In Which I Play Catch Up

Remember back when I started this blog and I posted five days a week? Those were the good old days. You know, when the kids actually went to school somewhere other than our house, I could blithely run errands to six places during the day without thinking about it, and I didn't own a collection of masks. Ah, 2019, how we miss you. Who would have thought that breaking my wrist at Kittygirl's birthday party on the last day of January this year would not be the most eventful part of our our family's year?

Anyway, the pandemic isn't the only reason I haven't blogged recently. Life just has a bad habit of getting away from me. I suppose I can partly blame it on ADHD, but that's not the only reason. There are just so many immediate things to be accomplished on a daily basis that things like finally sitting down and blogging fall by the wayside. Who am I kidding? It's not just blogging. It's also important but not every day task things that fall by the wayside, like scooping the little boxes and cleaning the guinea pig cage. You do not want to know how much poop was in the litter box when I cleaned it this weekend.

To update you on my last post, Squirrelboy was super excited to receive a letter of acceptance to the National Honor Society a couple weeks ago. Looking back on his early school experience I'm just blown away by how far he's come. I'm regularly amazed by how much he cares about school and how hard he works to submit his best effort. Many of his teachers allow retakes of tests and quizzes. This weekend he retook a geometry quiz twice to get a perfect score. Reader, he got 18/20 the first time so it's not as if he absolutely needed to retake it at all.

I completely missed posting during Diabetes Awareness Month in November, so here's an executive summary of what you should know about type 1 diabetes if you're unfamiliar with it: It's an autoimmune disease. It is not caused by diet. It is lifelong unless a cure is found. It can strike at any age. In fact, about half of new diagnoses are in adults. It's relentless, and something you have to deal with 24 hours a day every.single.day. The one bright spot to having diabetes or having a child with diabetes is the diabetes community, which is amazing. See last November's daily posts for details about these statements and much more.

With this year being totally out of whack, our big summer vacation plans being cancelled, and more recently Thanksgiving and Christmas travel to Grandma and Grandpa's house being cancelled, it's been nice to immerse ourselves in our familiar Advent traditions. In case you don't know, Advent is celebrated beginning four Sundays before Christmas. The name comes from the Latin word "coming", and it is a time to step back, reflect, and prepare to celebrate the coming of Jesus at Christmas as well as to reflect on Jesus' eventual second coming.

We established a tradition when Squirrelboy was quite young of lighting an Advent wreath every evening as a family and reading both a Bible passage and a fun Christmas story. After the reading the kids get to open the Advent calendar. Our Advent setup is below. My ADHD brain, while it struggles to make routines happen, at the same time functions much better when they're in place and established as habits, so Advent, as a many years long habit, is a particularly meaningful time to me and a pleasant break from the chaos that December often brings to a family with school age kids. There's a lot less chaos this year what with the pandemic cancelling so many activities, but at the same time the pandemic causes its own chaos, even if it's just internal, so the break is still welcome.

Another of our Advent traditions is the annual visits of Sam, our Elf on the Shelf, and Isaiah John, our shepherd. I'm presuming you know what an Elf on the Shelf looks like, reader, and if you don't, I'll spare you his slightly creepy visage. I will, however, introduce you to Isaiah John, who is quite cute.

Isaiah John's visit reminds us to focus on Jesus during Advent, as he spends every night while we sleep searching for Baby Jesus, whom he always, conveniently, finds just in time for Christmas morning.  Isaiah John also returns just before Easter, looking for a sheep he seems to lose every year at about the same time. Silly Isaiah John.

Surprisingly, the pandemic hasn't been as bad for our family as you might think it would have been. I think following routines has been part of the key to that. Our kids have consistent places to do their schoolwork, I'm able to give them consistent supervision, one of their favorite activities (scouting) has continued with a mix of digital and outdoor meetings and activities, and we've been able to have unrushed family dinners nearly every night.

I'll be happy when the U.S. is able to get the pandemic under control (not until a decent portion of the population has received a vaccine is looking like the likely timeframe) and we can return to normal activities and normal life, but for the moment I'm choosing to focus on the things that are going well. For whatever reason, that doesn't seem to leave much time for blogging :).

 

In Which Squirrelboy is Nominated for the National Honor Society

 I was pretty much the ideal student all the way through school. I learned to read mostly on my own in kindergarten, even though reading wasn't formally taught until first grade back in the dark ages of the 1980's. I learned easily in the way that schools teach, and I was eager to learn. I was an excellent test taker. I was polite and never disruptive in the classroom. The only negative comments teachers ever had about me were that I could speak up a little bit more than I did. Even though I am certain I have ADHD, my ADHD had no apparent effect on my school performance at any level. I did miss or come late to class a handful of time in college when I was fully in charge of my schedule, but it's not like that's really weird for any college student. My ADHD didn't really become disruptive until I had lives other than mine to be concerned about (ie, until I became a parent).

Squirrelboy's school experience has not quite been the opposite of mine, but it has absolutely been very different. Because he's generally kind and polite (not always to me and Mr. Engineer, but, hey, he's a teenager) he has usually been well liked by his teachers. However, every single academic thing about school has always been hard for him thanks to his dyslexia and ADHD.

In kindergarten, as I've shared before, his teacher assured us for the first half of the year that he'd catch onto reading eventually. She told us it was common for kids, especially boys, to not really understand reading during the fall of kindergarten but suddenly make a big leap forward in the third quarter of the year. Spoiler alert: Squirrelboy never made that leap.

Once we got the official dyslexia diagnosis, it became abundantly clear that learning to read well would never be a process of leaping for him or of "the turning of a key" as is sometimes described. It would be a process of methodical, tiny steps up a steep hill toward the goal. Though there are schools out there that have the resources and the will to teach students with dyslexia in a way that works for their brains, Squirrelboy's school was not one of them. The way the school was teaching reading was never going to work with him.

Even when we came with this evidence in hand, however, Squirrelboy's kindergarten teacher was insistent that the best possible thing for him was to repeat kindergarten. This despite the overwhelming evidence that the way he was being taught was not appropriate for the way his brain worked. She still thought it would be best for him to spend another year being taught the same things in the same way. You know, the things that didn't work for him the first time.

Fortunately, our school system does not under normal circumstances for students to repeat a grade. They leave that choice up to the parents. We were blessed to be well educated, be native speakers of English, not be minorities, and have personal experience with dyslexia through Mr. Engineer. We insisted that Squirrelboy be passed on to first grade and it happened. First grade was a pretty miserable year learning-wise with a lot of tears, but by second grade, thanks to a lot of hours of tutoring outside of school by experts, Squirrelboy was beginning to catch up.

Even when he was mostly caught up, however, learning in the way the school expected was always an uphill battle for Squirrelboy. He worked ten times harder for any A or B he received than the average student. Homeschooling him for middle school provided a three year breather in which we could forget about grades entirely and focus on helping him enjoy learning again.

When he went off to high school, Mr. Engineer and I were nervous. He still had a serious problem paying attention to details, which showed up in his work. He also did not always seem to care about doing his best work. We thought his first semester of high school might need to serve as a wakeup call for him to always pay attention, do his best work, and ask for help when necessary. Since his school requires students to retake core courses if they don't earn an 83% or higher, we thought he might even have to retake one or two classes.

We were wrong. Squirrelboy immediately cared deeply both about his grades and about working hard to do his best work. He came out of the first semester with three A's and two high B's. He finished the second semester with all A's. So far in his sophomore year he has all A's. I would be among the first to tell you that it's not all about grades. Squirrelboy hasn't only earned good grades. He has invested in his learning, worked on becoming more independent, and learned to advocate and stand up for himself when he needs accommodations because of the way his brain works.

