Kinda blah moments

Things aren't so terrible over here. 

One of the fans of our air conditioners went out on one of the hottest days of the year (as these things tend to go) and it has been doing its best to chug along while we waited for a part to come in. Today we finally got the call that our AC people have both the fan part and the vent for the heater (which evidently had broken at some point, which means that our heater would have been venting into our house instead of outside) and said they could come this afternoon.

But our road is being repaved right now—a project that has been in the works for quite some time now...nearly two weeks? First they scraped up really broken sections and repaired those before scraping up the entire road (which I am sure is logical for some reason) and then they laid down a layer of rocks and tar and they're just now getting around to surfacing it. And I get that these things take time, but we just never know when they're going to let us use the road and when they won't. 

Our neighbour up the street missed a prenatal appointment last week because they wouldn't let her out of her driveway. I couldn't go to campus on Tuesday because our cul-de-sac was off limits.

And our road was also off limits today when the AC guys wanted to come (as well as when we came home from our homeschool "not back to school" party at the pool—we had to park at a friend's house about half a mile away from our house and then walk home across all our neighbour's lawns).

Fortunately, the air conditioner is still working even if it isn't running at full throttle.

Unfortunately, our washing machine also decided to give up the ghost last night (or the night before?).

It stopped mid-cycle and the door is locked (so I can't even take my load out) and nothing will work.

A technician came to look at it this morning. He pushed some buttons to see if it would start a cycle (it wouldn't). He checked to make sure we'd drained the thing and cleaned the drain trap (we had). Then he unplugged the thing and plugged it back in and...

...announced that the machine did, indeed, seem to be broken, and that the cost of the replacement part would likely be greater than the cost to replace the machine.

And I just...he didn't move the machine, he didn't open the machine, and yet somehow magically determined catastrophic failure. 

So we're working with the warranty package we purchased when we bought the machine 2.5 years ago to replace the same model we'd purchased 2.5 years before that (but which we didn't have the extended warranty for). I thought for sure our washing machine dying was a fluke, but evidently these washing machines are just...bad.

*****

There is a nail on one of the stairs leading to the basement. 

It sticks out a bit—just enough to make you regret stepping on it when you do. When we replaced the basement carpet 5 years ago, we thought the carpet installers might notice and fix that nail while the carpet was up. But evidently they aren't paid to do things like that or didn't notice the nail because it was still there, in the middle of the stair, for us to step on when we'd forget to be careful about that second-from-the-top stair. Or was it third from the top?

We never could remember. And that's been a little problem that's been filling us all with a measure of dread every time we have to use the stairs. When we remember about the nail we try to remember to keep to one side of the stairs or the other—never walk down the middle of the stairs. Or we skip stairs near the top, hoping to avoid stabbing the bottom of our foot.

For five years we have lived like this!

So the other day when I forgot about the nail and ended up landing on it with my bare foot, I simply hollered out to Rachel (who was working in the kitchen, which is near the entrance to our stairs), "That's it!! Rachel, bring me a hammer!"

With a little trepidation and quite a bit of curiosity, Rachel fetched a hammer and brought it to me.

"What are you going to...oh! Are you going to fix the nail on the stair?" she asked.

"I'm going to fix the nail on the stair," I confirmed. 

She uses the basement stairs much more often than I do, so she was extra excited about this thirty-second adventure. That's all it took to fix the problem—thirty seconds.

I removed my foot from the nail (keep in mind this was the head of a nail sticking up from the stairs and it had carpet padding and carpet on top so it wasn't lethal or anything, but still enough to be painful), and whacked the hammer around in that general area and...magically we don't have to think about what side of the stairs to walk on anymore.

It's really a pretty big relief. 

*****

Years ago, when Phoebe was a couple of months old and I was still in the thick of all things infanthood and master's degree, I realized that I needed to spend some more time checking in with one of my children regarding their math work. When I was conducting check ins with the child, they would show me where they were in their textbook and explain a little about what they were doing, and I was pleased that they were keeping up so well. 

