Does Distance Learning Have You Crying in the Pantry?....You Might Need a Few Post-it-Notes.

 

On the wall above my computer is a picture of the Ring of Brodgar from the Orkney Islands in Scotland. My husband gave it to me because I draw inspiration from it for my book in progress, The Selkie Prince. 

On that picture hangs two post-it notes.

The first one reads, “NO LATE-NIGHT EMAILS!”

I have several personal stories about why this reminder is necessary. I will not go into any of them here. They are too embarrassing for me, and for the unfortunate email recipients involved.

The second post-it note reads, “Don’t revaluate your life choices late in the day!”

Before COVID, my daily life was already extremely busy. There were already dishes to wash, a house to keep tidy, laundry to put away, meals to plan and make, and children to manage. I was genuinely looking forward to the fall of 2020 when my two oldest children would both be in public school, and I would be able to focus on my one preschool child. We were going to have such a good time. I was finally going to finish writing The Selkie Prince. 

Of course, that didn’t happen. Distance Learning happened, and so on top of doing all the things I’ve been doing all along, now I have Distance Learning for my Kindergartener and 3^rd Grader to manage. This begins around 8:30 AM and sometimes does not end until 4 or 5 PM. My husband is gone from 7AM to 5PM. The Dining Room is used for school. The Kitchen (AKA MOTHER’S WORK AREA) is used for school. The preschooler roams freely through the house and gets little one-on-one attention until she breaks something.   

To add to the exhaustion, in October of 2020, we discovered that I was pregnant with our fourth child. The words, “Fatigue” and “Mood Swings” can’t begin to adequately describe my pregnancies. “Mommy Brain,” is a real thing.

All these things- our home, our children, our food, our dishes, even our laundry, are blessings. By no means are we suffering. Some parents are trying to manage their children’s Distance Learning, AND work from home. Many people have lost their jobs, gotten sick, or even had loved ones die of COVID. If the worst thing that happens to us during this pandemic is stress because of Distance Learning, we are blessed indeed.

I can remember that we are blessed most easily in the morning, when the day is fresh, and I feel reasonably coherent. But by 3 or 4 in the afternoon, even after a good nap, I sometimes wonder where the day went, why the chores still aren’t done, why I can’t get my 3^rd Grader to work faster, and what is wrong with me that my life is so frustrating?

Seriously, how did I manage to plan all of this so very, very badly?  And how can I possibly survive my children’s childhood? These thoughts mean I am headed for tears in the pantry as my concerned children surround me, their big eyes wondering what is wrong with their mother.  

To avoid a daily or weekly Pantry-Melt-Down, it helps me to see the post-it-note, and to remember, “DON’T RE-EVALUATE YOUR LIFE CHOICES LATE IN THE DAY!”
            The note is also there to remind me to remember Jesus’s words about taking life one day at a time. The King James version of Matthew 6:34 is my favorite.

“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

            This verse reminds me that all Jesus asks of me is to do today’s work. Not tomorrow’s, not next week’s. Just this moment in this day.

            This verse gives me the courage to dry my tears, get out of the pantry, help my 3^rd grader finish his work without screaming at him, and continue on with The Dishes. And to remember that this is not forever. My children get to go back to school in 2 weeks. Maybe they will even get to stay. 

But if not….sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.