Elisablog: Into The Unknown

This might be a bit harder than I thought.

Not necessarily the homeschooling part, we're at a good place with that aspect. It took a while (which is why those of you with kids suddenly off of school should *not* panic!), because we basically had to find our rhythm and figure out how to get everyone's needs met while having babies and toddlers underfoot. It still gets sticky at times, but we've kind of found a groove.

What's going to be hard is not having our outside activities to break up our day. Vivian usually has piano lessons on Monday, which means school and things need to be done and picked up by 4:30. Elisabeth has to be at her high school by 11:15 to get to her first class of the day on time, which means that now our morning routine doesn't have a definitive time to be done.

No play practices, no times that neighborhood friends come home from school, no kids asking if our kids can play that gives us all a much needed break from each other (sibling bickering is strong with my crew).

It kind of dawned on me today that our new routine during these weeks of quarantine is going to be a lot like how it was first starting out with full time homeschooling--a big learning curve. We're going to have to figure out how to live together-together. Like the Ingalls. We're like full up Little House on the Prairie-ing it up now, just with occasional trips to Walmart's pick up lane.

I think there's going to be a lot of fighting and crabbiness while we learn to carve out alone time in this house and how to always be around each other in a way we've never really had to be before. It isn't like a few snow days where we're all cooped up with movies and hot cocoa and a few days off of our normal routines. We're being forced to actually change our routine.

One thing that I am trying to be mature about is that I will not be getting any alone/away time for a loooooooooooong time. I have a sitter that comes each Wednesday for a couple of hours to watch the younger four kids while I get away and read a book at my favorite coffee shop. I usually go and run errands or grocery shop solo on weekends or after Elisabeth gets home from school. Evan and I try to go out for dinner alone every month or so. I think I am going to to have figure out how I can institute some alone time in my room. I'm sure no one will mind my disappearing regularly...

So, we're going to be doing learning as usual, but I'm going to try to implement more down time. I've never really had a designated quiet time, but I think we're going to all really need to add this to our schedule. I also would like to set up some goals, both domestic (all the cleaning and organizing!!) and personal (I'm looking at you TBR pile).

I'm thankful this is happening in as the weather is getting warmer all the time and I can kick kids outside. I'm thankful for the ability to still be able to connect with others through social medias and phones. I'm thankful for this space as somewhere where I can dump my thoughts and try to process this all. I'm also thankful to Disney+ for releasing Frozen II early because it truly was such a treat for them and they have watched it a million times already!