Another late night of trying to balance the homeschooling summer routine, my projects, and some volunteer work.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s after 1 a.m. and I\u2019ve been working on the 2021-22 school plans for the girls, organizing long-overdue blog updates, watching movies for AutFest Texas 2021, and hoping that I might some night have time to work on the two autism-related book projects collecting dust.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sure readers and listeners to the podcast are tired of the pandemic parenting complaints. Everyone is tired. Our household isn\u2019t that unique.<\/p>\n
Pandemic parenting added stress to every family’s already exhausting routines.<\/p>\n
Because of their challenges retaining knowledge and skills, the girls have always needed some summer enrichment. Now, however, we\u2019re doing full days of learning activities with the awareness that we have to manage our expectations. I realize summer school is a necessity for many students during the COVID-19 transition. The girls won\u2019t be far behind peers, just a little behind some classmates.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve tried to be productive, beyond teaching. That hasn\u2019t happened. It takes a lot of energy to assemble daily packets, coach the girls through the work, grade (loosely) their work, and enter data into Excel. Yes, I\u2019m taking assessment seriously even during the summer.<\/p>\n
I want to be writing. I\u2019d love to help out on some films in the Austin area. There\u2019s a list of things I\u2019d like to do creatively.<\/p>\n
Homeschooling for another year is not something I wanted to be doing.<\/p>\n
Like so many parents, I have adjusted my priorities and goals.\u00a0The girls have, do, and will come first, even as I have to mentally process what I might be giving up of my own professional and creative ambitions.<\/p>\n
Every day I tell myself I should be able to better manage my days. If only I had a clear schedule and stuck to it. Surely there\u2019s enough time to prepare mini-lessons, coach the girls, monitor their learning, and pursue my own desires. I find that I reprimand myself for poor time management throughout the day. By 1 or 2 a.m., my internal critic complains that I shouldn\u2019t go to sleep and waste yet more time.<\/p>\n
Yes, I start to think of sleep as wasted time. I know I need the sleep, just as we tell the girls they need to sleep well to be productive. But, after 10 hours or more of meeting the needs of the girls, there\u2019s little energy for me.<\/p>\n
The girls\u2019 return to school was going to give me back a few hours during the day. I\u2019d write during those hours and pursue creative goals. I\u2019d search for work more aggressively. I had such grand plans for the reclaimed time I anticipated having.<\/p>\n
The creative me is fading away, I fear. I\u2019m losing days, weeks, months\u2026 maybe more than two years. I had already lost so much time to graduate degrees and dead-end teaching posts that I need this Texas reboot to pay off in some manner.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s selfish, I realize, the desire to complete a project or secure full-time work. I try not to dwell on what isn\u2019t likely. We made choices and they were the right choices.<\/p>\n
At this time, neither Susan nor I feel safe around other people. We don\u2019t want to work in offices or on school campuses until the girls are vaccinated and the infection rates decline in Texas. Homeschooling is the right choice. I merely need to find ways to work on manuscripts at night and on weekends. I need to carve out time for the creative me.<\/p>\n
Having written another moody blog post, I\u2019m going to head for bed. I will then feel guilty for not continuing to work for another hour or two. I\u2019ll run through the list of projects I should have finished. Self-imposed deadlines I should have met. Writing logs I did not enter into my calendar\u2026 because I wasn\u2019t writing.<\/p>\n
I look around and see businesses returning to normal, despite rising COVID-19 rates since late June. I see full parking lots when I run errands. Maskless people without any fear are out and about, while I\u2019m still in anxious mode.<\/p>\n
Maybe you\u2019re among the fortunate, able to calculate risk and move forward with a return to normal.<\/p>\n
Normal. Pre-pandemic normal. Maybe not exactly as things were, but that \u201cnormal\u201d in which we didn\u2019t worry that any sniffle or cough was a coronavirus variant.<\/p>\n
I want to have dinner out with Susan. I want to go to the bookstores on a regular basis. I want to browse shops and sit in cafes.<\/p>\n
Among my favorite pre-pandemic routines was sitting in one of the cafes or diners with my MacBook Pro, a pencil, some pens, and a legal pad. I\u2019d work on projects while drinking tea and eating a bit.<\/p>\n
I want to be a great parent. I\u2019m trying to be better at parenting. However, I also miss having a few hours during which the girls weren\u2019t my focus. They demand attention, as most young children do. They\u2019re still at ages that require constant supervision.<\/p>\n
Maybe if the girls were a bit older and more self-directed, I could work on projects while they did schoolwork in the afternoons. We could have two or three hours of homeschooling instruction and guided practice. I\u2019d still be available to help the girls, but I\u2019d be making progress on my creative projects after lunch\u2026 instead of trying to be productive after midnight.<\/p>\n
I do envy the homeschooling parents who claim they spend no more than three hours in teacher mode daily. I fantasize about reclaiming seven or eight hours for myself. Such thoughts are followed by guilt and shame for not being a more dedicated parent.<\/p>\n
When I was young, there were calls for women to \u201cfind themselves\u201d outside the role of \u201cMother.\u201d I thought it was silly that women needed to be given permission to follow their interests outside parenthood. Now, I appreciate how easy it is to lose yourself in the role of Mommy or Daddy.<\/p>\n
I needed to vent, yet again, because this has been a difficult 18 months or so. I feel like a lousy parent and a failure as a creator.<\/p>\n
During the pandemic, we are all doing the best we can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Another late night of trying to balance the homeschooling summer routine, my projects, and some volunteer work. It\u2019s after 1 a.m. and I\u2019ve been working on the 2021-22 school plans for the girls, organizing long-overdue blog updates, watching movies for AutFest Texas 2021, and hoping that I might some night…<\/p>\n