COVID 19 - The Archery Update

Lacrosse is a thing of the past, but archery still exists.

Shane never wants to go out when I offer. Ever.

Then he goes and asks when I really don't want to, but I know it'd be good for the both of us.

I don't regret it once we start, but that initial investiture of energy can be a challenge!

Shane really wanted to shoot from the porch after Mom did it last time. I thought it was too far, but some things are best learned by experience.

Like being aware of splinters.

Shane was safe this time!

Shane was pretty frustrated he had trouble reaching the arena.

He didn't share my contentment with just doing something!

I had a few near hits. It's always a good grounding in reality to actually do something vs watching an expert do it or tv fakery.

I was amazed when one of my errant shots lodged into a pole!

The bow and arrows are half toys for us, but it was a good reminder for both of us to keep all the safety precautions up!

Our cheap bows manage a fair amount of power and distance for what they are. Shane wanted me to do a distance shot. I didn't shoot with abandon and still managed to hit the edge of our property line!

COVID 19 - The Coronavirus: We Went on a Hike

We had one social outing in April - We went hiking with Henry!

We weren't exactly socially distant, but we were outside and both of our families have been isolated (It's not like we went back out again a week later though I kinda wish we did!).

Molly brought the dogs. Loki would've loved to have joined us, but we don't have a great leash for him. He seems to overheat if he's outside and too active for overlong, too.

We walked by a kid who'd just pulled out a fish out of the water. Shane was mesmerized. "I want to go fishing!"

We walked on, though. Henry said they had some fishing poles, but he was much more interested in building a fort!

We went up a hill that overlooked the reservoir. There was a path on the other side that went into town. I had no idea this was so close to us.

A sign marked a trail, but the arrow must have been optional. Henry led us UP the hill.

The path arced up in a steep arch. It wasn't even a true path as much.

The real trail was at the BOTTOM of the hill. The ladies followed the arrow. I followed the boys up to save Carrie's ankles and her worrying about Shane walking along a 45 degree slant!

Henry's detour was the exact opposite of a shortcut. We went up and came right back down where the moms walked through. We had to be careful not to slip down leaves while the they walked and talked nonchalant!

I like hiking. I prefer when someone else initiates it, so today fit the bill perfectly.

Exploring is fun! I'm normally too preoccupied with taking care of everything and everyone to just up and go about it.

There was a world of green around us. All my pictures doubled in size as the camera tried to capture it all. I can't imagine leaving far from trees all the time. There a normal part of Virginia.

We came to where Henry wanted to build. He loves tools and treats the world like Minecraft.

The dogs were happy to be near the water.

I don't know if Loki would've jumped in, but he would've been a sponge compared to the retrievers!

Carrie, Molly, and I all stood a little off while the boys talked and built. For me, it's because I didn't want to hover over everything they did. Kids need time to be kids! Shane has a lot more oversight than I did growing up and I liked him to have more time on his own.

So I can't tell you exactly what caused him to march off making angry faces and sitting down on his own! He walked right through where we were talking with clenched fists and stomping. He sat down and pouted off by a tree. 

I'm sure he wanted us to stop everything we were doing and ask why he was upset, but he didn't communicate anything so I let him go through to process on his own some. 

Shane eventually came back and said that Henry wasn't sharing the tools he said he would. We processed a little bit and he went back to playing.

The next time he came back it was with a bug!

The boys really wanted to cut down a dead tree with Henry's machete. They went at it a long time before they asked me to help some.

There was no handle grip to speak of! I felt the metal digging into my hand as much as the tree!

I didn't help for very long. I spent nearly the next hour looking like this. 

There was a staff meeting. I watched from my phone.

I had seriously thought about playing hooky. No one would've noticed and I had plenty of people who could've encapsulated the experience for me, but I wandered off to the side and tried to be in two worlds at once.

Carrie started to help with the tree. It proved to be incredibly stubborn, but not at stubborn as she was.

She let the kids have some swings in between marveling at it's refusal to fall.

The tree did fall, but I didn't capture the momentous occasion.

Henry could have stayed building for hours, but we all moved on up the hill. My 30 minute meeting went on for over an hour as I walked between and tried to keep tabs on both groups - The ladies in the lead and the boys walking far, far behind.