Because I was the perfect student, being nominated and then selected for the National Honor Society was not a surprise to me. It was, however, a huge surprise to Squirrelboy last week when he received an email with an invitation to apply to join the National Honor Society. He's been diligently working on the application, making sure it's his best work and represents not only his academic achievement but his service to his community, particularly through Boy Scouts. I have no idea how competitve the process of admission into his school's chapter of the National Honor Society is. Having the opportunity to fill out the application is not a guarantee that he will get in. However, just being nominated is a huge honor and shows just how far he's come. He's striding toward a successful future. I wish his kindergarten teacher could see him now.

In Which Virtual School is Not the Epic Disaster I Feared It Would Be

 When schools were closed here on March 13th, teachers were basically given no notice. The hope was the we would return to school the second week of April after spring break. The district sent home a flyer with suggested activities by grade level, but none of it was required. Kittygirl's teachers sent home their math workbooks and a few other things. Squirrelboy's teachers didn't sent home anything. I actually made my kids do something educational for those first two weeks before spring break, more for my sake than theirs because I didn't want to deal with bored kids all day long. I think most kids played video games for three weeks.

Once remote school, or NTI (nontraditional instruction) as it's called here in Kentucky, did start, it was pretty much a flop. I truly believe the teachers were trying, but they were coming into it with no prep and no training. Kittygirl hated NTI and learned nothing.

As this summer got underway and virus transmission rates went up instead of down, it finally became obvious to the school system that starting school in person was not going to happen. They made a commitment to get Chromebooks for every student in the district (they're still short 10,000, and they started the school year three weeks ago short a lot more because it seems most districts in the nation are ordering Chromebooks right now). They also bought districtwide license for Zoom (which has itself made improvements since the spring) and invested in training the teachers to teach virtually.

We're on day 12 now. It isn't perfect, but it's been a million times better than I thought it would be. One super helpful thing is that I expanded our pandemic bubble to bring in a classmate for Kittygirl. It's a service to her family because both of her parents are working from home and they were going crazy with two kids at home in the spring. It's a service to our family because Kittygirl is more motivated when she has a classmate with her and she has someone to play with on breaks and when she finishes her work. I even got them matching baskets to keep their school supplies in.

They have zoom meetings for most of the morning, starting at 9 and ending at noon, with some breaks in between. Since they attend a Spanish immersion school, they switch off every other day having their primary zoom block with the English teacher or the Spanish teacher. On alternate days they have a shorter half hour zoom with the other teacher. After a break for lunch and recess (the nice playset Mr. Engineer built when Squirrelboy was little is getting more use than it has in years) they have work to do in Google Classroom and/or SeeSaw (another educational platform). They have to spend at least 20 minutes each doing online math and reading, and then they watch a video made by one of the specials teachers and record their own video in response. I also make them read for 20 minutes. All told, they usually about 90 minutes of work in the afternoon, sometimes more if they take forever to to their specials videos. They sometimes to multiple takes because they want them to be perfect. The classmate, whom I have just now decided to name Pandagirl because she's wearing a panda dress today, is picked up at 4pm and they usually have at least an hour after schoolwork is done to play together. Also, every Friday (except today, which they're treating as a Monday because we were off for Labor Day this past Monday) is a catch up day with just one fun zoom meeting, so they normally only have an hour or so of work to finish after that and are done by lunchtime.

I feel like Kittygirl and Pandagirl have a good balance of direct instruction and independent work. They're learning new things and mostly enjoying school. I don't think Squirrelboy's schedule is as well balanced. Normally they have five classes a day. You would think they could just have those five classes every day via Zoom, but for some reason they've pulled together a weird schedule in which there are 3 classes M/W and 2 classes T/TH. T/TH the first class isn't until 11am. Fridays they have a zoom with their advisory class (it might be called homeroom elsewhere) and then a catchup day. On the bright side, I do feel like the content being presented is as good as it was in person last year. However, I don't think there will be nearly enough time for the teachers to present everything and the students to learn everything if they continue meeting only twice a week for all or most of the semester. Since his school covers in a semester what many schools take a year to cover, that means, for example, that his geometry teacher is supposed to cover it all in 30 lessons. Yeah, I'm sure that will be super effective.

My one concern with Kittygirl and Pandagirl is that they're not getting nearly as much Spanish immersion as they get during a normal school year. Their Spanish will definitely not be at the level it would normally be at by the end of the year. I console myself with the fact that every single Spanish immersion student in the district is in the same boat, so future teachers are bound to be understanding. I also don't think there's a way to do it that's significantly better than what they're doing.

A couple months ago I was seriously considering pulling Kittygirl out of school and homeschooling her this year. I know parents who have made the decision to homeschool for the year instead of doing virtual school or risking sending their kids back in person and I fully support that choice. However, I am pleasantly surprised to report that I have never seriously considered homeschool since I saw this fall's version of virtual school in action. It's not perfect, and I still contend that organized unschooling would be a better use of our time and energy this school year, but, given that there was no way the school system was buying into that idea, I'm pleasantly surprised by the outcome so far.

In Which ADHD Looks a Lot Like Irresponsibility

Mr. Engineer and I had a parenting disagreement last night, and the root of it lay in the fact that I have personal insight into the way that Squirrelboy's brain works and he doesn't. It can be difficult and frustrating to explain to your neurotypical spouse why you understand your kid's ADHD brain because yours works similarly. Especially when he seems to willfully not understand that it could possibly be the way the kid's brain works and must simply stem from a lack of discipline. I'm sure Mr. Engineer's position seems difficult to him too. I'm not trying to demonize him. However, the only perspective I can fully understand is my own.

So what happened last night? Squirrelboy likes to listen to books while he falls asleep (not calming books, just whatever he's listening to at the time, which can range from murder mysteries to nonfiction books about racial justice). His accesses these books via an app on his phone. Due to an incident earlier this year his phone charges in our room at night, but he has a bluetooth speaker that can play something from the phone even while it's across the hall in our room.

Last night at bedtime Mr. Engineer noticed Squirrelboy holding his bluetooth headphones instead of his speaker as he set up his book. He asked why Squirrelboy wasn't using the speaker. Squirrelboy explained that his speaker was dead and he wasn't going to wear the headphones but rather set them on the shelf above his head on their loudest setting. 

Mr. Engineer was not pleased. He told Squirrelboy that he shouldn't listen to a book if he wasn't responsible enough to charge his speaker. I intervened and told Squirrelboy that he could use the headphones.

Mr. Engineer then asked me something along the lines of, "So, you want to reward his irresponsibility?" He's gotten even more serious than ever lately at wanting to make sure Squirrelboy has the skills to survive as an adult now that he's less than three years away from legal adulthood. I saw the situation differently and replied, "No, what I want to do is not punish him for having a disorderly brain."

What Mr. Engineer saw as a clear indication of irresponsibility I saw as a clear indication of an ADHD brain. If I don't stick exactly to the scaffolding I've built for myself or I haven't built scaffolding for that particular task, I do exactly the same types of things that Squirrelboy does. This is despite the fact that I will soon turn 44 and I've managed to earn two college degrees, hold down a full time job for awhile, and (now) run a household. I like to think I'm a responsible adult, but that hasn't changed the fact that, without serious effort, I make exactly the same types of mistakes that Squirrelboy makes.

I had no idea at the time that this was an indication of ADHD, but an example of the scaffolding I set up for myself early on can be seen in my experience in summer school in high school (FTR, I was taking summer school because my three foreign languages didn't leave room in my schedule for American History and Communications, not because I failed something :)). Summer school started late enough in the morning that both of my parents had left for work before I left the house, in contrast to the school year. Because of this, I forgot to bring my lunch with me three days out of five for the first two weeks. I'd realize it when I was about halfway to the school, turn around to get it, and screech into the school parking lot about a minute before my class started. I knew this was untenable. It would result in me getting a speeding ticket, incurring some kind of penalty for tardiness, or both. So I set up scaffolding for myself. I taped a note to the steering wheel of my car that read REMEMBER TO BRING YOUR LUNCH. I never forgot my lunch for the rest of summer school.

