This December is barreling forward at a lively pace. In other words, I cannot believe we are only two days away from Christmas. Perhaps because it is such an unreal year, the rapid approach of the holiday also seems, well, unreal.
To add to the confusion as to the time, the season, the moment, I step out today to a decidedly lighter toned morning. It's as if we were approaching spring, not Christmas.
(The cheepers come out of the barn. First time in weeks. Just for a minute, but still...)
A few deep breaths and I'm back inside, hurrying to finish breakfast...
... before the kids arrive.
And here, time flips for me again: we are on Snowdrop's last (virtual) school day before winter break. It recalls for me all those years when my kids were on their last day: I'd have this feeling of relief. The rush of the school mornings was put on hold. The kids could let go of homework schedules and just be themselves. And of course, there was Christmas, which really felt like such a gift: time together, lots of good cooking, baking. The grand exhale after the chaos of school. Suspended, for winter break.
I don't know that the young families have that same feeling of the grand exhale. Parents are forever catching up with work, and more importantly, the kids are not at school. They're not coming home with school stories. They're not signed up for soccer or dance or drama. They are home, with, in Snowdrop's case, only a small screen on a little table creating the semblance of school. Interrupted when the teacher goes off line and the kids go back to doing whatever they usually do at home.
Here, Sparrow and Snowdrop pick up on their usual favorites.
For Snowdrop, today's school lessons are okay... (Sparrow watches as the kids play a snowman math game)
... and indeed, there's some light dancing to music chosen by the kids.. And it all winds down to a final conversation with the teacher, who asks each child what she most liked about this year of kindergarten (I say "she" even as there are way more boys in her class and all the girls appear to be very quiet, at least on Zoom calls). Snowdrop says -- meeting new friends.
Next year, the expectation is that her class will return to in-person learning. Snowdrop remembers her beloved preschool and the hours of play she had there with friends. How brutal will be the change to a classroom with masked and distanced kids? She has such a delicate voice that I could barely hear her when we did our distanced and masked meetings this past fall. Who will hear her in a classroom?
Still, for now, she has marked, with some degree of joy, the end of school time and the beginning of vacation. Sparrow? I don't know that he even remembers what school was. But for whatever reason, both kids are delightfully happy.
The rest of the day? I cannot say where it went. Some wind must have passed through here and whipped my hours away from me. Candles were burning, music was playing and suddenly it was dinner time and popcorn time and eventually, a very very late bed time.
