On the bright side, you at least might get an idea of what the plan will be?

We are supposed to get a parent survey tomorrow, but I don’t expect to see any sort of plan or info before mid-July...and we start back (theoretically) on August 12.

Nothing like realizing this morning that I never put dinner leftovers away from yesterday - whoops. At least today is trash day so it was easy to and get out of the house.

🤦‍♀️

That stinks about your grandma not getting the severity and taking precautions, drama.

My mom headed home yesterday after 10 weeks with us, so my kiddos went to daycare today. C was more okay with it than I expected - as there are no field trips for the school aged kids this summer, I was prepared for a fight about it, but maybe he’s desperate for some kid interaction other than his sister. 😂

It was definitely bittersweet dropping them off; but they were both happy to go in and M was ecstatic that brother was going to her school.

This morning was one of those days where I wanted to strangle my son. His cousin spent the night last night so it naturally took an extra long time to fall asleep for them. Then I hear them talking at 4am. Go downstairs and they are awake and playing. Send them back to bed. Rinse and repeat at 530 am. Seriously, children. I want my sleep! C is getting an early bedtime tonight, and I’ll let my sister know then niece probably needs one as well. On the bright side, so far they’re not cranky here yet, or I’d make them lay down for some quiet time.

Anyone else’s younger kid go through the phase with the millions of questions about when they/brother/sister/mom/dad/friend/whoever tongue can think of are going to die and can tell me how long this will last? M is 3.5, and has entered the “death” phase.

“When am I going to die, Mommy?”
“Not today, sweetheart.”
“But when?”
“Hopefully not for a long time.”

Rinse and repeat with her asking about someone else. I don’t remember C going through this phase, so I’m hoping it’s somewhat short lived.

It’s not just a larger state problem. I’m in Kansas and ours was nowhere equipped to handle the load based on stories from my cousin and a couple of others.

We were planning on taking a big trip this summer to celebrate our 10th anniversary, but that won’t happen now. Depending on how things look in the next 6-8 weeks, we’ll either stay here, or possibly drive somewhere and likely rent through Airbnb or maybe a hotel (not sure how I feel about that at the moment) and then do lots of outdoor activities. Up for discussion now are Mount Rushmore/Badlands in South Dakota or beach in the Gulf Shores area. Both are about the same distance drive for us.

Many of our typical family vacations involve things like children’s and/or science museums, baseball games, zoos and/or aquariums, so whatever we do, it won’t end up looking like one of those.

We bought a wireless mouse and keyboard, and a docking station, for DH’s WFH setup.

More art supplies than normal for the kids.

More groceries because we’re not eating out as often (and no free work lunches that usually happened 1-3x/week for both DH and me).

Electric pencil sharpener - the cheapo manual one isn’t cutting it and I’m tired of DS trying to pin not doing a journal entry or school work on having no sharpened pencils.

Books for DS - we have tons of picture books, but less of the early chapter books and comics he likes, and we can’t do our usual weekly library run.

A few new puzzles and games.

Masks.

Hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes.

Plants for my flower beds.

Does anyone let their kids help with choosing organizations you support (financially or otherwise)? Or other creative (or not) ways to include your kids in giving? Brought to you by my thought this morning that maybe we should pick 2-3 organizations each month and let the kids pick which one we support with a donation. This would be on top of giving we already do, and I would try to choose organizations that would resonate with the kids - zoo, local public school foundation, library, etc. Once they found a favorite or two, we’d likely then stick with that and not change it up each month.

Some things we already do: Church has baskets at front for the kids to donate a non-perishable food item for the food pantry, so they do that each week (though not now, clearly). School give back events - classrooms adopt foster kids at Christmas, so we always pick a few things off the needs/wants list to buy and donate; school food drives; winter coat drives; probably 1-2 others I’m forgetting. Angel tree at Christmas. Our church usually has a tree for nursing home residents, so we’ll do a couple of things off of there.

Basically, I’m trying to not raise spoiled brats, and want to make sure they understand the importance of giving. My family didn’t have much money growing up, but gave a lot of time, so we were very involved in school stuff, church, community. I unfortunately tend to have not enough time, and my kids aren’t old enough to do a ton of give back events with me, so I’m trying to find ways to involve them in any level of giving.

Drama, are you in any local to you FB mom groups? If so, I’d they ever have anonymous posts, try PMing a moderator to see if they’ll do an anonymous post for you - you can them anonymously ask for marriage counselor recs, and especially if anyone has one that has helped where one spouse is an addict.

Audrey, I do gift cards as well, though our daycare is closed for another week so nothing for me to do this week. If it makes you feel better, you could always wait a couple of weeks until everyone is back and do a meal and GCs then. Or give GCs to those who are back now and then do a meal later.

That stinks! Hope the health insurance part works out!

Hugs, drama.

I’d probably just do it all at once. Or if it makes you feel more comfortable, do it in 2 steps, about half at a time. It’s easier to just do it now and get it over with, and then you’ll be back in the market/growth mode sooner.