I had to do the lunch note thing again in graduate school after my roommate got tired of driving to campus to bring my lunch at least twice a week (she had a job and worked second shift). It did not occur to me at the time that I was doing something people with ADHD often have to do. I just thought I was unusually forgetful.

I could give you other examples of scaffolding I've set up for myself. Every once in awhile I think to set it up before something goes wrong, but most often it's resulted from many incidents of failure - like establishing one and only one place to keep my keys after losing them nearly every day for years. I still haven't set up scaffolding for keeping track of my phone. I still have to call it using the home phone to find it at least three times a week, sometimes even more than once in a day. It really sucks when I realize I've left it on vibrate.

This probably should have occurred to me earlier, but recently I realized I need to start setting up scaffolding for Squirrelboy and teaching him to do it himself. Maybe if he learns this early on he can prevent himself from, for instance, losing his keys EVERY.SINGLE.DAY for the first two decades of adulthood. Not that I did that ;). Step one today was agreeing with Squirrelboy last night that he should plug in his speaker to charge this morning and every morning so that it would never be dead a bedtime again. I wrote a note on the board, and included taking his medicine, since we both forgot about that yesterday and school was harder for him than it should be. We'll see if this helps.

In Which I Break All the Diabetes Rules and I Like It

 When Kittygirl was first diagnosed with diabetes I was overwhelmed with all the details. Carb counting and insulin ratios were super confusing, and we were told they weren't even going to stay the same all the time. I measured everything, and I mean everything, with carbs, down to how many tablespoons of ketchup Kittygirl was eating. I snuck a measuring cup and a gallon size ziploc bag into the movies in my purse so I could measure exactly how much popcorn Kittygirl was eating the first few times we went to the movies after she was diagnosed. I would do exhaustive online searches for carb counts for restaurant food whenever we ate out and I freaked out if Kittygirl didn't eat every crumb of her meal. 

When we had our diabetes education class at the clinic (as opposed to the basic overview we got in the hospital) we were told things that turned out to be kind of conflicting. They said our kids could eat anything as long as we/they counted the carbs and dosed insulin for it. They also said we should try to keep their blood sugar in range as much as possible. The one thing they did caution us against was liquid carbs. In fact, the notes they gave us said in all caps NO REGULAR SODA. They said that the sugar in regular soda acts too fast for the insulin to cover it and that first the child's blood sugar would go high from the soda and then low as the insulin hit and the sugar in the soda was done acting.

Three and a half years into diabetes (which doesn't make me an expert, but whatever) I am here to tell you that I've thrown most of that advice out of the window.  The first thing I discovered, after Kittygirl started wearing a Dexcom CGM, was that eating with diabetes and controlling blood sugar is not in any way, shape, or form as simple as counting carbs and dosing insulin before eating. I've learned that different foods act in Kittygirl's body in different ways. You wouldn't think this would be revolutionary, but the average diabetes education class does not make this clear.

Kittygirl still throws back at us the fact that, in the hospital, the nurse told her she could still eat anything as long as she got insulin for it. That was further compounded by the fact that, when I've talked to her classes at school about diabetes I've wanted to emphasize that kids with T1D can, in fact, eat sugar and said that she can eat anything. It turns out that's both true and false, if we want to maintain good blood sugar control. I have yet to find a type of food that Kittygirl absolutely cannot eat in some amount at some time. The big difference is, there are many foods that we only allow in limited amounts at limited times. It's a big science experiment in which we have to figure in the number of carbs in a food or drink, how quickly those carbs will act, what Kittygirl's current blood sugar is, what time of day it is, what else she's eaten that day, how active she's been and is going to be, and half a dozen or so other factors sometimes apparently including the position of Mars in relation to the moon it feels like. This really annoys her.

If all the stars are aligned correctly, we've dosed exactly right, and Kittygirl has not been unusually active or inactive, she can eat a large, dense donut from our favorite local donut shop and only experience a small rise in blood sugar.

If the starts aren't aligned correctly, I dose it wrong, Kittygirl is more or less active than usual, or any one of a dozen or more other things go wrong, Kittygirl's blood sugar may go down to 50 and then up to 350 with one of these donuts.

If I just followed the rules I was taught, however, that would always happen. Unfortunately, the fact that diabetes is best managed dynamically taking a huge variety of factors into account is not often taught. I'm so thankful that we discovered teachers such as Gary Scheiner and Dr. Stephen Ponder early in our journey of parenting a child with diabetes. We are far from perfect, but I think we would be more frustrated and our daughter would have a poorer quality of life and a poorer outlook for her future health if we hadn't done research into good diabetes management ourselves and also if we weren't willing to experiment and learn specific things about how diabetes works for our particular kid,which is not always the same as it works even for another kid of the same age, size, and gender.

Earlier this summer, I even discovered that the all caps NO REGULAR SODA rule can, in fact, be broken under the right circumstances. Now, would I just hand my kid a bottle or can of regular soda with no thought? Of course not, but I've learned that half a bottle of regular soda with a meal does not affect Kittygirl's blood sugar in a significant way. This happened because Ale8, which is a Kentucky staple, produces a special orange cream flavor that's only available in the summer and doesn't make it in diet.

Orange is Kittygirl's very favorite flavor in the whole world and she desperately wanted to try it. I let her have a few sips last summer when the flavor was first introduced, but she wanted her own bottle this summer. I looked at the carbs, thought about it, and decided she could have half a bottle with a relatively low carb meal. It worked well, so we did it again. I now know that even the all caps rule can be broken under the right circumstances.

There are still diabetes rules that can't be broken. You can't not take insulin, even if you eat a very low carb diet. You can't not check your blood sugar if you want to have any hope of keeping it in range. You can't just eat anything you want anytime you want without thinking about it.

You can, however, ignore the old fashioned static management rules that too many endos still teach as long as you replace them with dynamic management rules that actually work better.

In Which Virtual Is Actually Pretty Good

If you had told me six months ago that my 9 year old would be using Zoom regularly this year I would have believed you. Then the pandemic hit, and most of us started using Zoom or some other video meeting interface pretty often. Our first experiences were kind of mediocre. Her teachers had a weekly class Zoom meeting, but it was poorly attended and not that engaging. Random kids in her grade would have their parents set up a Zoom meeting so that they could talk to their friends. Some parents set up meetings with grand intentions for the kids to speak Spanish with each other, but that never happened. Kittygirl tried one of those meetings, but it was set up by a boy and she was the only girl who joined. She left the meeting after just a few minutes. 

Virtual school as a whole was pretty unimpressive this spring. I don't blame the teachers. This was thrown on them very suddenly. They were provided with no training. They were also told they were not allowed to lower students' grades during the last 9 weeks when we had to go virtual and that they couldn't introduce new content. It was a pretty terrible set of circumstances.

Our first positive virtual experience was with a virtual Cub Scout campout in April. There was a whole schedule of suggested activities with the opportunity to share what you were doing via Facebook, plus Facebook live events where you could interact with others. Frankly, the planning was better than some in person campouts we've attended. We even had a real campfire in the backyard during the closing campfire program.

This summer everything the kids had planned to do was cancelled, but we managed to have some really impressive virtual experiences. We were particularly sad that FFL Orlando, the amazing diabetes conference that we've attended for the last two summers, had to go virtual.this year. However, it was actually done extremely well. They even had virtual versions of the Thursday evening banquet and the Saturday social events. One of the best parts of FFL is connecting with other parents of kids with diabetes and adults living with diabetes, and the organizers did their best to recreate those random connections by having virtual "hallways" - Zoom meetings that you could join at any time  between 8am and 8pm. 

