Weird

My older son's first journal entry of first grade.

"My first week of school was weird."

Indeed.

All virtual, at home with iPads, video classes, and remote work. Sitting around the house in various places. Just like my work has been for the past six months.

Thank you pandemic.

It's been especially hard on our younger son, who is just starting kindergarten. All of that excitement about getting to go to a new school with peers and older kids turned to disappointment. And he's the one extrovert in a family of introverts, so the isolation has been especially hard on him.

Here's my first report from Facebook:

So far the first day of two-kid virtual school has been for them a mix of moderate engagement, mild letdown (with kindergarten), tech issues, and feral resistance. It doesn't help that they have completely opposite schedules for lunch and recess breaks, so the one who's supposed to be engaged sees the other letting loose, then vice versa.

The second day was much worse. The kindergartener decided he was done after the first hour, and we spent the rest of the day fighting to get him back engaged. Things are better now, but still a struggle.

Since I'm on the subject of the kids, a few more recent anecdotes.

Virtual school adventures: when your son bursts in while you're using the bathroom and you can't stop him because he's retrieving a toothbrush for the scavenger hunt during remote live PE class.

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[Older] is in time out on his loft bed for kicking his brother and I have been overhearing him talk to himself. I just realized he's doing a color commentary play by play of his clear view from his bed of Uncle and [Younger] playing soccer!

Between all of the commentated marble racing, battle bots, and similar that he's watched, he has developed a habit of doing commentary for much of his life. His world is a very dramatic one.

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Just overheard [Younger], playing a video game with headphones, talking to himself: "So I've learned a lesson: be aware . . . of some stuff."

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Uh-oh. [Older]'s teacher just asked another student what the tooth fairy brought them and the answer was $10. He lost his first tooth last week and only got $1 . . . oh, phew, he's still happy because it was a silver dollar.

And I want to preserve this one to revisit in the distant future. It's something my wife wrote about the older to introduce him to his new teacher.

He loves learning more than most of the kids you have ever taught, prefers adult attention to peers, loves running, loves playing piano, loves writing his own stories, loves art projects, loves cats, loves science experiments and DIY Sci, loves wearing dresses and clothes/colors that society calls "girl clothes", prefers his hair long "because it looks better with princess dresses," loves gymnastics, is passionate about Lego, has excellent and safe knife and microwave skills in the kitchen, obsesses over a parent-censored  "Hamilton" and has nearly every word of what he is allowed to watch memorized, has most recently become passionate about snakes, building both his own robots and marble racing tracks.  If you want to know all of the species of snake that live in Australia and all hundred names of the individual marbles in the YouTube marble races, he's your kid.  He is being raised to embrace differences (he is very different himself) and has attended some BLM family-friendly protests over the past few months.  He has an above-average understanding of social justice issues for a first grader. 

Last year's teacher has probably told you he can have a very difficult time keeping his hands off his peers if he's hot, tired, bored, or hungry. If he eats sugary things like gummies, he will become unconsciously aggressive with his peers. We limit carbs at home and match them with a protein.  He frequently has to be reminded to eat at meal times, as he'd rather be working on a project. 

We intentionally stopped teaching him this summer and did not do any reading, as he was just getting too far ahead: adding three digit numbers, reading chapter books on his own. He has been bored with the math apps; he finds them repetitive "can we just move on already!"  His mom has a strong math and science background, so taught him double and triple digit addition (introduced the way it is currently taught with number bonds etc.)  and the beginning concepts of multiplication with pencil and paper and he loved that.  His favorite part of school-at-home was doing long SPONGEs. If he's bored when everyone returns physically to school, just throw a really complicated series of sentences at him to copy and it will settle him.  He loves geography, but has not been very interested in acquiring foreign language skills (his Mom speaks French and we've tried Spanish with him).  No reading or advanced math for three months now, so he should not get too bored for you. 

His boredom is his worst enemy.  He is a highly self-motivated learner.  My apologies if he corrects your "good" and "well" (Mom).  His excitement about learning and sharing what he knows will make him your "child most likely to interrupt while you're teaching" award winner.  His parents know his flaws and hold him accountable, but will check him privately to avoid shaming him and teach him the value of respecting others even when they make mistakes. 

We try to be proactive with helping him control his temper and desire to lash out physically with others.  He has really grown in this area since Covid, and we're proud for him that he has progressed.  We also work to tame his perfectionist instincts.  He has a greater-than-average self-awareness if you talk with him about his feelings and choices. 

Our goal is to make life easier for you and we will throw our kid under the bus if he has done something wrong.  If you ever feel that we aren't supporting you, please tell us.  We may be unaware there's a need, or we may be addressing it without your knowledge. We may be a bit helicoptery, but we'll take your side over our kid's and we want our kids to know that they earn what they achieve through hard work and tenacity and not through Mom and Dad doing it for them. 

Ask him our Family Rules: 1. Mom and Dad love you no matter what. 2. Tell the truth even if it's hard, even if you might get in trouble, and even if no one is watching.  3. Respect your body--especially your brain.  4. Be kind to everyone, even if they aren't kind to you; include everyone, especially if they're alone.  5. Secrets are only for birthdays and presents.  6.  If you hold Mom or Dad's hand, you can tell them anything and they won't get mad and we can figure out consequences together.  7. It is never okay to hurt someone; take a deep breath and walk away.  8. The only person in our family who is perfect is Rainbow, the cat, because she's puuurrrrfect.

He doesn't know this yet, but we are about to have two new kittens join our family and he will be over the moon to tell you alllll about them, as he has already met them.

They're supposed to transition to in-person school at the end of next month, but we'll see. The pandemic carries on, with no clear end in sight.

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This is one of three posts about the state of my world today. For other topics, see:

• "Turbulence"
• Cryptid Crossing