Keeping Up With the Kissingers: School’s Out for the Summer!

Thursday, July 2, 2020

School’s Out for the Summer!

School is out for the summer! Tomorrow we’ll fly to the USA — we’ll see how that goes with the pandemic!

It’s crazy to look back at the kids’ pictures on the first day of school in September. Soooo much has changed since then. They’ve learned a lot. Grown a lot. Been at home a lot ;)

The events of this year were far beyond our imagination — in terms of the pandemic and having the kids home so much. Ellie had 9 weeks at home for “homeschooling” before she returned to school every other day, while homeschooling the other days, for 7 more weeks. Francis never went back to the kindergarten after everyone had to leave in March. And as crazy as things were at times, these last weeks were some of my favorite.

Getting to watch/help Ellie learn how to read. Amazing! Especially because she’s reading (and writing, and speaking) in two languages — something I can’t do! I really liked her going to the school for instruction every other day (which is just every other morning because their school day finishes around 11 AM) because I had a little more time to spend with the boys and I didn’t have to worry about helping to teach her those mornings — I really liked the balance. And seeing how well Francis and Isaac have done each day playing together, has been so, so enjoyable to witness! An added bonus as been Clare constantly surrounded by her siblings. As she's almost 11 months now - and crawling everywhere and pulling herself up on everything in sight, teetering toward her first steps, we've all enjoyed getting to be with our little "Bear" :)

So we’ll see what happens this next school year, and the years to come. It’s odd to think that someday when the kids are old, they’ll vaguely remember these months when they were “kept at home” during the pandemic. Hopefully it’s with a great deal of delight that they recall these times!