It was disappointing that kid and adult sessions alternated during the virtual conference so I had to find something for Kittygirl to do during my sessions, but I understood practically why they did this. Many families simply don't have enough devices for multiple family members to be on Zoom at the same time.  Both the kid and adult sessions themselves, however, were quite good. I figured the adult sessions, that are often lecture type presentations would be pretty easy to translate to a digital environment, but I doubted the kid sessions would fare as well. To my great surprise, Kittygirl absolutely loved her first year in the Tween group even though it was virtual. They did an amazing number of fun activities along with learning some things about diabetes and meeting some famous people with diabetes. They even made "carb creatures" out of food and showed them off.

FFL was just one of several positive virtual experiences we've had this summer. Kittygirl also did a virtual diabetes camp that was surprisingly good. The week of the virtual FFL conference and for a week after that we were isolating as much as possible so we could safely visit my parents, so we signed each kid up for a week of virtual camp the second week. They were both excellent. 

Squirrelboy did a Cyber Film Camp with the Verdugo Hills BSA council, which is based in California in the heart of the moviemaking industry. He got to learn from professionals who do the kinds of things he hopes to do for a living, and he managed to cooperate with a group of 7 other scouts from 4 different states to make a short film. All the films made by the campers were shown in a film festival this Sunday, and I was really impressed. Squirrelboy's film even won the audience award, which was voted on by the Zoom seminar attendees.

Kittygirl did a virtual camp with Lexington Children's Theater. She at first wasn't excited about the idea, but then I told her it was based on a Percy Jackson book, which she is obsessed with, so she agreed. For three hours every day over Zoom the kids rehearsed a short play and then they presented it via Zoom on Friday. It was kind of surreal to have the kids saying their lines on camera in their homes instead of together on a stage, but it was amazingly good despite that. As a bonus, my in-laws who almost never visit and my brother who lives in Germany were able to join the Zoom meeting and watch Kittygirl's play. That never would have happened if it had been a normal end of camp presentation.

This year has not been what we expected. It looks likely that it will continue like this at least until the spring of 2020. Sometimes this makes me really angry. I'm particularly angry that the government in the U.S. has done a really pathetic job reacting to this pandemic. However, lots of individual organizations have really stepped up and embraced this unusual time. So many new people signed up for the virtual version of FFL that the organizers have committed to having a virtual version even when the in person version is safe again (hopefully that will be 2021, but all bets are off at this point). The Verdugo Hills council is planning to do the Cyber Film Camp again next summer. My husband's company is investigating allowing employees to work from home in come cases long term. I think this pandemic is going to fundamentally change the way we do some things, and in many cases it will be for the better.

These positive experiences are why, even though our spring experience of virtual school was pretty pathetic, I'm cautiously optimistic about what it could look like in the fall. Our district has announced that we will begin two weeks later than originally planned, on August 26, and that school will be virtual only at least until the end of September, at which point local conditions will be reevaluated. If we do go back later in the fall it will be part time to begin with and 1-3 days a week will still be virtual. This time, there has been more time to prepare, it is expected that new content will be presented, and the superintendent says that work will be differentiated. I have a healthy skepticism about how this will go, and am mentally preparing to pull Kittygirl and homeschool her if she's as miserable as she was in the spring, but for the time being I'm giving everyone the benefit of the doubt. Overall, virtual is normally not as good as in person. However, I have experience really well done virtual and really poorly done virtual. Here's hoping that school this fall is closer to the former.

In Which I Propose a Completely Unrealistic Plan for Education During the Pandemic

Back when schools closed in mid March most of us really had no idea what that meant or how long it would last. A tiny part of me hoped the kids would be able to come back before the end of the year, but the more realistic part of me knew they wouldn't be coming back. However, at that point I was still hoping we could have a somewhat normal summer and I was confident kids would be back in school in the fall even if extra precautions needed to be taken, and that that would be the right choice.

Well, if 2020 had gone according to plan my kids would be starting school on August 12th, less than a month from now. That's definitely not happening. The school start has currently been pushed to August 24. The school has yet to release an actual plan for how they're going to do in person school safely during the pandemic. A survey came out a couple weeks ago for parents. A survey went out to staff too. It was supposed to be more comprehensive, but, according to friends of mine who are both parents and staff, it was exactly the same.

The survey proposed three options. All options included school buildings being closed every Friday for deep cleaning.

Option 1: All students (except for those whose families choose 100% distance learning) are at school 4 days a week. Masks are worn at all times (presumably except when eating, but this wasn't addressed).

Option 2: Schools are divided into A and B groups and each group is in the school building 4 days a week alternating weeks.

Option 3: Schools are divided into A and B groups and each group is in the school building alternating days (one M/W and one T/Th).

When I filled out the survey I ranked the options in order 1, 3, 2. Given that the Spanish Immersion at Kittygirl's school and the collaborative educational style at Squirrelboy's school are pretty much impossible to replicate through distance learning I really thought it would be best for those students to be in the building as much as possible, and definitely not just every other week. 

However, the more I've learned about the logistics of opening a school during a pandemic with actively increasing cases the more I think virtual school is the only safe option pandemic-wise. Yes, it pretty much totally sucked in the spring, but, if they have to do it for the whole school year, hopefully it will be better.

That, of course, presents its own problems. How will special needs students be served if everything is virtual? What happens to students who have a personal aid? What happens to students who have a reader due to a visual disability or dyslexia? What happens to English Language Learners? Who is going to make sure they're actually understanding the content? Will gifted students receive additional content during virtual education? Will students receiving remediation in a subject receive that virtually?

Kittygirl's and Squirrelboy's needs are actually served fairly well through virtual education. It's easier for me to handle Kittygirl's diabetes if she's at home learning than if she's at school. Squirrelboy's ADHD is unlikely to impede him when he's working alone in the office downstairs without a single distraction.

It still sucks, mind you, and they're still going to hate if that's the way it ends up going. I'm pretty sure most students will feel that way. And let's be honest, for most students, virtual/distance learning is going to result in a whole lot less learning than in person learning would have.

This leads me to wonder (and here's the completely unrealistic proposal), why don't we just call this school year a wash for traditional learning? The families with parents working from home or one parent not working can just keep their kids home. If they want to teach them traditional academics more power to them. If not, the kids can play outside, read books, draw, play with legos, whatever they want to do. The one think I think would be helpful would be to put strict screentime limits into effect.

What about the kids whose parents have to work outside the home? Perhaps we could open some school buildings and operate them the way emergency childcare centers (which have reportedly been largely successful at warding off outbreaks) have been run. Keep kids in small groups, wear masks inside except when eating, have surfaces cleaned frequently, etc. If accomplishing particular educational tasks isn't  on the agenda, I think this might actually work. Provide a lot of books, have a place to isolate books for a couple days after students read them so that any virus on the surface dies, and you should be good. Also spend as much time outside as possible.

What about teens? In my completely unrealistic plan, high schools would be retooled as teen hangout centers (distanced and with masks of course) that would also offer limited life skills classes. I think even seniors would not be dramatically hurt by spending a year learning life skills instead of traditional academics before entering college.

Is anything like this going to happen? Of course not. And there are probably serious health risks to this plan that I haven't even considered. The fact remains, though, that students, parents, and teachers are all seriously stressed out right now. If the pressure of accomplishing a traditional academic year could be removed while the pandemic is raging I think it would be better for everyone's mental health.

And just because I like including a picture with every post, here's a picture of my cats, who would be quite content if we chose never to leave the house again.

In Which I Reflect on Independence Day

Like most of the country (maybe most of the world, I don't know) I'm a huge fan of the Hamilton musical. Sadly I've never seen it onstage. I was considering going when it came to a city near me this spring but then the tour was cancelled because, you know, pandemic. I was actually pretty late to the game in discovering it. I'd heard of it, of course, but I didn't listen to any of the music until last summer. I immediately fell in love and bought the soundtrack. This is interesting, since I am not generally a fan of rap or hip hop. Squirrelboy fell in love right away too. It's actually a perfect meld of two of his loves - history and rap music. Mr. Engineer was not a fan, and initially I didn't let Kittygirl listen to the music because of all the cursing. I did finally let Kittygirl start listening this spring and she loved it too. To my delight, once he saw it performed onstage even Mr. Engineer agreed that it's an amazing show. 

