It's been a busy week here on the homestead! I changed our school format somewhat because we were fighting to focus on arithmetic. So I did something I had been avoiding so far in this whole venture: I added some screen time to our daily routine.
My guess would be that most readers are more shocked that my routine didn't include any screen time than that I've now started including it! But it's true, up until this week there was almost no movie or video watching this winter. My typical parenting style has avoided using TV as a crutch as much as possible. My kids are imaginative, active and independent; they don't require constant help entertaining themselves, and I aim to keep them that way! So for the initial adjustment period to our new reality as a temporarily single parent family, I continued my usual practice and just had them do their work, get their interactive time with Mom, and otherwise entertain themselves sans a screen.
That said, they really like watching movies! Some more than others, Kensie sometimes walks off before the end of a VeggieTales, but the promise of being allowed to watch something later can be an excellent incentive to get through a few pages of long division or fractions. So at least for this week I've printed their worksheets for the week before Monday. If they do their minimum of 2 sheets without any complaining, they get to watch half an hour of a movie. If they do an extra sheet they can watch a full hour, and 5 sheets means a whole movie. They ran out of worksheets on Wednesday so I created some extra ones, like introducing Tea Rose to factoring and Bean to using a number line.
So Wednesday around 3 PM all the kids were on the couch watching Toy Story 3. Dilly was just getting off the couch saying she had to go potty when the phone rang, so I grabbed it real fast and saw that the call was from Daddy! I answered carefully, not sure if he would be actually able to converse or just following a script as they sometimes make him do in Basic Training. I was so glad when he said, "How are you?" I quickly moved to the livingroom and paused the movie. "Potty, potty," Dilly kept saying, so I helped her get her pants down as the other kids looked at me, wondering why I stopped the movie.
"Is it Daddy?" Tea Rose asked cautiously.
"Yes, guys, it's Daddy," I said. I held out the phone to Tea Rose. "Do you want to talk to him?"
She curled up in a ball and burst into tears.
I looked at Bean and his face just crumbled.
I turned to Kensie and she started wailing.
"Wipe? Wipe?" Dilly asked.
"They're all crying," I said, probably unnecessarily. I dumped the potty and grabbed some toilet paper.
"Well, ok, what have you been up to?" Dad asked.
"Working on planting peppers," I said. "And they were watching a movie. What about you?"
Dad is now at week 6 of Basic Training. He passed his EOC (End Of Course) test with a 97 out of 100 and his PFT (Physical Fitness Test) with a 98 1/2 out of 100! He had hoped to achieve the physical achievement standard of Warhawk, but he was half a pushup short (he did 56 1/2 in a minute and needed to do 57) and because he already didn't qualify he didn't push himself on the run the way he would have needed to in order to have an 9:34 1.5 mile run. I still think he did great and I told him so! He told me he was wearing his dress blues right then. So exciting that he's made it this far! He still has a couple of weeks to go but he's getting very close to the end of this phase of his training.
At this point in the conversation the kids were starting to regain some composure, so I gave the phone to Tea Rose and she talked with Daddy for a couple of minutes. Then came Bean's turn, then Kensie's. Kensie gave the phone back to me and I held it to Dilly's ear. Daddy said hi and she said hi. I don't think she understood what was going on but Daddy was happy to hear her little voice. I updated him real quick on things around the farm, asked about the letters and pictures I'd sent, and then his 15 minutes were up and he had to hang up. He said he might be able to call again in week 8.
This has been a really hard few weeks for the whole family. Tea Rose almost daily says she wants her daddy back, and frequently sheds a tear as she does so. Bean gets upset if anybody talks about daddy at too much length, he prefers not to think about it. Dilly stopped asking about him after the first couple of weeks. Kensie doesn't say or react much one way or another, but I think the way they were all overwhelmed at the phone call really sums things up: we're all loaded with bottled up emotions that we don't know how to handle. Thankfully we've managed for the most part to keep everyone mostly on the same team, and my house rules about not pushing each other's buttons have managed to prevent potential meltdowns.
Finally, I do have a chiropractor appointment for Tuesday afternoon. It won't be my chiropractor, but a fill-in he has brought in because he can't return to work for a while. I am very sorry for him and can't imagine what could have him hospitalized for so long. The fill-in won't be doing muscle work, just adjustments, which is a bummer, but I'm hoping it will be enough to get me functional again. I haven't been to the Y to lift and run in a couple weeks, and I'm feeling it! But at the same time I can't risk aggravating my back and putting myself totally out of commission.
A little farm trivia: These are duck eggs! We've gotten 10 of them so far this spring. The kids really wanted to try them for breakfast. They're bigger than chicken eggs, and because their whites have extra protein you have to cook them pretty gently to keep them from getting rubbery! (I only did 3 duck eggs for the kids because Dilly doesn't have a tremendous appetite for eggs; I added her chicken egg to the pan when the duck eggs were almost done.) I had one myself a little later; I appreciated the very large yolk but otherwise found them pretty similar to chicken eggs. Because of the extra protein in the whites they're supposed to whip up very nicely for cakes or meringues, and the rich yolks are equally beneficial in baking or custards; I guess further experimentation is needed!