One time in particular, I recall that we were going to the park to do some schoolwork and this child made a big scene about needing to go find a fresh notebook for math because they'd filled their old one. 

Then they studiously scribbled away in their new math book and I was just so pleased. 

But then things started to...not add up...

Their place in their math book stopped making sense.

"How could you only be here when last time I checked in with you, you were working well past that point?"

"Oh, let me see!" they'd say. "Oh, you're right! Did I say chapter 6? I meant chapter 8. Obviously."

Mmmmmmhmmmm...I began to feel suspicious about things.

And then there reached a point where we needed to solve some sort of numerical problem over the dinner table (surely everyone has those moments) and I was like, "Oh! Child has been learning about this! Child, why don't you go ahead and show us how we'd solve a problem like this on the board?" (because we have a whiteboard in our dining room, like normal people). 

But Child could not set up the problem or solve the problem or really even explain what kind of math the problem required. Which—even though I had those suspicious moments off and on for a few weeks—rather surprised me! This was a pretty simple problem...if you knew enough algebra...which Child should have known at this point.

So we sat Child down for A Talk and it came out that Child had become confused round about the time Phoebe was born and didn't bring it up for a few days, and then a few weeks, and then a few months. 

Instead they pretended that everything was just fine, while their problem grew bigger and bigger and they wound up several months behind where they should have been.

I apologized for not realizing things were not going well sooner (though, in fairness, the child was given plenty of opportunity to speak up about their problem and in fact actively made me believe things were going well and I want to trust my children, so I do). We talked about how these kinds of problems are okay to make and that it's honestly probably best to make such a mistake as a child rather than as an adult so that by the time they're an adult they understand how to avoid making this kind of mistake. We came up with a plan that included a new schedule, new accountability methods, and so forth. 

It was honestly a pretty low moment for me as a homeschooling parent. 

But! We worked through things. And now things are really going well with Child. 

*****

The last couple of weeks we gave Different Child a some more autonomy in their schoolwork, to see how they'd do with less supervision. And honestly, things seemed to be going great. Things were blissful, even. 

We instituted "math hour" at our house—a time of day where all the kids, everywhere, pull out their math books and work on their math. This way they can ask each other questions about thing and act as accountability partners for each other. 

Different Child was attending all math hours. Different Child was studying their book. Different Child was writing things down in their math notebook. Different Child was marking math off on their schedule, checking off sections in the textbook. 

And although it was really nice, it felt a little too good to be true. I wanted to trust Different Child but I also knew from Child's experience that things can get a little out of control. So I asked Different Child to bring me their math books so I could go over things question by question.

Different Child gulped and brought me their books.

Things were too good to be true.

Different Child had been answer question 1 here, question 5 there, but was never answering questions 1 through 5. Different Child was doing all sorts of interesting things with numbers but not what they were supposed to be doing. Different Child is a veritable human calculator and enjoys math when they do it. But Different Child was not doing their math work.

So while the rest of the kids (except Miriam, who is now sick because this virus will never leave us) jumped into the pool with their friends, Different Child sat before me and worked through a section of their math while I read an article. Different Child did just fine. Different Child asked for help one time but otherwise worked independently and finished the whole chapter in under an hour (although they typically allow themselves two days per section on their schedule). 

At this rate Different Child will make up for lost time and be back on schedule soon.

These are important things to learn, too, right?

*****

Oh, and! 

Last night we were reading scriptures as a family. I was lying on my stomach on the floor (which is a very common place for me to read) and Phoebe was dancing all around the room. She frequently climbs on my back and it's usually just fine. But not last night.

You know that trope where Our Hero is running from danger and they find themselves cornered up high—on a roof somewhere, or a cliff or something—so they whistle for their horse and the horse trots up and Our Hero jumps down and lands on the horse's back?

Phoebe was acting out that trope. She was the hero. I was the horse. 

She caught me completely off guard and really slammed into me hard. My pelvis hasn't been this sore since...oh...around the time Phoebe was born. So that's been a real pain in the coccyx.