The combination of the viewing of Hamilton, which, in case you've been living under a rock the past 5 years or so, tells the story of the founding of the United States through the dual lens of the life of Alexander Hamilton and a racially diverse cast singing mostly rap and hip hop and today being Independence Day has gotten me thinking a lot about what it means to be an American and what I want my kids to understand about what it means.

In a lot of ways, America is a pretty amazing and admirable nation. The ideas on which it was founded were revolutionary for the 18th century. Yes, "All men are created equal" really meant "All property owning Protestant men of northern European descent are created equal," but, still, the fact that you didn't have to be born to the ruling class was revolutionary. Yes, the interpretation has changed and there have been a lot of amendments, but the US has had the same constitution since 1789, which makes it the oldest constitution in the world. In contrast, France had 16 constitutions between 1789 and 1858. Since its independence in 1844, the Dominican Republic has had a whopping 32 constitutions. And, yes, I know the picture below is of the declaration of independence and not the constitution :).

At the same time, first the American Colonies and then the United States of America were built on land stolen from indigenous people after they were massacred and/or driven from their land and on the backs of Africans who were stolen from their homelands and enslaved. 

America spent a long time legally marginalizing women, Blacks, Indigenous peoples, and other people of color. Even since laws have changed to not officially marginalize people groups it hasn't taken away institutionalized racism or gender bias.

Our nation is very, very far from being perfect. At the same time, for hundreds of years, our nation has been a beacon of hope for oppressed people from all over the world. My ancestors came from a variety of European countries to make new lives in America. Some were escaping the yoke of the Russian Empire, others were trying to find a place where they could own their own land and not be under the control of the monarchy. Because by the time they arrived even Eastern Europeans were considered White, they had good lives overall (though most were still poor and their families continued to be relatively poor for at least a couple generations) and were able to begin building up generational wealth. Three to five generations later, depending on which part of the family you're talking about, I grew up in an upper middle class suburb as the child of two people with PhDs. That would likely have seemed unbelievable to my ancestors who left Europe.

In this century, most of our immigrants are not European. Most of them are Black or brown people whether they come from Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, or elsewhere. These immigrants deserve the same opportunities my ancestors had. They don't always get them. What they sometimes get instead is having their children taken away from them and placed in cages. Or, if they're really lucky, they might get to enter the U.S. as a family and then live in limbo for years while their asylum case is processed.

So, what does this all mean? I love my country. Not everything about it, and not all the time. I'm particularly unhappy (that's putting it really mildly) with our current national leadership. However, there are things about the United States of America that I think are pretty awesome. Our nation was founded on a beautiful, radical idea. We have not yet fully realized it, but the concept is still there, part of what is at the heart of what it means to be American. Yet, I don't think of myself as proud to be an American. Don't get me wrong. I'm not (well, not always anyway)  ashamed to be an American. It's just that I think it's weird to apply pride to something you had nothing to do with. I'm not proud to have brown hair, brown eyes (or maybe hazel, that's up for debate), or pale skin. I'm not proud to be a woman or a heterosexual or cisgender. I had no control over any of those things. I'm thankful for them. I'm happy to live in the USA, I know that being White works in my favor as well as being straight and cisgender.  Being a woman isn't always an advantage, but I haven't in my experience found it to be a disadvantage for anything I personally want to accomplish. 

I feel pride for things I have accomplished. I'm proud to have completed both a BA and and MA in Spanish. I'm proud to speak three languages proficiently and  to know a smattering of four others. I'm proud to have completed manuscripts of two novels. I'm proud to have raised kids who are kind (to everyone except their sibling anyway), generally well adjusted, and most often well liked by both peers and adults. I'm proud to be able to keep Kittygirl's blood sugar in range more than average (though I strive to do even better at that).

So what in the world does this have to do with parenting? Not much, really, except that I hope I can help my kids understand both what's good about the country they live in and what's troubling. I hope I can raise children who work to make our country better, whether it's in a very minor way within their own neighborhoods and circles of friendship or in a major way I can't even envision right now.

In Which I Am Not Raising My Kids to be Colorblind

Where I grew up, being White and upper middle class was the norm. I went to school with a handful of kids whose families weren't as well off and an even smaller handful of kids who were Black, Asian, or Hispanic, but I don't remember having any real friends whose skin or whose lives looked significantly different from my own. I guess the one exception would be a friend who is multiethnic, but, with her pale skin, she looks more White than anything else and didn't stand out in our community.

I read a lot, and I was aware of slavery and segregation, but, if I thought about it at all, I imagine I figured that was mostly a thing of the past. I don't remember precisely when I first heard the term "colorblind" in the context of the color of people's skin, but it initially made sense to me. We're all one human race, right? The color of a person's skin shouldn't matter. 

My view began to change when I participated in a spring break urban mission experience during my freshman year of college. I was still pretty new to having claimed the Christian faith for myself, and working on figuring out what being a follower of Jesus meant for different areas of my life. I remember that one of the speakers called us White and Asian kids out for promoting the idea of colorblindness. He said that the color a person's skin is part of their identity, and, if we ignore it, we ignore a part of who that person is.

That trip ignited in me a desire to get to know and understand people of other races, particularly Black people, but I only did so when it suited me. I joined a gospel choir, which kind of served as a defacto Christian fellowship group for some of the Black Christians on campus, who didn't feel entirely welcome in our majority White group (though we didn't try to exclude them). I learned to clap in rhythm and learned a little bit about the Black church. I didn't think or ask anything about the experiences of my fellow choir mates, however.

As I've grown, I've learned more about the systemic racism that Black people, Indigenous people, and (to a lesser extent but still occurring) other people of color experience in American society. I've realized the extent that my immigrant forebears, while still poor initially, benefited from their whiteness in ways that allowed both of my parents to earn PhDs and give me and my brothers an upper middle class upbringing.

So on to my kids,  Mr. Engineer and I have purposely attempted to raise them in a way that will allow them to be exposed to people of different races and economic groups. We live in a neighborhood that's racially and socioeconomically diverse. We sent Squirrelboy to the local elementary school, which was still about 60% White, but still exceptionally diverse compared to my upbringing and Mr. Engineer's (who grew up in a mostly working class but still mostly White city in Wisconsin). Kittygirl, as you may remember, attends a Spanish Immersion magnet school, but her school is also quite diverse. Squirrelboy's high school, which is also a magnet school, is even more diverse, and I'm not even sure it's majority White.

I've talked to my kids on and off (to Squirrelboy more than to Kittygirl) about the White Privilege and encouraged them, as they see opportunity in their lives, to use their White Privilege to help others when the opportunity presents itself. We've raised them to be aware of color and other parts of people's identities, but not to use color as a reason not to like someone. We're working on all of the things in this graphic that I came across on social media recently in the wake of the protests spurred by the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, two people in a long line of Black people killed by police.

When I taught a class about empires through history at Squirrelboy's coop last year, I did some research and included African empires, which had conspicuously been left out of the curriculum with the exception of Egypt.  

I have tried to expose my kids to a variety of books and movies featuring Black people and other people of color (I've done a pathetic job with Indigenous people I must admit), both those that directly teach about injustice and those that simply feature people of other races living their lives. One of my favorite picture books that fits this category is the book JUST ASK by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotmayor.

The book features children of a range of ethnicities as well as a range of dis/abilities growing a garden together. Sotomayor, who is Hispanic and who has lived with type 1 diabetes since childhood, did an amazing job (along with the book's illustrator) of exposing kids to the idea that our differences are something to be celebrated, not something to be hidden. 