We were outside for nearly three hours. I made the call to turn around to head home for food! The boys had fun, but there were already some signs they were getting tired of each other. It was better to end of a good note!

I made Shane do a tick check when we got home. He found a new friend trying to hide in his bellybutton.

I love trees, but I hate ticks. I compulsively check and caught one on my arm while we'd been out.

It was a fairly epic first outing for the month. I hope we go out again!

(SPOILER: We didn't, but Shane got a lot of socialization out of his system! Maybe eventually!).

Look Back: Posting over the Years

Ever feel like a day repeats? Ever wondered where you were on the same day at a different time?

I decided to take a look back through my blog and see what stories popped up for April 28th.

2019 - Genevieve and Chris visited for the weekend! There was soccer, lots of kids, getting ready to sell our house, and I ran a D&D campaign. It was the social opposite of 2020 with COVID!

2018 - Shane and I drove to NOVA for International Tabletop Day. John was running a program at his library and Nana and Pop were in town visiting Jama.

2017 - I thought about our favorite TV shows from house to house. We've been watching Avatar the Last Airbender this week. The 2017 post from the day before was Shane's swimming lessons.

2016 -I posted a video of Shane dancing to the music at the end of a movie.

2015 - There were two posts. 1) I was in classroom 221B and posing as Moriarty. 2) The Prius died.

2014 - Another two poster. 1) Shane was climbing in the back of our neighbor's truck in Chantilly. 2) My work laptop was stolen.

2013 - Igor got married!  And Shane didn't play well with a little girl. And I bruised my butt jumping over a fence.

2012 - There was nothing posted on the 28th. I posted a post about a lack of posts on the 27th, though (seems fitting....). The post before that was when the space shuttle flew over my school to go to the Air and Space Museum.

2011 - Another post-less April 28th, but the 27th spoke of Shane's fondness of warm diapers.

2010 - The blog had not yet begun, but Carrie was pregnant with Shane.

COVID 19 - The Coronavirus: Virtual School Update

Virtual School has taught me a lot. 

First and foremost, it's taught me what it's like to teach virtually 

To interact with someone online only feels like interacting with their shadow. It's them, but it's not the real them. The shadow can wildly fluctuate based on the angle and the light and in the darkest moments it vanishes.

I've thought about being a virtual educator/professor before. This period of forced online education has given me a free sample of what it might be like. 

Would I still do it? Maybe. It'd have to be part time rather than full time, the right subject, the right students, and the right pay!

So I guess that means, "Highly unlikely."

I've been working hard and earning my money. In some ways it's a lot less work (content creation, commute, hours spent in school, grading), but it also drains me more because I don't get to experience the parts of my job that reward and energize me as much (the relationships, working through problems, dawning comprehension, free food when someone puts cookies in the breakroom, etc).

A lot of the other things I've been learning have been about the how's. How do I run a lesson online? How do I run a PLC meeting online? How do I try to connect to students who don't respond? How am I supposed to use this tool to do this thing?

The line really blurs with everything being at home. I played a game with Matt and Patrick last night. As the game ended, I got an email from a student who I hadn't heard from in weeks. I stopped everything and made sure my reply was buzzing in his hands before he could put down his cellphone. 

I spent the next half an hour going back and forth. The kid was working and putting up barb wire fencing, so he wanted to talk at 5 PM the next day. 

After that, I crawled into bed. 

It's May 12th as I write this. That's how far behind I am!

Shane only managed to interrupt me twice while I was writing. He came running out of his room loud while Carrie is sleeping on the couch. He wanted me to stop everything and look up something on MegaMan X2 (I didn't). He came out again 5 minutes later after I told him "I'm trying to finish this and it's going well!" He spent the next two minutes two chairs down from me, chased the cat into the chair next to me, and just tapped me on my arm to say, "Where'd you get that cow?"

I answered a few work emails mid-composition, too.......and thus, that's why I'm behind. Emails are shorter and I can fire one off in between Shane-terruptions.

