The Mom of the Year once again goes to...

 Anyone but me. Not it.

The shift back to in-person school has been not without challenges. I'm not going to blame or point fingers. I'm just sayin', "it's been a bit tricky."

Initially we'd been told that Mondays would be deep cleaning days and therefore no students were to report. Fine. Block A kids would attend Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Block B kids were to report Thursdays and Fridays. Also fine. I got my planner out, color coded things, assumed I knew what to expect, and off we went.

Except.

First week of school the high school announced, "uh, ACTs are scheduled for Tuesday, so um, let's send the Block A kids on Monday and Wednesday." Okiedokie. Sounds reasonable. Very first day of school is now the day before the very first day of school was scheduled. Got it. No problem.

Thing 3 has his gifted class to finagle into things as well. His day to attend is Tuesday. At a different elementary school than where he attends regular school. So he's to take his normal school bus to his school, catch a different one to the other school, do his thing, take two buses home.

The first bus never showed that Tuesday, the ACT day, so I took him straight to the other school after a quick conversation with our office. No problem. It's ten minutes away, no big. It's the first week, there's a new bus driver, there's always wonkiness the first week. 

The rest of the week proceeds fine, the second week seems flawless, time for thinking we've found our groove and...

Nope.

Teachers are getting their second shots on Friday. This means that the Block A kids will go Monday and Tuesday, Block B kids will go Wednesday and Thursday. Okay, got it. No problem.

Wrong.

There was also an email about the gifted schedule shifting, even though normally that is a Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday schedule, sent on Friday. Guess who didn't check and/or missed the email saying Thing 3 was supposed to report on Monday?

*sigh* That'd be me. Poor kid was up, dressed, had eaten, and had snuggled in to work on his remote stuff when I get a call from the office. It's my sweet friend, all chipper and sympathetic. "Is Damon going to gifted today?" 

Me: ...

Also me: ... um, yep, yep, I can run him over there right now...

*Grabs clothes (since the child is still in pajamas), packs up computer/charger/headphones/snack, grabs keys/wallet/purse/sunglasses*

"Mama, we need masks..."

Yep! Got those too. 

Off we go, deposit said child after apologizing and trying to calm him back down because now he's freaking about the work he's supposed to be doing remotely but can't work on because he'll be in his gifted class. 

Just another example of why everyone needs to take a deep breath and be kind to each other. Maybe his gifted teacher and my sweet office friend both think my brain is full of cornflakes, I know it feels that way sometimes, but we are trying, haha! Be kind to everyone you meet- they may be having a cornflake morning!

The Murphy bed

Before:

Our downstairs guest bedroom has become Dada's office since he now works from home. We found various tables around the house and got them in there months ago so he'd have someplace to put his computer with multiple monitors, his microscopes, and so forth. There was also a night stand, a rocking chair (which Pap made) and a corner hutch (also made by Pap). Dada has plenty of boxes of broken glass mailed to him in the hopes that he can determine the hows and whys of the breakage. He'd gotten good at yeeting (okay, not really) stuff onto the bed, but somehow the idea of a space-saving Murphy bed surfaced, and Pap went to work. As is often the case with home improvements, it turned into a whole-house project: 

Right about here was the part where there was some grumbling about it not fitting and "maybe we need to saw some off" and "maybe we need to try ____ ," at which point I beat feet elsewhere and tried not to panic at the thought of it becoming a Farmhouse Project and thus having our house torn up for the foreseeable future. 

 There were some breaks in the work, like for Damon's first day of real school since last March. Pap and Precious escorted him to the bus stop, but though we waited for 20 minutes the bus didn't show and he needed to get to another elementary school for his gifted class that day, so I took him. We had preschool flashbacks as it's the same route we took way back then. I got him there on time, the bus brought him home, and later in the week everybody seemed to know where to be when. We'll see how it works out tomorrow when we do it again...

You can see the ironing board on the far left. It had been kept under the bed as I don't iron. Not sure where to put it now!

Below: This is the back of the corner hutch, which has been relocated to the Old Lady Room, taking the corner where the Teething Chair used to reside. Why do we call it that? There are teeth marks all along the arms from where Hinrew was just tall enough to gnaw on them when he was small. 

The rocking chair that Pap made is still sitting beside the kitchen, but at least it's not in there anymore like it was when I rounded the corner and lo and behold there was Pap, taking a break, rocking away while reading a book in the middle of the kitchen floor! We are making progress.

I was prepping to make homemade Pioneer Woman meatballs when the guys brought an air compressor through from the garage, cord and all. Things were a little bit nuts for awhile, but they cleaned up after themselves and the meatballs were made and devoured. I think they lasted two days. Might be a record.

Ta da! Newly installed Murphy bed and Teething Chair in its new corner. I told Pap he needed to sleep in it at least once to make sure it wouldn't close up on anyone, like my mother, like they do in the cartoons. He just laughed. I hope that means he's confident in his carpentry skills, haha! Time will tell! 

Maybe it'll be a good hiding place for me the next time I need to escape... I'll have to think about that.

                                               After:

Just don't try to open it expecting to get to Narnia. We have a closet for that.