Oh, my heart. My Bigs are missing school hard these days.

Case in points:

1. HD’s class does a weekly Zoom which his teacher handles really nicely in terms of giving them a theme (scavenger hunt, talent show, etc.) and managing the chaos of a dozen-ish squirrelly 10-yr-olds on computers. My child is so excited for each one that he starts prepping his wardrobe and location a solid 30 minutes in advance and is then logged in and ready to go at least 10 minutes early each time. He told me today that he misses going to school because  it “was his entertainment” which is evident in how much anticipation and excitement go into prepping for these weekly hour-long meetings. Hands down, he wishes they could be every night.
2. RL has had very little interaction online with kids her age and she’s hurting. This is the kid who loves, loves, LOVES school and her friends and playing games at recess and it is so hard for her to be away from those things. Yes, she’s got her siblings and has had some FaceTime with her Bestie (thank goodness!), but tonight before bed I told her, “I love you, Raegan.” and she responded with, “I love you, but…” and then promptly burst into tears because she just wants to see her people in real life and when is this going to end and when can we go places again and she just doesn’t want to do it anymore, and again – oh. my. heart. She’s feeling a lot of feels right now and a lot of them are the sticky and icky ones and it’s just so hard to watch her struggle in these ways and know that there’s absolutely no way I can fix it or speed up the process. I have promised all the play dates possible when this is over, but of course we have no freaking clue when that might be, so that’s not really helping right now.
3. LT has struggled the most with doing the packets from school. He too misses his buddies and his super sweet teacher and I think a lot of his anger at the homework comes from not quite being able to read yet and not even making it through a full year of full day school, so the idea of working independently while Dad and I help the other kids here and there just freaks him the frick out. Quarantine School freaks us the frick out, too, Buddy; I promise. We’ve found some ways around this by having him do some worksheets with his BFF over video chat, but that’s a hands-on process for both families, too, and clearly can’t happen every day, so a lot of days are becoming “sure, go ride your bike and play outside time” instead of trying to force the packets time. We keep trying and we keep celebrating any time he does willingly participate with a school-related activity (including the fact that he had to adjust to doing weekly Zoom Speech with a new speech therapist) but this all feels extra hard and challenging, again mostly on the feels front. The fact that he was smiling while playing this Speech Game with Truman was a huge win for this week!

Basically all I’m saying here is that I’m heartbroken for the way the school year ended suddenly and without closure. It sucks that my kids can’t have their amazing teachers, classmates, and social outlets. As much as we know it is necessary and for the greater good, none of this feels right right now. Of course we’re still having some fun and making good memories (Hello, Star Wars Marathons with Mama and the Big 3!) but we’re also acknowledging that we love each other but this is still really, really hard.