I don’t know about you but my grand plans to restrict screen time have been an abject failure. Social interaction remains a primary factor/excuse. How do we restrict screen time while still allowing social interaction? Thaddeus’ best friend moved out of state last summer and it’s been a tough year for him. He likes to play Minecraft online while chatting on Discord. The problem is that this has to be done on my computer. Mine. Where I want to be wasting my own time. And now my keyboard is sticky. Gross.

How do we restrict screen time will still allowing social interaction?

Well, I don’t know about you but I have completely failed homeschooling. The sad thing is that I am a stay at home mom who was ostensibly homeschooling already. I was failing then too, so this pandemic hasn’t boosted my test scores. I was so excited when people started posting all these things on Facebook about free shit available. Who doesn’t love free shit? And Pinterest? Pinterest: This is your moment! You were born for this! But then I quickly became overwhelmed because how many free resources can you really bookmark in a day? How many can you read through? And the critical question, am I really going to do any of this anyway?

Narrator: She’s not.

Which just makes me feel like an even bigger failure. I mean it was bad enough failing at all of the things that cost me money. Now I can fail at 133,993,698 things completely free of charge!

And then here’s the other half of the complaint–schools that have given students things to do? Surprisingly, despite her mother’s complete and utter failure, Poppy is doing reasonably well at. But honestly, it’s too much. And by that I mean that Poppy is literally sitting at the other end of the table saying, “I feel like I have to do all of this work but it really is too much,” and “Well I forgot to turn this in yesterday so it’s too late.”

With “this” being an online form saying 3 things you learned that day signed by the parent.

So far I’ve been letting Poppy go real free-form on those 3 things. Previous entries have included “it snows a lot in the mountains” and “online learning is really hard.” Okay, I’ll admit the last one was a little passive-aggressive, but it was her idea and who am I to hold her back?

There’s a real conflicting message I’m getting on places like Facebook (and everyone knows that Facebook is absolutely the best and only place you should be getting your information), which is memes and articles that I love that say, “It’s a freakin’ global pandemic, peeps. Parents, just cuddle with your kids for the next 2 decades or however long it takes to get us through this” and “Here’s another free thing for you to feel bad about not doing!!!”

I’m hard on myself. I know it. I even fail at self-care. Ha. Pity Party: Table for 1 now available!

And I know I’m not the only one out there. There is at least one other parent because I talked to her last night and she’s one of my best friends so she I know she is honest. But what I’m hearing is that “too much” is a really popular refrain. Like a bad 90s pop song with a ridiculous hook that won’t get out of your head, it’s too much, too much, too much. Some of it, Poppy is able to do independently and some not, but a lot of kids can’t do any of it independently, and their parents have better and more productive things to do with their time than writing a blog about having too much to do.

These side-quote things are really cool though, am I right?

Let’s start with tests. Actually let’s stop with tests. No more tests. It looks like state testing may have been canceled (the governor has been a bit mealy-mouthed in his proclamations and predictions–let’s just say he wasn’t my first choice for the office), but Poppy’s school still has tests. Poppy took one this morning, and almost cried because she didn’t do well. My aforementioned bestie (who by the way is a healthcare worker so can we PLEASE give them a break at least???) whose son Hendrix is also in Poppy’s class and whose daughter Pearl is in the class Thaddeus was in before we decided to homeschool (using “homeschool” loosely), said that Pearl’s class had to take a proctored test in the middle of the workday, also known as the part of the day when parents are working.

I don’t mean to slag on our teachers. I think they’re doing a great job with what they’ve been given and the parameters under which they’re required to work. But this kind of thing is coming from higher up (I’m not a fan of the Superintendent either) and what I’m hearing from a lot of people is that it is just resulting in a lot of yelling, fighting, and tears. Kid to kid yelling (check), parent to kid yelling (check), parent to parent yelling (well, mine is more like bitchy sniping, sorry Cal), kid to kid fighting, parent to kid fighting, and everyone in tears. Lots of tears. I’m yelling at the stove because it’s an electric instead of gas and these burners stay hot when even when they’re turned off and who thought that was a good idea in the first place? I’m yelling at children for not eating the food I have prepared on that stupid electric stove. I’m yelling at the step stool I can’t for the life of me get to collapse. I’m yelling at the TV because Tyler and Amy on Lego Masters are such smug phonies I can’t even handle it. I’m yelling at the dog, and she hasn’t even peed on the carpet yet which is a personal best for her.

The only ones I’m not yelling at are the rats, lucky guys. Except that I forgot to refill their food bowl and it was empty for like 10 minutes and Pippin is so fat (we call him Sir Chonks-a-lot) he was desperately chewing on the wood ladder in his cage like it was his last chance for survival. Look, it hasn’t been easy, okay?