I’m trying to keep things moving forward and I feel like I’m doing a halfway decent job. That’s not easy for me to say that either. I tend to focus on my many failings and gloss over my parenting wins. I do feel pretty accomplished to have a basic strategy for the upcoming school year.

We haven’t left the house in a few days. It’s been insanely hot and COVID is worsening in Ohio. There’s also a renewal of the general safety concerns where we live.

There have been shootings recently and while that’s not unheard of its been getting pretty bad. I’ve mentioned before that gunshots are an almost daily occurance where I live. I don’t always know what happened but we hear them all the time. The gunshots from the other night involved a shooting where two babies were among those shot. Unfortunately, one of the babies didn’t make it and I’m not sure the status of everyone else.

I’ve had several people bring this to my attention in recent days. While I did hear the gun shots, I didn’t know the details of what happened and I honestly wish it had stayed that way. We’ve become so numb to gun violence and sadly, the only thing shocking to me about this shooting was the babies involved. It’s heartbreaking and scary.

Anyway, we’ve been taking it easy this week.

I did hear back from the boys new school about Emmett’s status and he’s good to go. Apparently, they were waiting on me to approve and finalize his schedule but never told me it was ready. Shit happens I guess but he’s completely done now.

Emmett’s pretty happy with his course load and anxiously awaits his supplies, which include a laptop.

We still don’t know if school is even going to start on time because Ohio is not in a good place and they may delay the start. If they delay the start, it would only make sense to do that across the board. With school scheduled to begin in the next three weeks, we should know pretty soon what’s going to happen.

I cannot imagine school will start on time. No one is ready to handle this safely and while some parents are ready to send their kids back anyway, how long would it be before we begin hearing about students and teachers dying from COVID?

I just don’t see it happening. Either way, we will be prepared to begin on time and if things change, we’ll adapt as needed.

Lizze is helping out with actual school supplies and that’s cool. She always nerds out for school supplies. It’s kinda funny because she gets more excited than the kids when it comes time for back to school shopping. lol

Anyway, I’ve still got to nail down a school routine. You’d think that because the hours are totally flexible, it would be easier but strangely it isn’t.

My job will be to physically facilitate school time each day. That will be challenging. At least I foresee it being a challenge. Maybe I’ll be surprised.

There is little I can do to replace the structure found inside the classroom and it’s going to take some time, energy, effort and a shitload of patience to make this work. I have total confidence in the kids ability to handle this academically. I’m nore concerned about how they handle this emotionally.

Time will tell. Either way, we’ll find our path.