I've also talked to my children about the recent protests, some of which have happened in our city, and  the injustices that preceeded them. The years, centuries really, of injustices, not just the most recent deaths. Squirrelboy wants to be a filmmaker and he says that he wants to make films that make a difference. It's hard to tell when your teenager is listening and taking your seriously, but still I encourage him to consider using his privilege as a White, heterosexual, cisgender Christian male to make movies that might help change the world for the better for those suffering from systemic racism and other prejudices ingrained in our society.

All this might make you think I'm presenting myself as a hero and a role model for all White upper middle class parents to follow. I'm not. I'm sure I'm doing better than some, but I'm also not doing as well as others. If some of the things I've done serve as a model for you, awesome. If you have suggestions of how I can do better, even more awesome. 

We all have a lot of work to do. I hope and pray that my children are part of a generation that makes more progress than we ever have before, and I hope that what I'm doing now will help make that happen.

In Which I Finally Get My Christmas Wish and It's Not Quite What I Expected

It's been a long time since I posted here. So long there's been an update to blogger.com I didn't know about :). I'd been on a monthly posting trend, but now it's been nearly  two months. The handful of you who regularly check this blog had probably begun to wonder if I'd abandoned it altogether. The fact is, the original purpose of this blog was to get me back into a regular rhythm of writing, and it has accomplished its purpose. I spent most of the last two months working on a manuscript for a new middle grade novel that I've now started submitting to agents.

That said, I find I still have things to say about parenting and invisible disabilities, so I'm not giving this space up altogether. In fact, I have some thoughts that have been simmering for awhile now, so, if the kids let me, I may even go back to posting every day for a week or two while I wait to hear back from agents. 

Do you remember at Christmas when I  posted about wanting a closed loop insulin pump system for Kittygirl? Remember in February when I posted about our frustration that Kittygirls' endo was not giving out prescriptions for Control IQ and not giving a timeline for when that might happen? After that post they actually sent out a letter stating that they were not giving any prescriptions for Control IQ for patients under the age of 14 because it was not yet FDA approved. We figured we might have to wait until the system was FDA approved for younger kids, which, of course, was slowed down thanks to the pandemic.

Then the first week of May Kittygirl had an endo appointment via telehealth. Mr. Engineer thought the idea of a telehealth endo appointment in our case was incredibly stupid. The fact is, we make all of the diabetes decisions involving insulin rates and ratios ourselves, so we don't get any input on that at endo appointments. The only practical things the endo does for us is to measure Kittygirl's A1C and check her pump and CGM sites for scarring. Those two things can't be done in a virtual appointment.

However, we have to have a quarterly appointment to keep getting prescriptions for insulin and other diabetes supplies, so of course we proceeded with the appointment we thought would be total waste of time. It turns out it wasn't for one reason alone. Mr. Engineer mentioned that we'd really love to be able to get the Control IQ prescription soon so that we could get used to it over the summer  and make any needed adjustments so that it was running smoothly by the time school starts back up in August (presuming in person school starts in August, but that's a whole other post). The endo said that she'd check with the diabetes educators about the status of prescriptions for  kids and get back to us. She never got back to us personally. The next day, Mr. Engineer received an email from Tandem that the prescription for Control IQ had been received. It makes me wonder when we would have gotten it if we hadn't directly asked, since we were never contacted and the CDEs should have been well aware that we wanted it ASAP, but that doesn't really matter at this point.

You know the phrase garbage in garbage out? Well, it turns out that applies really well to hybrid closed loop systems. If you don't have your settings exactly right, a hybrid closed loop system is no better than a regular insulin pump. In fact, in some ways it's actually worse because the "smart" actions it tries to take can work against the things you've taught yourself to do to try to keep your/your child's blood sugar in range.

We had many of Kittygirl's settings optimized for Basal IQ, the prescursor to Control IQ, which shut off insulin delivery when blood sugar began to drop. We even changed the duration of insulin action time to 5 hours months ago to get used to it, since that's the unchangable insulin action time for Control IQ. However, we had done nothing to change Kittygirl's correction factor, even though we gave more insulin than the pump wanted us to give every.single.time we gave a correction and she rarely went low when we did so.

I had been telling Kittygirl for nearly a year that, once we got Control IQ, we could start experimenting with some new foods or new amounts of foods that I previously hadn't allowed her to have. So the very first morning Kittygirl asked if she could have three pieces of toast. I agreed, and it was a disaster of epic proportions. I think her blood sugar went up to 300, which, thankfully, is not common these days.

I was pretty frustrated and angry that Control IQ seemed to do absolutely nothing, and Mr. Engineer was pretty frustrated that I allowed the food change in the first place AND that I was frustrated with the system, because we had done nothing yet to change the settings to try to make the system work the best it could for us. 

It's slowly improving. I still don't think we have Kittygirl's correction ratio quite where it should be, and Control IQ still lets her blood sugar get higher than it would if it worked precisely as advertised, but it has definitely helped. When she eats rice or pasta for dinner, it used to be a huge fight to keep Kittygirl's blood sugar from coasting at 250 for hours. It's still hard to get her blood sugar back down at the level we want after a dinner of rice or pasta (particularly if dinner is eaten later than 6pm), but, thanks to Control IQ, it's more likely to coast closer to 180 or 200 than at 250, so that's a step in the right direction.

However, I do now let her have three pieces of toast on occasion, and I seem to have figured out a way to make it work. What I need to do is prebolus the carbs for two pieces, and then deliver the insulin for the third piece in a 50/50 split over two hours. It still doesn't work every time. Toast is a tricky food for Kittygirl, and I still sometimes find myself fighting a delayed spike from it 4-5 hours later (if you know the science behind this please comment, maybe it's the fat in the butter?), but so far today it has worked out well.

One of the best things about Control IQ is that the sleep mode keeps Kittygirl's blood sugar in range without me needing to do adjustments of any kind most nights. This is a huge. We'd gotten Basal IQ settings to the point that his happened probably 4 nights out of every 7, but with Control IQ it happens almost every night. It's great to not be regularly be awakened by alarms.

Speaking of alarms, however, the Control IQ alarms that can't be turned off really annoy me. There's one that sounds when it predicts that Kittygirl's blood sugar will drop below 80 in the next 15 minutes. First of all, we've learned over the past few weeks that, more than half the time, even if Kittygirl's blood sugar drops into the 60's, the suspension of basal insulin alone is sufficient for her blood sugar to rise back into the 80's or higher, so in those cases there is absolutely nothing we have to do. In the cases when she does need to eat something, the Dexcom alarm will notify us that her blood sugar is low. And, finally, about half the time by the time this alarm goes off Kittygirl's blood sugar is already below 80 and I'm looking at the pump like, "You're calling this a prediction?"

The alarm that goes off when Kittygirl's blood sugar goes over 200, telling us that this has happened despite and increase in insulin and we should check that there is no problem with the site or the tubing is also really annoying. Now, it may happen someday that Kittygirl's blood sugar is high because of a site or tubing issue, but so far it has always been directly traceable back to food, and I'm already well aware that the blood sugar is high and frustrated by it, so I don't really need an annoying alarm system to remind me.

Some people equate going from a regular pump to a hybrid closed loop system as like going from a manual shift car to an automatic, but I prefer the analogy of another diabetes blogger that Mr. Engineer read (I'd link to the post, but he doesn't remember where it was from). She likened it to going from a horse and buggy to a manual shift car. It's a big improvement, but it's still quite a bit of work. In contrast, having a working pancreas in this analogy might be like having a self driving car. It just does everything without any work on your part.

I'm glad I finally got my Christmas wish, but it hasn't been totally smooth sailing. That's the thing with diabetes. Unless and until scientists develop a treatment that allows the body to produce the necessary insulin to control blood sugar, it's always going to be a 24/7 job.

In Which Crisis Schooling Is Not The Same Thing as Homeschooling

So much has changed since I last posted about the coronavirus pandemic. The news changes every single day, it seems. For the record, I am still not any more worried about Kittygirl getting covid-19 than I am about any member of my immediate family. If anything, I’m a little more worried about me or Mr. Engineer getting it. Though neither of us has a chronic health condition, neither of us is in as good of physical shape as Kittygirl, and the fact is there are many more people in their 40’s getting very sick and dying than there are kids.

