The year 2020…
Well this has been an interesting year to say the least and we are not yet finished but we are trying our best to get back into a routine now that school is less than a week away.
Everything looks different this year. Many people are working remotely, there’s less traveling, less quick errands, more time with your immediate family, and everyone is trying to keep sane while juggling old and new situations.
Some people are enjoying this time while others are seriously struggling and many people are somewhere in between, depending on the day, minute, hour, leaning towards one side or the other, like the Weeble Wobble toys from childhood.
This year was supposed to be MY year! Both my kids were going to the same school and schedule! This was going to give me time to explore and create in the kitchen. These experiments were leading towards a huge goal- opening My Cecelia’s home bakery. As we all know “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry…” and boy did 2020 throw a wrench in there. Everything is on hold for the bakery but time moves on, and with that, the school year is quickly approaching but in a much different way.
We live in Massachusetts, where many towns gave families a choice of how they would like to attend school. Our decision was remote learning through our district. We weighed all the options and still ended up making our final decision at the eleventh hour. It was a really tough choice and even though there is no right or wrong it was still so hard to make.
Here is a quick list of the positives and negatives of remote learning for our family.
Positives:
We will all be home together as a family.
I will be able to help the kids if they are stuck on any assignment (unless it’s math, that’s dad’s domain!)
My Cecelia will always have safe meals and not have anxiety of what other kids are bringing into the classroom to eat.
My Cecelia will have all her own school supplies and not worry about someone else touching her things by mistake.
We will have three safe meals together everyday.
We will be in a pod learning group so our kids will be able to interact with children their own age.
Negatives:
We are all home together everyday as a family (it’s been six months now we could all use a break once in awhile)
We all miss our school friends and seeing them regularly in person.
School is on a computer rather than a classroom.
It’s harder to learn social cues on a computer than seeing and learning in person.
We are all completely out of our element due to this new way of learning.
Being a teacher’s assistant, nurse, personal chef, mother, and every other role that might be needed is a lot to handle.
This school year will be a test- a test on our compassion, caring, stress, patience, and love. But no matter what we will get through this and come out hopefully better on the other side.
Be well, be healthy, and keep moving forward!