I missed you little journal.

It’s been almost two years since my last post. So much has changed since then. Dana started daycare part time. Alexis started transitional kindergarten. It’s like a pre-kindergarten for kids whose birthdays fall just past the cutoff for kindergarten. Transitional kindergarten is not offered at our assigned elementary, so she had to be taken to a sister school. I spent my days shuttling three kids between three different schools, with three different drop off times. Dana switched to full time. I volunteered twice a week at Nicole’s school, and once a week at Alexis’ school. We signed the kids up for gymnastics on the weekends. Nicole went one day, Alexis and Dana the other. I couldn’t imagine life being any busier.

Then March 13th happened. Schools closed and I instantly regretted ever complaining about the three kid/three different school drop off daily routine. I traded my three times a week volunteering gig for a full time teacher role. With a emerging reader getting online assignments with written instructions as well as a two year old at home I had one kid who needed constant help and another who needed constant supervision.

I’ve been in survival mode since March.

I’ve been operating at such a hurried pace the year has kind of felt like a blur.

I want to post more so I can remember more. My current blog structure is creating an artificial barrier. Writing a post with multiple paragraphs feels daunting. Micro blogging is much easier. I’m spending more time on Facebook for that reason, but I can feel it influencing me in negative ways. Especially during this time of high stress I seem unusually vulnerable to their algorithms.

I decided to redo my blog to allow for a mix of full length posts and micro-posts. That will also let me import any cute memories from facebook or my phone’s notepad that don’t match my current post format. I also want to move away from a incremental numeric id for each post identification system, and towards a date id.

I don’t know how long it will take to make this change. My days are spent teaching and looking after the kids, while the few hours I have after they go to bed are usually dedicated with household chores and whatever I can squeeze in for my business. Here’s hoping for October.