What we’re mainly focused on right now is working and learning at home. The last day of school for the kids was March 13th. The first announcement was that they would return on April 6th, after spring break. Then that was changed to April 20th. The latest word is that schools in Kentucky are closed at least through May 1st. However, I’ll be shocked if they return to the school building this year. I think our governor just likes to take things in slow steps as opposed to closing schools for the rest of the year in one fell swoop as many other governors have done.

Mr. Engineer began working at home on March 16th, the same day the kids began learning at home. Luckily for him, the project he’s currently working on only required him to bring home a little bit of equipment and would have been done mostly in his office under normal circumstances. His coworkers who were working mainly in the lab had it much harder. He has set up his home office in Squirrelboy’s room, using a table we normally use to serve food when we have a lot of people over for a cookout.

In Kentucky, school systems are allowed to apply to do something called “nontraditional instruction”  (NTI for short) on days when it is not possible to meet in the school building. This means that students are given work online or paper packets to complete so that such days can be counted as school days and don’t need to be made up. Under normal circumstances, this happens just a handful of times a year on snow days.

For whatever reason, our district has never done NTI, which means we sometimes go into June making up snow days. However, when it became clear that schools would need to be closed for an extended period of time, every school district was allowed to apply for emergency NTI status. Since our district had never done NTI before, there was a steep learning curve. On the 13th, all students were sent home with a brochure suggesting “unplugged” learning activities in each subject for their grade level. Some teachers also sent home additional work. Ironically, my third grader brought home quite a bit and my 9th grader was only given a book to read and told to finish an already started project for math.

Officially, the first week of school closure was NTI days and the second week was “snow days.” The third was spring break. Kittygirl had enough A lot of other parents I know (many, but not all, of whom were either working from home or still going into work) were overwhelmed those first two weeks. A lot of memes were passed around social media about homeschool parents suddenly being seen as superheroes or homeschool parents as mafia bosses telling public school parents “Welcome to the family.”

The thing is, though, we weren’t really homeschooling. As a former homeschooler, I can testify that real homeschooling bears little resemblance to suddenly having to educate your child when school is closed due to a global pandemic. Homeschoolers plan out their year ahead of time. They choose the curriculum they use. They are also normally involved in a homeschool community. They often do classes at a homeschool cooperative one or two days a week. They meet other homeschoolers at the park. They go on field trips. Maybe they meet up with another homeschool family to do a science experiment together.

None of these things apply to what public school parents are now being asked to do. We didn’t plan to facilitate our children's learning at home. We, in fact, had almost no warning about it. We’re not choosing what to teach them. And even people who were already homeschooling can no longer gather with other homeschoolers, be it at a coop, at a park, or at someone’s home.

In our case, the first two weeks weren’t too bad. Kittygirl worked on the math packet and read the book she’d been sent home with. Squirrelboy read the book he had been sent home with, worked on his math project, and did a lot more work than he otherwise would have on the three merit badges he has left to earn his eagle rank in Boy Scouts. He also started a series of short films with theme of going outside and being active.

In addition, the kids spent a lot of time outside. I took them several times a week to a park on the other side of town that has mountain biking trails. As you may remember, mountain biking is one of Squirrelboy’s favorite things. Kittygirl was turned off of mountainbiking last summer when Squirrelboy took her on a trail that she wasn’t quite ready for and she fell. However, she decided to give it another try and she loved it.

As I said, the first two weeks weren’t too bad. I imagine they would still have been stressful if I were trying to work from home or if I had to go into work. Since I don’t work for pay right now, I’m able to dedicate a lot of time to the kids. I had actually just started sending off my first novel to agents and started work on my second, but the second can wait, and, if I actually get interest from an agent and need to do some editing on my novel I’ll figure out how to fit it in.

The beauty of the first two weeks was that the kids had minimal work that had been assigned by the school so, even though it wasn’t the same as homeschooling, it had some of the advantages. Kittygirl had time to do fun science experiments and watch educational videos. Squirrelboy had time to make some movies.

The teachers spent those two weeks training to teach via NTI and making plans. This has been the first official week of NTI, and it has been less than smooth. In fact, at times it has been downright torturous. The good news is that Squirrelboy’s school was pretty well positioned to start NTI. Nearly all assignments and teacher communication already came through Canvas, and most assignments were submitted through Canvas. The bad news is, the teachers are mostly assigning the kinds of work they assigned on days when they had a  sub. Squirrelboy generally hated that type of work and was never able to finish it in one class period thanks to his ADHD and dyslexia, so he’s been struggling with it. Kittygirl’s school was using SeeSaw Family for students to share some of their work with their families, so they decided to present NTI work using SeeSaw Classroom. They’re also using the web versions of their Math and Reading programs. There has been a steep learning curve for this. In fact, so many people complained about the math that the teacher suspended its use after Tuesday to reevaluate it and assigned work on IXL. The good news is, IXL is easy to use. The bad news is, Kittygirl hates it.

Gone are the lazy days when the kids could spend most of their time choosing what they learned about. I don’t blame the teachers. They’re doing their best in a bad situation. In many ways this is harder for them than it is for the students. They’re losing what is usually the best part of the year with this class of students. They miss them like crazy. And frequently they’re trying to help their own kids with online learning while doing online teaching.

I’ve seen a lot of complaining on social media about the work kids are being given during this time. I’ve even seen parents say they’re choosing not to have their kids do the work and encouraging others to rebel and declare the school year over or to file as homeschoolers for the remainder of the year and do whatever they want with their kids.

Educationally, that would be totally fine. Yes, the kids will miss some content, but it’s nothing they can’t catch up with when they’re able to return to school. Procedurally, it could be a big mess. Your child could be counted as truant and you could get in trouble. Or if you file as a homeschooler you might have to jump through a lot of hoops to enroll your child back in school in the fall. I know from enrolling Squirrelboy in high school after homeschooling for middle school that it was a tedious and annoying process for which I had to provide a lot of paperwork including a schedule that we didn’t actually follow every day and a transcript for which I had to go back and estimate grades because we didn’t actually assign grades.

We’re now on day 5 of real NTI. For Kittygirl it has gotten steadily better, but some of it is still tedious and feels pretty worthless. She tells me frequently that she wishes we could just go back to doing what we were doing the first two weeks. For Squirrelboy, it remains frustrating and tedious. He’s been able to keep his grades up and complete the work, but he’s basically getting everything he doesn’t like about school and none of what he likes, which is particularly sad for someone like him who had a mediocre experience at best during his public school years before high school.

For those of you who are in the trenches with me helping your kids trudge through their online work or worksheets sent home, I salute you. For those of you who are working on the front lines in healthcare and essential industries and hoping your kids get their work done, you are heroes.  Everyone in the world is going through the same crisis right now, but it doesn’t look the same for everyone. For some people in some places, it’s a hurricane. For others, like my family, it’s more of a gentle rainshower. Yes, it’s annoying we’d rather be going about our normal lives out in the sunshine. However, it’s not a tragedy. Mr. Engineer still has a job, and his company is committed to keeping everyone employed. To do this, they’ve given everyone a 20% pay cut, but this isn’t a financial hardship for us. Though it gives me little time for myself, I have the time and ability to help my kids with their work. The kids miss their activities, but it’s actually been nice to have more time in the evening to go on walks and play games together as a family. None of us have gotten sick, and, if we do, we have good odds because of our ages and good overall health.

Our biggest challenge is slogging through the kids’ work.What we are doing, however, absolutely does not fit the definition of homeschooling. Homeschooling is one of many good ways to educate your kids. Crisis schooling at home, however, is what we have to do right now, but absolutely not an ideal way for kids to be educated long term.

