Due to weekends, scheduled days off, and unplanned days off, the girls were home for nine days in a row.  Nine days is a long time for the three of us to spend together.  Luckily, we’ve had some practice over the past few years.  We got snow, but not really enough to close school over.  I learned through the grapevine that the real reason that the school was closed was because the school’s computer network had been hacked, and along with everything else, the smoke alarms were controlled by the hackers.  I doubt that I’ll ever hear the whole story, but the girls went back to school on the following Monday, and everyone changed their passwords. 

Prior to the call that we received on Tuesday, I’d been worried about how icy our path was going to be on Wednesday morning and wondered if we should plan a different, safer walk.  At that point, I hadn’t figured out the safest route to take with the girls.  And, as luck would have it, I didn’t have to.  Dee Dee’s class met online Wednesday afternoon at 1:00PM for a bit and she was instructed to do some online activities independently while Audio’s class received an email with some activities for her to do if she wanted to.   

She didn’t want to.  Instead, she watched videos on YouTube in the living room while Dee Dee played educational games in the dining room, then wandered out to the living room to watch videos with Audio, then got chased back to the dining room by me, played a couple games while I was in the room, and waited for me to leave the dining room so she could go back to the living room to watch videos with Audio.  Dee Dee met again for a short end-of-the-day check-in with her class at 3:00PM and then joined Audio and me in the living room and we all watched videos.   

They watch some really terrible videos made by people who are so obnoxious and campy that I hope they are playing characters, and I tell the girls so.  Everything has to be exciting to keep kids watching the video they are watching and not get bored and start watching someone else’s video!  Most of the video creators keep things exciting by feigning surprise, disgust, admiration, etc. to a thick, gooey, dripping degree.  It also appears to help their careers as influencers, or whatever they are called to have a memorable, but difficult to tolerate to voice.  And everything must be shouted. 

Due to the predicted snowfall, a lot of businesses chose not to open on Thursday.  My wife’s work was one of them.  So, on Thursday we were both home, and there was always a parent available to help the girls with their schoolwork.  And both of them had a more educational experience than the previous day.  Perhaps not from the online activities that the school was suggesting, but from me.   

I found myself answering every question they had and then taking the answer one step further by telling them some trivia about the topic.  Further yet, if I thought they were listening.  The answer to, “What’s bigger, an inch or a centimeter?” lead to a brief description of the French Revolutionary calendar.  And a discussion about dollar ($) and cent (¢) signs brought us quickly to the barter system, exchange rates, and such.  By the end of the day, both girls were walking past me to ask their mom questions.    

All in all, we all got along pretty well over the unplanned, extended weekend.  It was a bit cold during most of the time, but we did get out to do some sledding on one of the days.  Dee Dee and I finished our second viewing of the TV show, Hilda (including the movie), this time watching it with Audio and the girls’ mom.  When we got to the Monday at the end of the nine days off, the girls were ready to get back to school.  After I walked them to school, I went for a walk and then came home and did nothing until it was time to go back to get them.  Both girls looked happy when they came out of school.  And even though Dee Dee managed to get herself kicked in the shoulder, they both said that they’d had a good day.