Seems like I’m often sick when I write in my blog, because that’s when I have the time and inclination to sit around writing. And this time is no exception. I think we had about a week of school before people started saying: “I / my child / my spouse / my students seem to have a scratchy throat/runny nose/headache.” Everybody made a heroic effort at denial and taking their Vitamin C. Well, I never got around to buying Vitamin C so I just doubled down on the denial.
But finally I took Thursday off and spent the day sleeping and watching Lord of the Rings. Today however Mr Turtle is also sick and it is a holiday (newly invented in Canada) so the girls are home. I’m doing a few chores, drinking large amounts of coffee and black tea to stay awake, and making a cursory effort to discourage the girls from taking the house apart.
But other than the recent illness I think our first month of school went ok. The students who don’t have a ton of complicated and disruptive stuff in their lives have settled in. The ones that do have complicated disruptive stuff are of course less settled, and we are trying to figure out how to accommodate/support them. I’d say the biggest challenges this year are attendance, mental health, and low adaptive skills. Basically all the stuff that has no quick or easy fix. It’s early days though, and we have a very good team this year, so I’m reasonably optimistic.
Our family schedule appears manageable, and so far I have even gotten the kids to school on time every single day! Our evening activities have been enjoyable. But it’s been very busy.
I wrote out in detail what our week is like and then decided I don’t want to publish it on the blog. In summary, the kids have two weekday evenings of activities, and I have two weekday evenings of activities, and there’s a lot of moving parts to make it all happen. I’m hoping that it all is relationship-, skill- and reality- enhancing. I’m still worried it could just be exhausting.
We also had out of town in laws visit for two weekends. And I have a few friends dealing with some major stuff in their lives, which challenges me to think of how to support them.
We also bought a car, after a day of test driving where I pretended to be brave. Of course these days you don’t just drive a car off a lot. It should arrive early next month. Meantime fingers crossed my car holds out till the new one is here. The check engine light came on shortly after we chose the new car, so Mr Turtle and I exchanged cars. He doesn’t drive the kids around the city during the week so he can cope with a car that might break down any minute; I cannot/will not. But so far so good.
The weather has been very pleasant, if dry, and the fall colours are glowing. Halloween plans start soon. And we will try to scrape together the energy this weekend to keep making the story of our lives an interesting one.
