Remote learning for the Cranston house is in full swing. All 4 of us. There’s been a lot of bumps and bruises (and scratches, pinches, bites and thrown iPads) to start but we are slowly getting a routine down and finding ways to make this crazy difficult time work.

The original plan was for me to work from home as much as possible to help our nanny, Savannah manage the girl’s remote learning. That isn’t going as planned. The first week that both girls were on-line ended with Savannah nicely kicking me out of my house. Why? Let’s just say it was Alyssa doing the iPad throwing. It’s nothing new, but Alyssa acts different when I’m around. When I’m around there’s separation anxiety, there’s whining, there’s more dependency and so on. When I’m not around, a little angel appears. Savannah definitely wondered if she could manage both remote plans on her own but it had to be easier without the behaviors so back to school I went. And she was right! iPads are no longer flying.

Courtney’s remote learning has been hard. There’s definitely been a lot of aggression and meltdowns BUT with Savannah by her side, they are surviving and learning is happening.

It was not easy handing over the rains completely to Savannah. There’s a lot of mom guilt. I wish so bad I could be of some help but my helping is from a distance cheering them on dealing with the behind the scenes part of it all.

I shared with my friend that I was struggling with the mom guilt because I’m expecting so much out of Savannah (and my in-laws on Friday’s) and she shared with me a motto her family had. This motto actually reminded me of a phrase my dad always used when I was younger. When it came to cleaning up the house, he would tell his 10 children, “if we all work together it will take 5 minutes.” Of course when I was little I thought he was crazy because there was no way you could clean our house in 5 minutes. But obviously that wasn’t the real point. The point is, a hard task is easier when you all work together. It takes a village and my village is stepping up in ways I will forever be grateful for!