Where the White Things Are: BLAH

We had one of those weeks that I'd prefer to leave behind rather than relive with a blog post. The vibe around the White house over the past two weeks can best described by a single four-letter word: BLAH.

Pandemic. Online school. Hazardous levels of wildfire smoke. For the last two weeks, our daily life was bursting with quite the lofty trio of large-scale trials. Homeschool, pandemic, and smoke, oh my! The other day I told a local friend "aside from the obvious--pandemic, online school, and hazardous smoke--I hope you have a good day!" Hah. It was a beast of back-to-back cooped-up smoke-headachy weeks 'o BLAH.

Apart from trail running once a week, the only effective coping mechanisms that I found were laughter and phone calls. Exchanging phone calls, text messages, and Marco Polo video messages with my favorite people became my lifeline more than ever during the thick dark haze of smoke. It was a very intense up-close lesson on the power of LIGHT. The sun was completely hidden behind thick hazardous smoke for days on end. We missed the light. We craved light. We were chilly and sad without sunlight. Every now and then we caught a brief glimpse of the dim orange disk of sun before it slid back behind the smoke. Eventually even the phone lifelines grew slack. My brain throbbed with smoke and I just felt BLAH.

If it had only been the lack of light, we could have coped well enough, just like we do every winter when thick freezing fogs roll in. It was the lack of breathable air combined with the darkness that really wore us down hard. We couldn't go outside at all! At first it was restless energy, then it morphed into an apathetic fractious malaise accompanied by the throb of a constant headache from breathing smoke in every breath. Creativity fled, followed closely by the desire to be creative. Even playing the piano was BLAH.

Another element in the periodic table of September 2020 was online school. Drudgery. Jay and Rose did well with their daily work and online class meetings. Every now and then, they needed immediate assistance, but they did not need me to hover and be their taskmaster. It was AMBY that required my full attention. After the first few days of online kindergarten, she grew bored with the sameness of her iPad assignments and started resisting. I don't care what the Borg say, resistance is not futile if your name is Amber Kay White. That girl has more resistance inside one finger than I have in my entire body. We couldn't begin doing battle over online school on day five! It was too soon! It was too BLAH.

So I decided to ease up. Kindergarten is not about completing assignments. We take it little by little. She likes her class Zoom meetings, thankfully, so as long as I log her on at the right times, she's happy during those (although I do often catch her typing in dozens of emojis in the class chat, which is not ok, since kindergarteners can't read so they don't need to use the chat feature at all during Zoom meetings). I even caught Amber using the Seesaw app to create assignments rather than to complete the assignments her teacher made for her. She had seven slides of homemade assignments, complete with voice recorded instructions for each page, just like her teacher. That innovation is kind of awesome, but also shows that she thinks doing too many regular online kindergarten assignments each day is BLAH.

The smoke started clearing on Wednesday (Sept. 16th). It went from maroon/hazardous one step down to purple/very unhealthy. Jeff texted me from work, "there are shadows outside!" It wasn't until Friday that the smoke began thinning in earnest. Since there was no school, we went on a family hike in the mountains to escape the last of the BLAH.

At last, on Saturday, we awoke to clean air and bright happy sunshine. It was glorious. Slowly the mental fug is receding and we are finally crawling out from under the dark BLAH.

Pictures from September 6th (right before the smoke rolled in) to September 19th (when the smoke rolled out):

The cousins inspired us to hold a Sunday afternoon family arm wrestling competition. Rose won (although I'm still not sure if Jay let her win, since he held steady for close to three minutes before suddenly caving).

Amber HATED losing. During one arm wrestle, she surprised Rose by flattening Rose's arm to the table and winning with a battle cry "THE FORCE OF MY STRENGTH!"

Jeff and the girls have been working on their handstands.

Amber made herself some mud one afternoon. This was the day before the smoke came. She got mud in the tips of her hair.

School.

Amber reduced me to tears one day with her impossibility. She picked the tip off of the stylus that came with her school-issued iPad. We ordered her a new stylus with spare tips and she picked off the new tip almost immediately. If she uses up her last tip, she will do finger-writing only on the iPad.

This was my favorite assignment that Amber did. Back on day one or two when iPad school was still new and fun, haha.

We had a terrible smoky dusty windstorm on Labor Day, which uprooted trees and ripped off branches all around town. The wind carried the smoke away during the night, so in the past two weeks we did have one day off of smoke before it blew back in again. That Tuesday (Sept 7th), I went on a walk behind our house to view the post-storm carnage.

This big tree was pulled up by the roots! That was some wind.

No rest for the wear mother. Amber accompanied me on my walk. I was not in the mood, haha.

Jay is so subtle and random! He makes us laugh. During the smoke days, he spent a lot of time in his room reading. He said "My room is a cave and I am its bear, constantly hibernating."

The smoke started off easy on us, with just a brown smudge that made breathing only a little scratchy. It quickly got way worse.

Things got weird on day four of the smoke. In between class zoom meetings, Jay and Rose started a feet-only game of Connect Four. It was hilarious.

Sept 12th at 8am.

Sept 12th at noon. The smoke just kept coming.

That tiny red dot above the tree is the sun through the smoke. This was September 12th at 8am before the really bad smoke came in and completely obscured the sun.

Jeff, practicing his handstand with the smoke outside the windows. He has awesome, random hobbies.

Sunday (Sept 13th), I braided Amber's and Rose's hair.

Amber's curls reasserted themselves after a few hours of braid-confinement.

Rose practicing piano, with an apprentice watching her every note.

Jay has done some interesting science projects already. He slaved over cutting out cardboard circles to create his own Archemedean screw. Fine motor skills and tight handiwork are not his favorite.

Sometimes Amber and I got along.

8am on Tuesday, September 15th. The sun is a tiny pinprick in the smoke, dead center.

Zoomed in on the smoke-veiled sun.

Amber really started suffering from the deadly combo of smoky house arrest and online kindergarten. She became alternately mopey and extra defiant. I'm hoping this mood will pass with many doses of sunshine and outside time.

Jay chose an instrument for the middle school orchestra! He picked the string bass. His teacher had him watch ten informational (and cautionary) videos and take three quizzes before he was allowed to take the bass out of the case. The school loaned out the instrument--as long as Jay doesn't break it, it's free! It's a half size bass, and we are all so surprised at how BIG it is, even though it's only half size! I don't know what online orchestra will end up looking like, but the instrument sure is cool!