A Tale of Two Kids – School in Quarantine Edition

It’s been a while since we’ve done an edition of A Tale of Two Kids. Yes, all kids are different. Yes, they are all wonderful and fabulous. Yes, I am eternally grateful that they are so different. If I had two of either one of them, life would be dull!

So school in quarantine has been okay. It’s not perfect. But it’s not making me want to rip my own toenails off either. It’s been fine.

So both girls are good students. They pretty much have straight As in all classes (Advanced Physics in the exception for the Big One, because Mr. Physics teacher is a jackass.) Just to remind you, Big One is a freshman in high school this year. TheLittle One is in 7^th grade.

I don’t have to ride them to get them to do their homework. They both check in regularly with their teachers. Attend Zoom meetings several times a week, etc.  They do what I expect them to do. I don’t care that their official grade as of March 13 will be their final grade, I still want them to do some work and engage their brains.

This morning, the conversation when something like this:

LITTLE ONE:  It’s not fair! Mr. Math Teacher is giving toooooo  much work. I can’t do it all. He’s only supposed to give us like 30 minutes a day but really it’s more like and hour and 30 minutes. Plus I have history, English, science, band – oh wait never mind, Mr. Band Teacher is not giving us anything. But I have math, history, English and science. It’s toooooooo much. It’s not fair.  (that was one breath!)

FIXITMOMMY: What are you whining about? You have school work to do. Suck it up and do it. If you were in school, you would be doing so much more work. You maybe do two and a half hours of school everyday.  If you were in school how many hours would you be there?  

LITTLE ONE: NO! I do homework all day. It’s not fair. He’s only supposed to give us 30 minutes a day of math. He’s making us do a whole section in one day. Normally we have 2 or 3 days for each section. It’s not fair! Plus I’d have lunch, PE and passing periods if I was at school.

FIXITMOMMY: You do school work all day? Really? Didn’t we play Trouble and Battle Ship yesterday while watching Inside Out? Would you like me to make a bell schedule with passing periods built in? You get five minutes right? I’ll set in on my phone. We’ll have bell go off all day. OH! We can make a hall pass for the bathroom.

LITTLE ONE: MOOOOMMMMM, That doesn’t count. I did school all day yesterday. Besides we don’t have a 3-D printer, you can’t make a real hall pass.

FIXITMOMMY: Ummm, weren’t you on the couch all day yesterday binge watching Disney Plus while doing your “homework?” Maybe if you just went in your room and focused on your math, you could get it done in 30-40 minutes. Maybe if the TV was off, life wouldn’t be so hard.

LITTLE ONE: But it’s not fair. I don’t want to do math.  It’s not fair. Life is not faaaaaiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…

Fast Forward about 40 minutes and it was the Big One’s turn. That conversation went something like this:

BIG ONE: UGH! Ms. Math Teacher is having office hours this morning. I really don’t want to go.

FIXITMOMMY: So don’t go. If you don’t have questions, you don’t have to go.

BIG ONE: I don’t even know why she is having them. It’s just trigonometry. It’s so easy. These people are just stupid. They should have learned it all last year in IM1. I learned it in 8^th grade.

FIXITMOMMY: Ummmmm not everyone is stupid. I don’t know how to do trigonometry. And I learned lots of things, that I no longer remember.

BIG ONE: Did you learn it 6 months ago? No! These people are just stupid. It’s just a waste of my time to go listen to her try to explain things that I already know how to do. It’s all just stupid. I want to actually do something. We are spending so much time on this we won’t have time to do statistics this year! That’s all I wanted to do this year!

So, there you go according to the girls, life is not fair and everyone is stupid. One is doing too much math and the other not enough math. Fun times for sure in our house.

And for the record, who wants to do statistics? She’s her father’s child for sure!