Week 353: Scoot

As I think I've mentioned, we are not the most assiduous home-schoolers. But, between the age and temperament of our kids and the fact that both Papa Bear and I made conscious choices to pursue careers in fields other than elementary education, it's just not our thing. Nonetheless, we got a clear direction from Lemon's teacher once the schools closed that Lemon was to catch up to where he was supposed to be in Lexia, the literacy app that the school uses. And he was to do this by doing about 15 minutes per day of lessons. This goal was both concrete and seemed within the bounds of what our little family could accomplish. And so, every morning we worked at it. Until, finally, last week, Lemon completed the level that he was supposed to complete and earned his big prize: a scooter! Of course, Lime got one too, for being so cooperative about letting his brother concentrate. Or, that's what we're going with, anyhow.





It's hard to believe that we have an "end of year" conference with Lemon's teacher next week, and Lime's school is scheduling a drive-by event to wave at the teachers and pick up stuff that was left at school. It definitely has an anticlimactic feel to it. This was my last year with a preschooler, and I sort of thought the end of that time would feel like more of a watershed moment than it does. Especially since I had thought all along that the end of preschool would mean the end of the crazy schedule our family has been operating under for the past 5 years, and perhaps the beginning of something more tractable. With all the rumors flying around about what public elementary school will actually look like in the fall, who knows? But, one week at a time.






Otherwise, things continue to move forward in our quarantine life. There was no Memorial Day parade today of course, but Papa Bear organized a Transformers parade on our porch that the kids enjoyed. We worked in the garden, scooted around the neighborhood, made more ice cream, and generally enjoyed the long weekend. Not that the weekend feels that much different to the kids these days than the week itself. They are both just so happy and growing like weeds, though.

On the one hand, I appreciate the structure that school gives them and the amount that their teachers are able to teach them, which is far more than Papa Bear and I can manage. And then on the other hand, I see how much they are enjoying this and I wonder whether maybe some other cultures where kids don't start elementary school until they are 7 have a point. The pandemic is so awful, and no one would ever have wished for it. But, if one little positive thing to come out of it is for them to have this extended strange summer to spend together just being their wild little selves, well, I'll take that silver lining.

Week 352: Encampment

As the "school year" winds down, our thoughts turn to summer. Summer, a word so often followed by "camp." A time I had been particularly looking forward to as it was to be the first time that  I would get up in the morning, pack up the 3000 things and the kids, and take them both to the same place, drop them off, and not pick them up again until the late afternoon. For the first time since they were both born, there would be no mid-day childcare responsibilities. No multiple drop-offs and pick-ups. No wondering who would be covering that last critical hour or two of the workday. A glorious dream.

But, now, reality has intruded, and not at all in a way that I could have expected. Our camp is still sending out lots of emails. Almost daily, it seems, I get a reminder about forms that need to be filled out. Or, a survey to complete. Would I feel more comfortable if the campers wore masks? How about the staff? I managed not to write in the comment box "Do you remember how your business model is predicated on teaching 5-year-olds how to swim?!?!?"

We haven't actually withdrawn them from camp yet, as that feels very sort of definite. But, it is almost impossible to see how we would send them. On the one hand, I feel bad that they will miss camp, Lemon went to this camp last year and loved it, and Lime was very much looking forward to going. On the other hand, I think it's safer for them and for us if they don't go. And, honestly, they are so happy here at home right now that I think they will have a great summer. They can't learn to swim in a kiddie pool in our back yard, but they can have a lot of fun.

Lime is very sad about not having his birthday at the beach this year, but he keeps saying reassuringly to himself that we will still celebrate it, even if we are here at our house. I somehow suspect that as long as there are sufficient Transformers delivered on the big day, he will find a way to enjoy it.

 And so, this new version of our life rolls along. Home haircuts. Home-made donuts. Yard work. Oh, and a virtual relay race instead of the real relay race that I was supposed to do this weekend. A work step-count contest that I might be slightly competitive about. A weekly box from a farm instead of the farmer's market. Dreams of the beach and all the friends and family that we can't see right now. But, the weather is getting nice, the seeds are sprouting, and we're watching and waiting to see what happens next.

Week 351: Mother's Day

I've always felt like one of the great certainties about motherhood is that you never know exactly what is coming next. None of us would have thought at Mother's Day last year that this is how things would be at Mother's Day this year. And yet, here we are. As ever, parenting in unanticipated circumstances.

And, to be clear, we have nothing to complain about. Another somewhat chaotic and haphazard work week has gone by. The kids continue to be very happy, healthy, and full of life. I was even able to celebrate with my own mother, which is certainly a treat not to be taken lightly in these quarantine days. I received a whole bunch of books, so I now have enough new recipes and origami models to keep me going through at least another few months of this, should the need arise.

The one thing that I found completely hilarious this week is that I have received a number of notifications that there is no school on Wednesday. I have thus far managed not to write back to ask how I should detect that this particular Wednesday differs from all of the Wednesdays of the recent past. Whereas in times gone by, a random weekday with no school would have been something of a minor crisis, in the present state of affairs, it is, well, just Wednesday. 

Week 350: Telehealth

On Friday, we had our telehealth visit with our new doctor. Since this was our first real appointment with him, it took approximately forever. And, I have to say, it was so much better to do it by phone rather than trapped in an exam room with a bored 6-year-old. The doctor and I were able to go over things in a lot of detail, and Papa Bear was able to listen in and chime in with questions as well.

Focusing on the highlights, since all you readers are way more up to speed on the details of Lemon's history than his new doctor, here's the scoop. The new doctor is willing to concede that Lemon really and truly is allergic to azithromycin, so we can't use that as an anti-inflammatory as we had hoped. This is of course a real shame since our big goal post-bronchoscopy has been to reduce the amount of inflammation in Lemon's lungs. The only other alternative available at the moment is high-dose ibuprofen. And when I say high-dose, I mean high dose. Like 600mg, twice a day, for a kid Lemon's size (which, by the way, is 57 lb now!). The doctor agreed that it didn't sound like an appealing plan. So, our best hope is to improve the efficacy of Lemon's airway clearance, keep his exacerbations under control, and wait for Trikafta to be approved for kids his age.

The doctor conceded that this is not a very satisfying plan, and I have to say, it's not. We went from sticking with our current plan because we didn't know there was a problem, to sticking with our current plan because we know there's a problem but we have no alternative. I'm not sure this is exactly what I imagined progress would feel like. Still, we will be trying to teach Lemon how to huff-cough (having attempted to teach him to tie his shoes, I'm not exactly anticipating rapid results) that at least we're doing something more to try to help him. On the plus side, our dietitian was thrilled with Lemon's weight gain, which has been a big upside of this whole "Safer at Home" period. Amazing what eating 18 separate snacks per day will do for one's weight.

Meanwhile, speaking of Safer at Home, here we still are. Home school continues to be a rather improvisational affair in our household. But, the kids are still happy and they are doing so much imaginative play these days that I have to imagine that's building some sort of cognitive skills. We had a stretch of nice weather where I perhaps over-optimistically planted some seeds in our vegetable garden, so we'll see what happens there. If worst comes to worst, I do have more seeds.