A Message to All

My son starts school remotely tomorrow.   My daughter is back on the track system after the first half of the year with everyone in the county being on traditional school schedule.   This means she has another two weeks of vacation before she's back at school.   My son's school elected to do a bit of distanced learning to give anyone who might have seen family over the holidays time to either be or not be positive with COVID-19.   This means we have two more weeks with children at home. 

Tonight I was going through my son's backpack to get his things out and put them on the work table for tomorrow's start at eight-thirty in the morning.   You would think this would have been something we'd done by now but it seemed to get missed, with his backpack hanging on the hook in the mudroom all through the holiday break.  

I found several things but the one I liked the most was this message he clearly spent a good bit of time creating with his color pencil set, sharing several messages.   First and foremost it was to stay safe.   Then wishes for a merry Christmas, but lastly, because he didn't want to leave out anyone who didn't celebrate Christmas, he covered everything else. 

The Big Boy Update:  I also found in my son's backpack something I thought was an unpacked lunch and I was frustrated that I didn't think to check all this time so I dumped it on the floor.   It turned out to be a pottery project he'd made at school and was fortunately not broken.   I said to him, "Is that a cave?"  He was very happy that I'd realized what it was, telling me, "you're the first one who's figured it out, Mom."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: I got the family a domino set for Christmas.  Not the kind where you play against each other, the kind that you set up in long lines and topple over.   I had found a site that offered different ways to do things beyond just making a single line.   Yesterday we opened them up and my daughter has loved playing with them.   There are "runs" that she can place dominoes in that will stay attached and then hinge downwards in sequence.   In short, it's something she can be successful with.   Dominoes are so incredibly hard for her because to find one, she has to feel for it and that pretty much means knocking everything over.   The additions I got let her build lines of dominoes without the danger of tipping one or more over—and she loves it.   She's been messing around with the options so far and hasn't built too many courses or runs, but she's gotten the hang of it now and I think tomorrow she will.   She was disappointed we told them it was bedtime tonight.