Day 138: School Decision

My dad sent a large box of my old children's books (along with some birthday treats) this week, and Taiya discovered some photographs tucked inside one of the chapter books. This is one of our annual First Day of School pictures, which we always took standing next to the same corner of the house before walking to school with our neighbors the Schloffs. 

Looking at it makes our decision to keep the kids home to do "distance learning" this fall even harder. I want to take their first day of school pictures and then send them off to school just as always! But we decided this week that the case numbers are just too high around here, and we don't want to have our children and ourselves be the guinea pigs in this "going back to school in a pandemic" experiment. So, we will take the first day of school pictures in the spot where we always take them, at the bottom of our porch stairs, and then we will march back inside and figure out how to do kindergarten and 3rd grade from home. We have to commit to sticking with distance learning for the first quarter, which is nine weeks. After that, we will see what the case numbers are, and see how the first quarter went, and make a decision about the second quarter from there. 

We haven't told the kids yet, because we know Taiya will be super sad not to be going back to see her friends. William is scared to start kindergarten at a new school, so he may be relieved. But Taiya will be really disappointed.

At dinnertime, William invented a recipe: slice a tomato and briefly fry it (just enough to heat it through). Sprinkle mint leaves and garlic powder on the slices. Then briefly fry some green beans and place them on top, and eat! It actually was delicious. He's a very inventive cook, and he guided Jeremy on what to do to create this. Did he eat any of it himself? No. He only likes cherry tomatoes. But he was so excited that Jeremy and I liked them. My little chef.