Month: June 2020

So, what have we been up to since our safer-at-home order ended 2 weeks ago? Oh, you know, eating at restaurants every day, playing at crowded parks, swimming at the beach with everyone else, hanging out in groups larger than 10 inside peoples’ houses… All without wearing masks! Freedom!!

Jokes.

It’s actually been much of the same as before, since we’re still really not going anywhere. And don’t worry, we do wear masks when we go out. The big 3 wound down the school year, which is always so hard to believe; Ryan is still working at home through the end of this month; and we’re going on a little 4-day trip to kick off our true summer vacation.

This school year end just felt so heavy without having been in the classroom with the teachers for the last 3 months and with everything else going on in the world right now. Especially Morrison’s. The end of K4 is always hard on me, but this one was incredibly so. Plus the teachers all made an amazing farewell video for the kids, which about killed me to watch. Lots of tears, lots of tears.

Thankfully we were able to see most of our teachers during the last couple days of school, which was so great. I sent them all pictures of the kids holding the bouquet of peonies and weigela flowers that I normally send in for them during the last weeks of school but obviously couldn’t this year. Morrison’s K4 teachers are 2 of my most favorite people ever, so it was absolutely wonderful to see them again. Lana’s 1st-grade teacher was a fantastic fit for her, and she said again how amazing, creative, and incredibly smart Lana is. She said Lana was, by far, the best artist on Seesaw (their class’s online platform for virtual learning), and I agreed that her creations impressed me every single morning. She even said how quickly Lana’s mind works and that she’s like a sponge when it comes to learning – constantly wanting to know more. That made my heart about explode with pride, and I told her that fits perfectly with what Lana’s already said about not wanting to have summer break because she’ll be bored without school. Lana and Morrison even started their summer workbooks before the last day of school! Della was sad that we didn’t get to see her teacher in person but she wrote a very heartfelt reply to the flowers email, and I know she and Della will definintely miss each other.

Morrison turned 5 at the end of May and we had a surprise guest for the celebration, but that will be a post unto itself. The big 3 have been playing outside with friends again, something they weren’t able to do before the safer at home ended. That always makes their days fun. They also had virtual Family Campout Day, since they usually have a campout day at school during the last week. This year the teachers posted links and videos for all the games and activites, which ended up being a lot of fun. We got everything to make s’mores like they always do at school but didn’t end up getting to them until that Sunday, but I said that was the nice thing about having virtual Campout Day on a Friday – we could make it last all weekend.

We also witnessed the intense resurgence of Black Lives Matter protests nationwide in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, which was incredible to see. We were even put under a curfew for a couple nights in a row as it all played out in Milwaukee. I talked to the kids about why it was going on, why no person is better than another simply because of the color of their skin, and how I’ve never understood why people with peach skin (what they call white people) thought they were better than or in control of people with brown skin. We watched the CNN/Sesame Street town hall video that dealt with racism, and the girls were very interested. When I told them why all this was being brought to attention right now and what had happened to George Floyd, Lana asked, “But aren’t the police supposed to help us?” I made sure to emphasize that yes, the police are supposed to help and to never be afraid to ask them for help if you need to. Only a small number of police officers are bad, just like not every person is bad, but those bad police are the ones doing all these horrible things and need to be stopped.

No one should ever be made to feel less than or hurt or in danger just because their skin is a different color than anyone else’s. I walked in a protest march here in our village, and the kids were very interested about what we did, what our signs said, what we chanted, why we did it. I could especially see Della’s gears turning, trying to make her own sense of it all. I asked if the kids with brown skin in her class ever seemed to be treated differently or got different attention or acted differently, and she said no. Then Lana made up a little song that went, “It doesn’t matter what color your skin is, it doesn’t matter what color your skin is, as long as you always have fun!” And that night Morrison typed in a little document full of emojis that I keep on my phone that he likes to add to every once in a while – “Don’t be mean to different color people” and “Stop being mean, police officers!” I hope that the skin color blindness they know now stays with them forever. The racism in this country must end, and a lot of it is going to be up to their generation. I hope this recent momentum is sustainable and that one day (soon??) every person is truly seen as a person and treated as equally as her neighbor.

I actually found this little note Della wrote in her document on my phone just the other day without me knowing it, and it made me so proud: No matter the color of your skin, black, brown, peach, white or tan; we are all equal. So all the people that see this message (which won’t be any) please don’t judge someone by the color of their skin. The only thing that matters is the way that they act. We are all equal. 👩🏿‍🎓👩🏿‍🎓👩🏿‍🎓👩🏿‍🎓👩‍💼👩🏿‍🎓👩🏿‍🎓👩🏿‍🎓 NO RACISM!

Umm… what else? My gardens have made me so happy this spring, and I still stand by my claim that everything is blooming more vibrantly than usual this year. I finally figured out that the flowering bush in the corner of our back yard is a weigela, and I actually saw a hummingbird feeding on it for the first time the other day! I was thrilled, because I have never seen one back there before. I read that weigelas are attractive to butterflies and hummingbirds, so I hope they come back! Our special birthday visitor helped me add some beautiful planters to the front steps (the white pitcher and pots were my great-grandmother’s!) and I got new outdoor pillows for the porch, so I love the little space I’ve created out there now. Lana got her turn with a Zoom birthday party, and they even dropped off a treat for everyone beforehand! I’ve made some more bags and added 2 new styles that I love to my repertoire. I haven’t made any more masks yet, and I think I’ll wait to see if the kids will need them for school next year before I spend more time on those.

So here we are. Post the (first) great shutdown of 2020, and thankfully we all stayed healthy through it. Unfortunately, COVID cases in Milwaukee County shot up 21% in the first week after we reopened, so we’ll see where that goes. Virtual schooling worked out so well for us, but I do hope the kids can go back to school in the Fall. I know both they and the teachers will be heartbroken if we don’t. Or at least a combination of in person and virtual – I think that face-to-face interaction is vital.

This post feels like a hodge-podge conglomerate recap compared to my weekly shutdown posts, but that’s just kind of how these past couple days have been. Getting everything done as best as I can, keeping track of all the last days of school to-do items and trying to make it as fun as it usually is, processing the emotions of everything happening around us right now, and making it all work through my ever-present exhaustion. So thank you for bearing with me here and following along through those 10 weeks of much more pleasantly organized summaries. It’s been a trip, that’s for sure. And now a hurricane is moving up through the Midwest. Seriously, 2020 has been a year like nothing I have ever experienced so far. I can only imagine what the rest of it has in store…