Tag: #School

  • Sunday Night Blues

    There are many milestones that we have hit in my young daughter’s life. The vast majority of them are fun and exciting, like Christmas morning, or learning to read.

    And then there was last night, Sunday night, where the kid got very cranky and withdrawn, which is not like her. The wife and I both took turns trying to get out of her, what the problem was. Finally she admitted that she hates Sunday Night’s because the weekend if over.

    Ahhh… The Sunday Night Blues; when one gets the sinking feeling in their stomach that the fun of the weekend is over and they have to return to work/school.

    I was a little surprised because the kid loves school. One of the side effects of the pandemic in our household has been a very strong desire of our daughter to be in a school, surrounded by kids, teachers, and the ability to learn. So, to hear her express her own version of the Sunday Blues was a little sad for me. But I also know it was inevitable.

    I hated Sunday nights for a very long time. I remember being little, eating Sunday dinner, and then watching 60 Minutes, and Murder, She Wrote, and that feeling slowly creeping over me that the good times of the weekend were coming to an end. That I would have to go back to school, and deal with fractions, and remainders, and bullies, and girls, and bus rides and all of that stuff that worried me as a kid. Even as an adult, I would still try and stay up as late as possible on Sunday night, avoiding going to bed, knowing it was a fruitless exercise, that I would still have to sit through passive aggressive staff meetings the next day.

    Sunday nights are still a little weird for me in this new reality. I may not have to go to an office full of assholes, which is clearly a plus, but there is a routine of the week which starts over again, and I have responsibilities to keep. But I don’t dread Monday. Dreading the next day is the worst.

    Now that this milestone has arisen for my daughter, I now wish it would have been kept at bay for a while longer. It’s normal to be a little sad when the fun comes to an end. I just hope I can help the kid to keep looking forward to tomorrow.

  • School’s Back, For-Ever!

    The first thing that took me by surprise this morning was the amount of people on the streets. I went to walk the dog early, 7:30am, and I was taken aback by everyone being out. It almost felt like the New York of old, before the pandemic. I mean, I know why. Today is the first day of school, and for many companies, the first day back in the office.

    But the big deal is school being back, and in person. The kid could barely sleep last night, and she was up at the crack of dawn, and ready to go. She had been counting down the days for the past two weeks, and I would say that this first day of school was close to as exciting as Christmas morning.

    Last night, we let her pick out the clothes she wanted to ware today. We took time packing all of her school supplies, and taking pictures. It was starting to feel very real for us as well. Soon, she will be out of the house, and back with kids, learning and having all the adventures that come with a school day.

    I won’t lie, things did not go smoothly getting into the school, and getting settled in the classroom. BUT! I didn’t expect it to go swimmingly on the first day. I don’t even expect that it will go well for the first week even. Tomorrow will be better, and the day after that will be a little better as well. No one has done this for a year and a half, so let’s all cut each other some slack.

    Because, the kids are back in school. And that’s a win.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Coffee Mugs in Cars, Nothing But Ads, and the Last Weekend

    “Odds and Ends” is my continuing series of random thoughts and follow ups…

    There are many things that I don’t get about this world. One of them is people who take coffee mugs, full of coffee into their cars. I’m not talking a thermos, or a travel mug. No, what I am talking about are people who take a normal, regular coffee mug with them in their car. How do they stop it from spilling? Is there a secret to this? It just seems like uncovered vessels that contain liquid in a car is a recipe for a disaster.

    Not that I spend a bunch of time on FaceBook anymore, but I was scrolling through this morning, and I noticed that about half of the postings on my feed were sponsored posts. I have one from NEWSMAX, which if the algorithm was working correctly, should know that type of post would find not purchase in my feed. I am sure this has to do with my lack of interaction with the site. So, if I keep up this level of inactivity, in like two years, my feed with be nothing but sponsored posts?

    So, not that this is a big deal, but this is the last weekend of Summer Vacation. Eleven weeks went flying by, and we are ready for school to start on Monday. We got the school shopping done, talked to the kid about have to wear a mask all day. The wife and I talked about what the morning routine will need to be, because we haven’t had to do this since March 2020. It also means the end of Dad teaching school, and playing board games, and Barbies. No more pirate ship and puppet shows. It needs to come to an end, as the kid needs to be back in school and around her friends. This was a special time together, and I don’t know if I will even get this much father/daughter time again. But the other side of this is that she will get that spark of excitement of learning, and the daily victories and defeats that come with friendships. She’ll start becoming her own person, independent of her parents, as it should be.

  • Planning for Fall?

    Summer’s over. It was a fast ten weeks for us, as that’s what the wife and I were saying to each other last night. We do have one final week until the kid starts school on Monday, but let’s be honest, it’s not much of a Summer week, being that we will be spending our time preparing for the start of classes.

    And it wasn’t that great of a Summer. I give it two and a half stars. And I will blame it all on the Delta Variant, and the half of the country that didn’t get vaccinated, for whatever reason that I don’t agree with, but here we are. The ability to return back to normal never materialized. Having normal fun with people? Not so much. A return to unobstructed travel wasn’t really possible either.. And now we are left with an Autumn that looks like it will be filled with anxiety and stress.

    But still, last night on the sofa, as we mourned our lost Summer, we still found ourselves falling into our old positive ways. We talked about our plans for the rest of the year; patching and painting the apartment, hanging new shelves in the kid’s room to free up floor space, getting tickets for the Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze in October, making the kid’s Halloween costume, Thanksgiving, and the Granddaddy of all planning, Christmas! We even kidded about going back to Maine next Summer.

    With everything happening, and it is STILL HAPPENING, we find ourselves being optimistic, and trying to plan for a better tomorrow.

    I don’t think we are being delusional, just hopeful.

  • Summer is Almost Over

    We have eighteen days until the kid starts school, which means that we have eighteen days left of Summer. It was a busy summer with day camps, visiting friends, and a vacation to boot. This made those first nine weeks fly by. Looking at the final two weeks, I have this feeling that we don’t have enough time to get ready for school, and the new routine that will follow.

    We’ll have to do some school shopping. We were able to get a rain coat for the kid while up in Maine, but she needs a new winter coat and winter shoes. Let’s not forget that out kid shot up a whole inch this Summer, so we need to do another round of clothes shopping. And school supplies. Always needing school supplies.

    Then there is the anxiety of the Fall. We were told, and our planning, on having the kid attend in person class, but with everything going on, I don’t feel like that is a guarantee. I have this nagging thought in the back of my head that if things get worse with Delta, then we might have to do remote school again. This is one of the reasons why I haven’t taken the kids “school corner” down in the living room. The other is that I am lazy.

    I fear if we do remote school again, that it will just crush all of us. The kid has told me that she wants to be back at school to see her friends, learn, and have fun. She’s excited about being there, and I want her to have that. For the wife and I, school means a return to normal. It means the chance for me to go get a part time job, and help us dig out of the financial hole we are in. And also, school means that I get a little time to write as well.

    So much still feels up in the air, but everything has been up in the air for like two years now. I wouldn’t say we are getting used to it, but we would like a break from this ride. Just eighteen days till the next chapter.