Coronacation Day 2

I had an easier time today. Not because the kids had gotten into the routine, but because I decided to take it easy on myself. I was a task master yesterday. It\’s wrong. I should just chill out, or CTFD. I am responsible for my own peace.

I woke up at around 7am today. Thereabout, after the husband\’s alarm woke me up. I checked my phone messages, emails, watered my game plants before I got out of bed to get ready. Then leisurely woke the rest of my kids up.

Kid 4 was still in bed, drinking milk from his milk bottle when his teacher called to check in. Yep, I know he\’s 7 and still drinking from a milk bottle. So does my 9 and 10 yr olds. Drinking formula from the milk bottle saves me a lot of precious time in the morning trying to get them ready for school. It also saves me a lot of yelling. It\’s a choice between sanity and judgement from others.

7.40am

Kid1 finally sat at his computer and started doing his work. I decided to leave Kid2 to continue sleeping and Kid4 to play with his lego and focus on Kid3.

Kid3 is higher needs on the spectrum. Very own agenda. Why she\’s in mainstream is a long story but she is in mainstream. I can choose to see her as a 9-year-old who is very far behind her peers in terms of developmental milestones, or a highly-talented 5-year-old. I chose the latter, after all, age is just a number.

Her Math task for the day is long division. Try teaching a 5-yr-old long division. \’nuff said.

I tried all sorts of methods to get through to her. She can do division just fine. Like 56 ÷ 7 = 8, but she can\’t do it in the long division format.

8.30am

Work message came in to say there\’s an important email. All must read now. By the way, it\’s a requirement to be available at all times from 8 to 1.30pm because technically I\’m working from home. Work had to be the priority.

Settled the urgent part of my work stuff and went to the bedroom to retrieve Kid3. Restarted my teaching with her for the division. Then I realized she doesn\’t understand what that weird bracket is for. I had to do up a worksheet where i put all the simple division in the working format so that she\’d get used to it. But the time she got the idea, she was too tired to learn 22 ÷ 2. I decided to leave it.


This was yesterday\’s homework. Today there\’s more division homework on SLS. She did the simple ones and the long ones I allowed her to leave them blank.

She tried to do her SLS Science. It was on digestive systems. Somehow she knew the answers, not all but I was pleasantly surprised she could label the parts. The fill-in-the-blanks questions were harder for her.

Finally, I didn\’t push her to do her last homework. It\’s to write a composition on Vandalism. I told her she could go play.

9.45am

Kid1 was playing Roblox. I walked up beside him and tapped him on his shoulder. He almost ejected himself out of his seat. I could see the look of panic in his eyes as his brain went into overload trying to come up with a crap excuse. I just held my hand up, told him in my most controlled and gentle voice, \”Come out and do your work in the dining room. I don\’t want to keep yelling at you.\”

To his credit, he shut down his computer and moved out without arguing. I passed him a spare laptop to work on, but he was just staring at it.

\”Do you need help?\”

\”I don\’t know where my Math textbook is.\”

\”So?\”

\”So I can\’t do the work that\’s assigned.\”

That\’s why instead of looking for the solution, he decided to tab out of the SLS and play his Roblox instead.

Fortunately for him, I could dig out an e-copy for the textbook. So I activated my work laptop for him to work on while the other laptop acted as his textbook to refer to.

While he\’s working, I did my own work in peace. Kid2\’s teacher called Mr Rain to say that Kid2 hasn\’t checked in on Google Classroom. I told Mr Rain to tell her teacher she\’s still sleeping.

10.15am

Kid2 decided it was time to get out of bed and grace us with her presence. She kissed me Good Morning (good mood because slept enough) and went to have her usual morning conversation with her pets. I left her alone and continued with my work. Kid4 decided he was bored of Lego and wanted to do his school work. So I let him sit on my lap and do his work on my personal laptop.

Easier to guide him too because he usually needs a lot of guidance on the logging in, which assignment to do and what to do next. I decided to take a break and play my mobile games, since all my working platforms are taken up.

11am

Kid1, 3 & 4 have all completed their work for the day. Left with Kid2. I contemplated whether Kid2 should take her ADHD medication. On top of ASD she\’s diagnosed with ADHD too, on Mediknet 10mg daily. She\’s been taking it only during school days. She doesn\’t medicate herself during school holidays. I debated internally for a while and decided I\’ll go without the medication.

I sat her down and got her to start doing her work while I continued to do my school work. Stopped to teach her some fractions here and there, also helped her record some reading into the SLS.

I left her alone while I went into the bedroom to take a phonecall from work. After I came out, I found her like this.

So I told her to break for lunch. She still had 20 more math questions to go because she missed out one set yesterday. I continued working.

12.45pm

The kids had lunch and free time while I went to chill out in my bedroom.

I\’ve always found the spinning motion of the fan very soothing. Weird, I know. I mean, my 4 ASD kids have to get their genes from somewhere right.

It was so soothing that I fell asleep, only to be woken up at about 2pm by my husband\’s snoring. Oh, he had returned from work and crashed.

2pm

No devices time. The kids are supposed to stay off all devices and find a way to entertain themselves, except for Kid2, who still hasn\’t finished her 20 Math questions. I sat down with her to help her with her math while the others went to read/draw etc.

The screen ban time was for 3 hours. Kid1 was trying to test my patience when he decided to figure out that Titanic song on his recorder.

Perhaps he was trying to see if he could make me end their screen ban earlier. I made a conscious decision to be a peaceful person today. So I told him politely that he shouldn\’t try to practice his recorder at home, especially when I am trying to coach Kid2 fractions.

Kid2 finished her 20 questions, finally, at about 4pm. 2 hrs for 20 fractions questions. Hmmm, maybe I\’ll try medicating her on Monday.

Gave them cheese and crackers for tea break, celebrating the end of my WFH FHBL Day 2.

Kid 3 didn\’t complete all her homework but I\’m not too bothered about it.

I shall reward myself for not yelling at all today by giving myself the entire night off to write my third novel.