's an absolutely gorgeous pool day.
11:30am-12pm: Lunch break and free time.
12-1pm: My son has a Google Classroom Meeting with the entire 4th grade; my daughter is continuing with her free time.
1-2pm: Both kids have a final Google Classroom Meeting with their classes. Mostly it's a nice chance to say goodbye to everyone and tell a little about their summer plans (not that anyone really knows what their summer plans will be, at this point). And then they signed off and have officially completed 3rd and 4th grade!
We don't have any time to revel in their freedom with them, because my husband and I are off for the final walk-through of our new house. But there is a bottle of prosecco with our names on it chilling in the (otherwise empty) wine fridge. We'll have to drink it out of red Solo cups, but it will taste all the sweeter for it.
Thanks for joining us on our journey through COVID-19 homeschool! And you're welcome to continue joining me for our continuing adventures as we settle in to our new home. Have a fabulous, safe, and restful summer, everyone!!
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