That perhaps seems like an odd title since I have not been on here for awhile. Am I doing Celosia School? What has been happening? Why will I miss it? Let me fill you in.
When the first COVID lockdown hit Washington State in March, my kids, my husband, and I suddenly found ourselves at home. The kids' school was scrambling to find a way to do school online, and I had my own troubles with converting to online college. On top of all this, a week in, I found out that my father was dying from cancer that had spread to his brain. He had been declining for the last year or so, but he went to the hospital on March 26 for stroke-like symptoms, and then he was dead on April 6, 2020.
My whole life fell apart.
By the end of April, my crisis peaked and I knew something had to give. I withdrew from Chemistry, keeping just Precalculus I. I asked my mom to help me school the kids and we added in two little girls, who I will call Bunny and Ducky. Racoon, now 10, and Kitty, now 7, completed my first set of 4 students. Although just for a month or so, we had a lot of fun and managed to get through a bit of learning. The highlight was visiting Bunny and Ducky's baby bunnies.
Over the summer, I saw the writing on the wall and realized that public school would not be back in session in the fall. Raccoon has been at the same school since kindergarten. Although his school did the best they could, moving to online learning for fourth grade was very stressful for him, so after much angst, I decided to pull him to homeschool for the beginning of fifth grade. Kitty has been in and out of the same public school, sometimes there and sometimes homeschooling.
My mother is the hero of this version of Celosia School, coming along side me despite her grief and newfound widowhood and the mountain of paperwork and tasks that accompany the death of a spouse. She is a teacher extraordinaire, and with her at my side, I finally had the courage to take the leap into full-time schooling again. I call it Mini-School. We added in two more students for our second group of four. Bunny came but Ducky stayed home, so we added in another boy. After Christmas, we had a third cohort, with two boys joining us instead.
It has been beautiful and hard and good.
And now it is evolving again into the next version of Celosia school. We have been doing 5th and 2nd, but our 5th is pausing while Raccoon tries public school again, which is opening up next week. We're doing a two week trial period and then we will decide where he stays for the rest of the year.
I will miss seeing the boys reading their books, something we were just getting into. I will miss morning Table Time, which became Couch Time, and I will miss lighting each of their candles and watching them play. I won't miss the occasional disagreements and the pressure of being on all the time.
Dear Self,
Who would have guessed we'd be here now. Again. I am curious about what the future holds. Everything you wrote about Celosia School years ago is still true, and still sparked a fire in me when I read it again. Turns out most school names are already taken, but Celosia is unique, so we remain with that name. We are about to launch into a unit on Superstar/Superhero Academy. I'm excited. Now I'd better go because reading time is over.
Love,
Yourself
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