Dan Anderson Made Me Do It

Dan started it here, describing a day in the life of a math teacher these days.

Well, here I am, typing this while my kids are playing with a pair of broken laptops at my feet. Apparently my wife and I have been on our laptops enough that it’s inspired our children to play along.

I was hoping to do some work now, but my daughter Shuli (aged 2) refused to nap. Right now she grabbed Yosef’s face (he’s 5) and pulled on his cheeks as hard as she could. I am watching this disaster unfold as I type. Yosef just kicked her in the face. Shuli went on his back and slapped him.

Now, Shuli is climbing on me, and I’m typing while elbowing her, to keep her off the keyboard. This is more-or-less how it is.

“Which bomputer is the dirty one?” she asks. “Yosef is not giving me a bomputer?”

I just heard my toast ding. While I typed this, Yosef grabbed her first and she yelped. Now they’re slapping each other again. Should I get my toast?

I teach soon. I taught a live 4th Grade class this morning; this afternoon it’s my geometry students. The other three classes had assignments that (in principle) they’re working on.

Finding time to put the assignments together is, obviously, a challenge. Yosef is now holding up a pillow and hitting Shuli with it while she runs into it, like a blocking drill. More slapping, more yelling. “Get off me, you stupid jet pant,” he says.

“Is Shuli taking a nap?” he asks. “She really needs one.” How about we all take a nap, kid?

Since I can’t put together any of the assignments during the day, I’ve moved to the night. Last night I put on Netflix (I can’t even remember what) and set up all of today’s assignments. Oh, yeah, it was a Jim Gaffigan stand-up thing.

Here was one of his jokes: “If you want to know what it’s like to have four kids, imagine that you’re drowning…and then someone hands you a baby.”

“At the count of three, go to where Mommy is standing,” the boy says to the girl.

“Boo!” they shout at my wife.

After my 4th Grade class I went to the grocery store today. We’re in NYC where apparently you have to fight tooth and nail with your neighbors to get a delivery slot. We live close to the grocery store, so after class I took out the granny cart and went to the store to replenish our fridge. I managed to spend a couple hundred dollars, which makes me glad that my wife and I still have our teaching jobs. This would all be infinitely harder if we were out of work.

When I came back, my wife was in a meeting and the kids were wrapping up their first burst of TV time. (Sid the Science Kid and Daniel Tiger are the current offerings, but it changes weekly.) I checked in on the Google Classroom for my 3rd Graders. Engagement in that class had been low, so I’ve started posting half of a joke and asking students to guess the punchline.

“Stop running,” my wife and I yell to Yosef at the same time. I look up from the computer I’m typing this at. Our downstairs neighbors aren’t thrilled with the nose from our apartment, and I can’t blame them. I don’t like it either. When this is all over, we’re going to take our kids to a specialist who can teach them how to walk without stomping.

It’s raining today, is the trouble. (“STOP RUNNING,” this time I yell it.) We live in a seven-floor building that is part of a complex of four, and there is a nice big yard behind it. Usually I take the kids out there where they can run, jump, search for broken glass and used bottles, kick a ball around. I’ve taken to giving them splash time in muddy puddles on rainy days, but they get covered in mud and get too cold to be out after just twenty minutes; it’s not worth it.

I’ve spent the last few weeks saying that this whole thing was unsustainable, but it’s been six weeks now and that doesn’t feel quite right. This is sustainable, we can keep doing it. It’s just a grind, and a lot of days it sucks.

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