COVID 19 - The Coronavirus: Assorted Stories from the Weekend

I've gone a while in between posts, but it's not because anything bad has happened (Nana texted me to make sure we were all right in May!). I'm going to forgo my "Primary vs Secondary sources" and statistics posts for now to go through a bunch of pictures.

Like the one I have of Eddie and Ernie grooming each other. The old men are friends.

Ernie's on a diet now. He can't do much grooming wearing a muzzle...

We've had caterpillar sightings all over.

Shane's fascinated.

I thought they looked like gypsy moth caterpillars, but we did some online and app research. They are Eastern Tent Caterpillars....and they're all over.

ALL over. There were at least twenty on the section of fence we were looking at. I found a bunch of dead ones in a bucket of water by the barn, too.

Speaking of the barn, Carrie bought some new filler out to try.

It's "like dehydrated grass." Sam and Maddie are acting so desperate for food that Carrie's hoping it will fill them up a little bit without being too high in calories. They've both lost a lot of weight and are nearing their targets from the vet.

Shane got another quick riding lesson on Sunday. Carrie had him walking and jogging around with Maddie to warm her up.

Then he hopped on and it was go time!

He's getting better. Carrie has him doing exercises like going into two-post down the length of the fence to build the muscles. He's not fond of those, but with praise he's done em!

Grandma and Grandpa arrived during the lesson. We'd thought they'd enjoy the show (Grandma more than Grandpa since she likes horses), but Grandma only had eyes of the flower beds. They were covered in weeds and she couldn't stop herself.

Grandpa was busy admiring the deck (when Grandma was assigning him weeds to grab!). I half-teased, "Did you come to visit us or the house?"

I'm not going to say that's why Shane and I found ourselves helping out with the weeds, but I'm sure going to imply it!

It makes for a fun punchline even if it's not really why.

Carrie had forbidden Grandma and Grandpa from entering the house, so they drove a couple of hours knowing that in advance. Either they really missed us or they had some serious cabin fever (maybe both?)!

And as a further example that life never spaces out activities, Heidi and Misha showed up right before Grandma and Grandpa! Heidi's been in and out of the hospital, and wanted to see her horse to cheer her up. They were in the barn while weeding went on around the house.

We have plenty of space.

It was a short visit. Plans were made for another visit next weekend and then Shane got to go inside and play some Minecraft. I felt better about him zoning out since he was outside and got some social time in.

And on a completely unrelated note: One of my students shared some pictures of a diorama they made for a Warhammer 40k contest. She's a really talented artist.

COVID 19 - The Coronavirus: Keeping it Silly

Loki likes to try and eat my hat. Carrie encourages it.

It looks very odd when you're in the hat.

I put my hat on Shane and let him see what it's like.

The pictures don't convey the smell. 

Or the squeals and laughter!

I've tried some different games and activities with Shane (lacrosse, archery, Final Fantasy II, Pokemon TCG...), but there's only been one thing that he consistently asks for: Minecraft.

And after he asks for Minecraft, Shane asks "Want to come into my world?"

The answer is normally no. I tell Shane it's fine that he likes Minecraft. I don't. The last time I was in his world, he put me on survival mode so that I could die repeatedly while he was in creator mode (aka - "All powerful"). I played the soon-to-expire-guinea pig in his experiments and called it quits for a bit.

Shane really wanted to show me his house he built. He shows me stuff all the time (and narrates it a room away.....sometimes even when I'm in the bathroom. I'll come back and he'll still be talking).

I finally agreed to join Shane in Minecraft again and he let me be in creator mode this time.

So I built an outhouse.

A royal outhouse.

Shane added all the torches.

Shane was happily chatting about everything he was doing, so I started to make a boat. I don't know why I chose a boat, but I guess it had to do with there being water.

Shane would occasionally fly over to my boat and throw people on it. He really wanted me to go over to where he was, though.

Shane made a mini restaurant and hotel. He gave me money and then made me crouch on a chair and order food he could serve.

I played nice for a long time and, no, I didn't break anything on purpose (which is not the same as saying I didn't break anything...).

We have the educational edition, but I imagine we'll get the full version at some point. I was thinking about giving it to Shane as a 'graduation' present when he's done with 3rd grade.