In Which I'm Not (Very) Afraid of the Big Bad Global Pandemic

When I last posted just under a month ago, my biggest problem was the fact that my wrist was broken and I couldn't drive or do much around the house. My wrist is now in a splint instead of a cast and I can drive, and do some, though still not all, household chores. I can also type on a regular keyboard, which makes posting a bit faster. However, in the space of a month, the world has become a very different place thanks to Covid-19.

As a history buff, I've read a lot about the recurrent bubonic plague outbreaks in the middle ages as well as the 1918 flu epidemic. My adulthood has featured SARS and H1N1 flu, but those did not rise to the level of global pandemics. It never occurred to me that I might live through something akin to the 1918 influenza epidemic.

It appears as if the current outbreak is approaching that level, however. A month ago it was centered in Asia with a smattering of travel related cases elsewhere. Now Italy has the highest percentage of deaths. the United States seems to finally be taking the virus seriously. Colleges around us started closing down or moving to online classes early this week. Yesterday our governor issued a strong recommendation for all schools prek to 12 to close down at least until the end of March. After today, my kids will be out of school until April 6, and that's presuming the virus is on the decline at that point, which is questionable.

Wednesday my church cancelled classes, and last night they announced that they will be live-streaming a worship service without a congregation on Sunday. Boy Scout and Cub Scout meetings have yet to be cancelled, but I'll be shocked if they don't follow suit. Thankfully, the den I lead just finished the work for their Wolf badges on Monday so it won't he a huge loss if we don't meet for a month. So far, our only regular activity that has declared itself open is The Little Gym, where Kittygirl takes gymnastics.

Technically, Kittygirl is at higher risk because she has diabetes. From what I've gleaned, however, as a child with well controlled diabetes, her risk is only a tiny bit higher. If she got the virus it would affect her blood sugar and add an extra component to treatment, but I'm not any more concerned for her than I am for myself, my husband, or Squirrelboy. I'm more concerned for my parents and in laws, who are in their 70's and 80's. Both my father and father in law also have chronic health conditions that increase their risk. However, they both have practiced a lot of social distancing since retiring, spending most of their time in their homes, so hopefully that will keep them from getting infected.

As a parent, I'm trying to remain calm about this pandemic for the sake of my kids. They're both bummed about school closing starting next week (which surprised me in Squirrelboy's case because he's having a rough semester). Kittygirl has heard lists of who is at higher risks, including those with chronic diseases like diabetes, and asked if she needs to be concerned. At this point, I believe I'm being honest when I tell her that she's still not at high risk because very few kids have gotten the virus and those who have have had mild symptoms.

The kids will come home today with some suggested educational activities but no firm assignments, from what I understand. I'm going to try to make the best of the downtime and the forced time together. I hope to finish reading aloud Little Women to Kittygirl (we just finished chapter 4, so we have a long way to go). I may be able to re initiate storytime with Squirrelboy. Hopefully the kids will get along well enough to play some board games together. If we're all feeling well and there are no specific instructions issued against such activities we'll take walks around our neighborhood, go out to the mountain bike trails, and do some hiking locally.

While I would take this burden away from the world if I could, since I can't, I'm doing my best to think of this forced downtime as an opportunity to step back from our busy lives, rest, and reconnect. I was particularly struck by this poem which has been making the rounds on social media. I don't know the blogger etiquette for sharing someone else's poetry, so hopefully I'm not breaking any rules here.


Pandemic

What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.

And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love--
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.

--Lynn Ungar 3/11/20

We are all deeply interconnected, maybe even more than we thought we were. We're seeing a serious negative consequence right now, but there are positive consequences as well. After this crisis subsides, I hope we can find new ways to bless each other. During the crisis, I hope that those of us who are not sickened but choose to pull away to protect others, can embrace the forced rest from our regular lives and find some of the rest our society often lacks. And in case  you're stressed out and needs some cheering up, here's an adorable picture of a kitten in a box.

In Which I Find My Tribe

It's Valentine's Day again, and that means it's time for my annual Valentine homily. In case you're new to this, or you've forgotten since last year, I'll give a brief introduction. A long time ago on a campus far away I was a woefully single college junior looking forward to celebrating Valentine's Day as Black (whatever day of the week it was). However, I had a change of heart and decided to embrace it as a day to celebrate the love of friends and family and ultimately the love of God. I sent an email to that effect to some friends and family and it was well received. I decided to do it again the next year, and thus a tradition was born. This annual message has since evolved into a reflection on my faith and life with some kind of connection to love and Valentine's Day. If you like it, feel free to let me know and also feel welcome to share it. Just don't pretend you wrote it :).

This Valentine's Day finds me with a broken wrist. I wasn't sure I'd even be able to write this a week ago, but my pain has significantly lessened and I've managed to type quite a few long Facebook messages and even a blog post with one finger on my phone's keyboard, so I figured I'd give it a go :).

It turns out that breaking your wrist, in addition to being exceptionally painful, renders you practically useless in a lot of ways. This is especially true when your main "job" is to run the household and drive kids around. I'm starting to learn to do a few household tasks with just my left arm, but there are a lot of things I simply won't be able to do until my wrist heals, including driving.

This has required that our family depend on other people more than we normally do. It started as soon as I broke my wrist, because the accident happened when we were out roller skating for Kittygirl's birthday party. We could have called all the parents to get their kids and brought our own kids to the ER, but we decided we didn't want Kittygirl's 9th birthday to stick in her mind as the year her party was ruined. So I started calling the parents of the girls. First one dad showed up to stay at the roller rink with the girls while Mr. Engineer took me to the ER. While Mr. Engineer was gone another set of parents showed up, which allowed both of our vehicles to be driven home with all the girls so the sleepover could continue. Finally one more mom left her book club early to help with the party and then stay with the kids while Mr. Engineer went to pick me up at 2am.

None of these parents are my good friends, let alone Mr. Engineer's friends. I like them all, and some of them are closer to friends than to friendly acquaintances, but it's not as if I live in a mythical world in which the mothers of my daughter's friends are my best girlfriends and we all go out for drinks or coffee once a month. However, despite that they were willing to drop everything to help us when we needed help.

Since then, my mother and then my mother in law have come to stay with us and help. Next week my mother in law will have returned home and we'll need help again, particularly with driving the kids around. I put a call out on Facebook, not sure what would come of it. I was surprised with several offers of help, including some from people I know even less well than the parents who helped at the party. It looks like we'll be able to get the kids home from school every day.

All this has led me this Valentine's Day to reflect on two related concepts. Because I've never been that great at making friends I've always been a little skeptical of the phrases "Find your tribe and love them hard" and "it takes a village to raise a child". I never truly felt like I had a tribe, and the village, well, I wasn't sure I needed it anyway. 

This need to depend on people lately has shown me that I really do have a tribe. We don't go out for regular girls nights, but they show up when I need them. It turns out that they're also part of

the village that is helping me raise my kids. My kids need examples of other adults who are adulting well and particularly other adults who can show them what it means to love and follow Jesus. Another part of this tribe/village showed up big-time for Squirrelboy a few weeks ago when one of his teachers challenged his faith and he was looking for resources to show that Christianity isn't entirely illogical.

So what's my point? John Donne wrote that "no man is an island" and I think that applies to families too. If you already know who's in your tribe/village, awesome! Don't take them for granted. Make sure they know how much you love and appreciate them. If you're more like me and you feel like you're the last living member of  your tribe or your village is a ghost town, look around. They may be just out of your sight. If you still can't find them, take the first step and find something you can do to be part of someone else's tribe/village. That may be the first step to finding one of your own.

This Valentine's Day, by all means express your love for your significant other if you have one. Also make sure you look around for the less obvious people who show you love in some way. Maybe you can find a way to thank your tribe on Valentine's Day. If you're part of mine, consider this my Valentine to you. 

Find your tribe and love them hard, on Valentine's Day and otherwise.