School's *Almost* Out for the Summer!
No parent has ever been this excited for the end of the year
I’m sure it’s unbelievable to those who know me because I’m so well adjusted and my social skills are on point, but I grew up homeschooled. And I’m not talking about the cool homeschooling people do these days. Nowadays people homeschool their kids because they’re worried that the drop off/pickup daily commute in their Volvo is destroying the earth, or because Timmy is so allergic to eggs that he can’t even step into the school cafeteria on “breakfast for lunch” day, or for a hundred other very valid, very thoughtful reasons.
Homeschooling today has kind of a cool-family sheen to it—or at least it did before the anti-vaxxers showed up—and conjures up images of barefoot boys with tastefully long hair and pretty little girls in homemade flower crowns (we learned HORTICULTURE today with Braxton and Olivia) all captured on Instagram. #unschooling.
Homeschooling now is aspirational, my homeschooling… wasn’t. Which is why whenever my wife has brought up the idea of homeschooling—we could go to museums and botanical gardens! Wouldn’t that be nice?—I have remained steadfast in my refusal. With homeschooling you can either raise future spelling bee champions or you’re the Duggars and there’s not enough in between for me to feel safe risking it. And so our kids have always gone to public school. Until they couldn’t.
Since spring break of 2020, we have been getting a taste of the home school life. The kids have real-life teachers their virtual classrooms so I’m not directly teaching I before E rules, but I AM spending inordinate amounts of time tracking down various worksheets (I JUST SAW IT YESTERDAY, HOW DID YOU LOSE IT ALREADY?!) playing lunch lady (what do you mean you don’t like peanut butter anymore? Who doesn’t like peanut butter?) and also acting as the principal (for the last time, stop hitting your brother!) and lead custodian (why is their dirt on the floor? How did dirt even get inside the house?). Have there been any museum visits or trips to botanical gardens? Reader, there have not. Have there been a million meltdowns and moments my kids will tell their therapists about in 12 years? I think you know the answer.
But now, finally, there is light at the end of the tunnel. We’re in the final weeks of this foray into digital school and I’m happy to report that none of us are dead, maimed, or seriously injured. We also, happily, did not morph into the next family to flame out in real time on TLC. I’m not confident that my kids have learned any, you know, school stuff this year, but I do think they’ve learned grit. Because as hard as it’s been for me, it’s been tough for them, too, but they’ve handled it as well as any 5, 8, and 10 year old could be expected to. For the sake of the health and safety of our family, I’m glad we had these past 14 months together and I’m glad my kids have had a chance to develop resiliency, but if you’re wondering if I’d ever try the home school thing again? 10/10 would NOT recommend.
To the links!
Last week I was asked to be part of a farmers market style event to raise money for a local non-profit so I baked 48 (!!) loaves of bread over the course of the weekend. I called my little “business” Craigmore Breads—after the name my wife gave our house—and we sold out of those bad boys in an HOUR. Sourdough was the big winner, but my wife’s fave? Plain white sandwich bread. Guys, find a partner who likes things bland and boring and you’ll be able to keep them happy forever.
I’m a big fan of using “lol” in texting and fully agree with this article about the variety of uses/meanings those three little letters now offer us. My most common uses? #4-I’m not mad, I’m actually laughing right now, and #6-I am humoring you.
I don’t know if it’s a faux pas to post a link to a knock-off Tik Tok in a newsletter, but this send up of dads checking for sturdiness was too spot on not to share. iykyk, man.
As usual, Star Wars dropped a TON of content on May 4th. Some of it dope, some of it… less so. Right now the future of the SW universe is animated, so if you’ve been feeling too cool to jump on the cartoon bandwagon, it’s time to get over yourself and come along for the ride.
If you are one of the 17 people with Apple TV+, you already know that Ted Lasso is the greatest television show ever created, but did you ALSO know about a little gem of a show called Mythic Quest? It’s about a video game company, but also not, and if I tell you any more it’ll just sound weird so just get to watching.
I remember reading about the fall of the Roman Empire back in my homeschool days and I recall feeling veeeeeery smug that I lived in the US of A and we’d NEVER let ourselves go the way of Caesar Whatshisname.
If you’re a masochist like me and would like to be fully aware of the sinking of this ship we’ve called the United States, you gotta start listening to the FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast. You should also sign up for Lyz Lenz’s fantastic newsletter “Men Yell At Me”. Maybe if enough of us are aware of the iceberg we’re heading toward we can get this thing turned around.
Yeah, probably not.
Here we are again, at the end of the newsletter. Literally TENS of you are now reading this and hopefully lol’ing in a real way. If that describes YOU, just click that button down there…
…or forward this to a friend. As always, thanks for reading and