Weekday schedule

7:00-7:30 Dale, Aaron, and I all get up. The three of us have breakfast together.

8:30-4:30 Aaron is in school off and on. The first live class meeting is always at 8:30am. After that, he has a mix of synchronous meetings (usually two per day) and independent work (typically about one hour). He takes care of this completely on his own and is keeping up just fine. He also has choir twice a week. They can’t sing together, but are building their musicianship in other ways like ear training, sight reading, and singing alone, working towards creating recordings like [this one]. When Aaron isn’t doing school he plays Minecraft, either alone or with Jordan.

9:00 Dale and I start our workdays. We both have 2-3 live zoom meetings per day, plus independent work time.

10:30-11:30 Jordan gets up. Sometimes he has breakfast, sometimes he waits to eat until lunch. (It’s practically lunchtime when he gets up, and he prefers lunchy kinds of things for breakfast, anyway.)

12:00-1:00 We have lunch together if we can. The boys make themselves nachos unless I’ve made something else. I often put out a platter of veggies with delicious dip. If they make their own lunch, it means they pause the video games for about half an hour; if I make lunch for them, they eat it in front of the screens, unless I make them not do that.

1:30-3:30 Somewhere in this time period we go out to the park for sports time. We usually go to Magnuson. For a while we played pickleball; we have now leveled up to tennis, because it is more wind-resistant. This is the only time the boys get out of the house. It is such a wonderful thing to get outside in the middle of the day! We all need it. I play a little tennis but also use the time to make phone calls (walking).

4:30-6:30 In the late afternoon I make dinner. I also usually realize what jobs have not yet been done for the day and make the kids do them: piano, folding laundry, etc. We have dinner together at 6ish.

7:00-9:00 Family TV.

9:00 Aaron strictly goes to bed at this time. He is clear that this is better for him and takes the initiative to make sure the TV stops in time. I appreciate this; I like for quiet time to start around 9pm. Jordan, meanwhile, begins his night life of video games with friends at this time, in his room. Dale and I clean up the kitchen (mostly Dale) and talk about the news.

10:00-11:00 Everyone is in bed.

Weekends are basically the same, but without school.