1/8/2024 0 Comments Hocus focus frenxxy![]() They’ve finished their electronic flashcards and want to know what to do next. They can’t find the activity hyperlink in the chat box. A child or parent interrupts every five minutes on average. “I love you, Miss Massey!” he says too loudly, too insistently. “We haven’t started yet, Hayden,” she says. “I don’t know what we’re supposed to do.” This is Hayden’s mantra, second only to “I don’t have_” crayons/scissors/a book/anything. “Remember to mute your microphones,” she gently reminds everyone. If everyone has a good connection, we may get through morning meeting in fifteen minutes, but a family squabble erupts over an unmuted mic. “No one should be typing in the comment box now,” Miss Massey, Natalie’s teacher, reminds her students as the comment box floods with emojis. This is the year of sacrifices, but I’m grateful none of us has the virus. Sometimes I feel like a whiner, especially on mornings when the drive has crippled my back to the point I can barely hobble from the bed to the bathroom. Meanwhile, the book I should be writing languishes. At the end of the day, there is just time for a walk before cooking dinner and falling into bed. ![]() My old leisurely mornings before work, teaching English as a Second Language, are replaced by a 5:30 alarm, a seventy-five-minute commute, and a six-hour-day of hopscotching between Natalie and Mason and their computers. Now my wish has come true in the most abrupt fashion. ![]() All I wanted for years was more time with them. When they are home, it takes all their energy to shepherd three children, including an infant, through an ordinary day. One or both always work weekends, so we don’t get regular family time together. Natalie’s mother is a hospital nurse, and her father a mail carrier – two jobs that cannot be done remotely. But a six-year-old tied to a lonely desk needs leeway, and I’m happy to claim this routine as ours. It’s a year of slipping standards – showing up for school in snarls, bare feet, and big brother’s shorts doodling in class. Natalie just wants to draw, and why not? She’s got talent beyond her years, and the pace of instruction is as sluggish as dial-up download. We swap Post-it notes of squiggles to turn into pictures while the teacher conducts morning meeting. When my efforts meet with resistance, I follow her lead. This much was drilled into her in preschool, but a child who has never been to real school has no idea what is truly expected. Hello, hello! Can you stamp your feet? “No,” she insists as I stamp her knees on their perch.Ĭan you stretch up high? I pull her bent arms like taffy.Ĭan you turn around? Give her chair a spin. “No, I can’t,” she says as I pry her slender fingers free. “Hello, hello! Can you clap your hands?” I sing. This non-participation has become a game. Natalie curls like a blonde snail, feet tucked under, and grips the seat of her diminutive office chair. Virtual kindergarten opens with a cymbal roll as the video on my granddaughter’s laptop pans to cartoon kids holding hands around the globe.
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