My guess would be that most readers are more shocked that my routine didn't include any screen time than that I've now started including it! But it's true, up until this week there was almost no movie or video watching this winter. My typical parenting style has avoided using TV as a crutch as much as possible. My kids are imaginative, active and independent; they don't require constant help entertaining themselves, and I aim to keep them that way! So for the initial adjustment period to our new reality as a temporarily single parent family, I continued my usual practice and just had them do their work, get their interactive time with Mom, and otherwise entertain themselves sans a screen.
That said, they really like watching movies! Some more than others, Kensie sometimes walks off before the end of a VeggieTales, but the promise of being allowed to watch something later can be an excellent incentive to get through a few pages of long division or fractions. So at least for this week I've printed their worksheets for the week before Monday. If they do their minimum of 2 sheets without any complaining, they get to watch half an hour of a movie. If they do an extra sheet they can watch a full hour, and 5 sheets means a whole movie. They ran out of worksheets on Wednesday so I created some extra ones, like introducing Tea Rose to factoring and Bean to using a number line.
So Wednesday around 3 PM all the kids were on the couch watching Toy Story 3. Dilly was just getting off the couch saying she had to go potty when the phone rang, so I grabbed it real fast and saw that the call was from Daddy! I answered carefully, not sure if he would be actually able to converse or just following a script as they sometimes make him do in Basic Training. I was so glad when he said, "How are you?" I quickly moved to the livingroom and paused the movie. "Potty, potty," Dilly kept saying, so I helped her get her pants down as the other kids looked at me, wondering why I stopped the movie.
"Is it Daddy?" Tea Rose asked cautiously.
"Yes, guys, it's Daddy," I said. I held out the phone to Tea Rose. "Do you want to talk to him?"
She curled up in a ball and burst into tears.
I looked at Bean and his face just crumbled.
I turned to Kensie and she started wailing.
"Wipe? Wipe?" Dilly asked.
"They're all crying," I said, probably unnecessarily. I dumped the potty and grabbed some toilet paper.
"Well, ok, what have you been up to?" Dad asked.
"Working on planting peppers," I said. "And they were watching a movie. What about you?"
Dad is now at week 6 of Basic Training. He passed his EOC (End Of Course) test with a 97 out of 100 and his PFT (Physical Fitness Test) with a 98 1/2 out of 100! He had hoped to achieve the physical achievement standard of Warhawk, but he was half a pushup short (he did 56 1/2 in a minute and needed to do 57) and because he already didn't qualify he didn't push himself on the run the way he would have needed to in order to have an 9:34 1.5 mile run. I still think he did great and I told him so! He told me he was wearing his dress blues right then. So exciting that he's made it this far! He still has a couple of weeks to go but he's getting very close to the end of this phase of his training.
At this point in the conversation the kids were starting to regain some composure, so I gave the phone to Tea Rose and she talked with Daddy for a couple of minutes. Then came Bean's turn, then Kensie's. Kensie gave the phone back to me and I held it to Dilly's ear. Daddy said hi and she said hi. I don't think she understood what was going on but Daddy was happy to hear her little voice. I updated him real quick on things around the farm, asked about the letters and pictures I'd sent, and then his 15 minutes were up and he had to hang up. He said he might be able to call again in week 8.
This has been a really hard few weeks for the whole family. Tea Rose almost daily says she wants her daddy back, and frequently sheds a tear as she does so. Bean gets upset if anybody talks about daddy at too much length, he prefers not to think about it. Dilly stopped asking about him after the first couple of weeks. Kensie doesn't say or react much one way or another, but I think the way they were all overwhelmed at the phone call really sums things up: we're all loaded with bottled up emotions that we don't know how to handle. Thankfully we've managed for the most part to keep everyone mostly on the same team, and my house rules about not pushing each other's buttons have managed to prevent potential meltdowns.
Finally, I do have a chiropractor appointment for Tuesday afternoon. It won't be my chiropractor, but a fill-in he has brought in because he can't return to work for a while. I am very sorry for him and can't imagine what could have him hospitalized for so long. The fill-in won't be doing muscle work, just adjustments, which is a bummer, but I'm hoping it will be enough to get me functional again. I haven't been to the Y to lift and run in a couple weeks, and I'm feeling it! But at the same time I can't risk aggravating my back and putting myself totally out of commission.
A little farm trivia: These are duck eggs! We've gotten 10 of them so far this spring. The kids really wanted to try them for breakfast. They're bigger than chicken eggs, and because their whites have extra protein you have to cook them pretty gently to keep them from getting rubbery! (I only did 3 duck eggs for the kids because Dilly doesn't have a tremendous appetite for eggs; I added her chicken egg to the pan when the duck eggs were almost done.) I had one myself a little later; I appreciated the very large yolk but otherwise found them pretty similar to chicken eggs. Because of the extra protein in the whites they're supposed to whip up very nicely for cakes or meringues, and the rich yolks are equally beneficial in baking or custards; I guess further experimentation is needed!
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