Longing for an end to the school year and enjoying some stay-at-home fun (7 Quick Takes)

~1~

We are done with school, but school isn’t done with us. That’s been true for weeks, but it’s never been as true as it is today. We have two more weeks of online learning, and I don’t know how we’ll get to the finish line.

All I know is if and when we ever get there, I’m throwing a party—and it won’t be a virtual party held on a schedule that changes every week or one that you can only find in the lime green folder.

Summer, please come soon.

~2~

This time at home has shown me how much I love unscheduled weekends. It makes me realize that, much as I enjoy a life full of adventure and time with friends and family, I really value quiet time just for our family of four.

But I do miss seeing our families. The other night I went over and stood on my parents’ sidewalk and chatted with my parents from a safe distance.

They had ended up with too much bread in their grocery order, and I did what helpful daughters do—show up to accept an extra loaf of bread.

It was really good to see them. I wonder when we will be able to spend real time together again.

~3~

My parents also gave me a hand mixer they had found in their basement. It’s avocado green, and it’s amazing. I used it this week to make hot milk sponge cake, which we’ve been enjoying with strawberries for strawberry shortcake.

I’m hoping to interest at least one of our boys in the mixer so they can assist with the baking. Who doesn’t want to bake when you have an avocado green mixer that may have been a bridal shower gift in 1971?

~4~

Our older son loves a spicy ramen that I’ve found on Amazon now that the run on ramen seems to be over—thank goodness. His brother really wants to like it. He doesn’t like spicy food, but this ramen is so deliciously fragrant when it’s cooking that it is irresistible. Again today he asked me to make it for him, and again today he didn’t like it.

Some things are like that. You want to like them. You think you’ll like them. But when you try them, you just don’t enjoy them. I feel that way about champagne and fourth grade homework. Well, maybe just champagne.

~5~

As I was writing today, Christmas music started playing, and I thought how fortunate I am to be able to work from home. Then a paper airplane came sailing across the room and landed on the table.

I opened it up and saw that inside it said, “I want a bird!!!!!!” It was written many times, of course, to make the point clearly, in case I had failed to figure it out the first time.

Someone really wants a pet bird, and he’s not satisfied with the birds that visit us on a regular basis and live in the flowering basket on our back porch.

~6~

We missed a virtual fourth grade field trip this week. We had run out of steam for online classes, and I knew it wasn’t math or ELA. In a moment of weakness, I said we could skip it as long as we got the assignments done. I forgot that it was a virtual field trip to St. Mary’s City, Md.

I felt guilty. When I told our sons, though, they didn’t seem particularly unhappy.

“Some things just can’t be done virtually,” our sixth grader said, very wisely. Since the most exciting thing about this field trip in real life is that the children can bring mobile devices along for the long bus ride each way, we replicated that with some extra video game time at home.

~7~

At the beginning of the school year, our fourth grader brought home a form where he could enter to be chosen to help run the American flag up the flagpole each morning.

He had to explain in writing why he wanted to be chosen, and he simply said that he loves the United States, and he likes to help. When he came home and told us he had been selected to help with the flag for the month of June, we were so proud. Here we are in June, but of course there is no flag to run up the pole because school is closed.

It’s such a small, seemingly insignificant thing in a world that is bearing so much heavy grief and sadness and injustice. But I believe it’s OK to grieve the little losses, too.

Read more quick takes at Kelly’s blog, This Ain’t the Lyceum, and have a great weekend!

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