Whoa! Where Have I Been?

My house.

I've been in my house. We are now in month seven of working and schooling from home. Crazy, right? I almost don't believe it. And unfortunately, we are nowhere close to opening our schools for my children. Maybe we'll get some other folks back in the building, but I'm skeptical of even that.

In any case, my mom reminded me today - when I sent a fairly crass text - that I should update this space.

I spent the last week of summer alone in the house while Ed took the children to Chincoteague. I joined them for the long weekend, along with a few other friends. During that week, it hit me - in order to avoid having teens in their bedrooms all day long unsupervised, we needed a joint space. And for a variety of reasons, I really do not think teens should be hanging out in their rooms alone all day.

I cleaned out the craft room - which was not an insignificant task, purchased new desk chairs, adjusted the desks that had been purchased so many years ago and quickly had become cluttered piles of child junk to the proper heights, moved a desk in for me - and voila! The TJ-HB-UI satellite office space was born.

Ed goes upstairs to his safe room, closes the door, and basically goes about his business. I sit with Connor and Helen all day long as they work, though they leave for band, orchestra, home room, and group talking time. I leave for conference calls that I need to speak a lot on. For the most part, it works. Helen commented that it wasn't as lonely as being in her room - and Connor has been crushing school. I'll take it.

Today, I got a note that made my heart sing. Last March, school abruptly ended for Helen. No new content was to be delivered, and then the school system announced everyone in pre-Algebra in 6th grade would just take pre-Algebra in 7th grade. No, no they will not, was my basic thought. So...a few clarifying emails later, the math department said everyone would start in pre-Algebra but that they would test the students at the end of September and see if they should be moved to Algebra.

Test results came back today and Helen is moving into Algebra. Her first love is not math, but everything else in middle school is so easy for her, that I think it's good for her to have at least a small challenge. She was so proud, as was I. 

We have almost finished week 7 of school at home and everyone is still looking forward to heading back whenever it's deemed safe enough to do so.

Elaine