This picture is from a few years ago when the girls returned to the school building in September, not March.

(Sunday Paper, Year VI, Issue 9)

On Wednesday I happened to be in the car at about 2:30 and things were a little unusual.

And by that I mean…the usual stuff was happening.

At least, the old usual stuff.

I got caught behind a school bus coming from the high school.

I saw the crossing guard getting ready by the middle school.

And the ‘school zone’ speed limit sign was flashing. (Although this might have continued all through the pandemic. I’m not sure.)

For the first time in just about a year, the children of Framingham are going back to school.

The back-to-school schedule is hybrid - one week there will be one cohort, the next week will be another cohort. Some kids opted to stay remote.

Our girls are in a cohort that goes back this Wednesday, then Monday through Friday every other week.

It’ll take some getting used to a new routine.

The end of last year was a mess - it caught everyone off-guard and despite good efforts and intentions things were less than structured.

This year has been much better - everything is much more structured. It’s been a lot closer to school as normal, except for being together in person.

But the routines (not having to allow time for going to the actual school building, for example) are different. There’s no set wake up time and no worries about what to wear and packing lunches and all that.

So that’s what we’ll need to figure out this week.

Kathy used to take our daughter to middle school on her way to work…but she’s been working from home so that won’t be part of the routine this year.

In the past I’d handle the elementary drop off and all of the pickups. I guess it’s nice that we can trade off some of those things now.

And, now that there’s been lots of snow melt and sidewalks are clearer and March is here, there’s going to be opportunities to get into the routine of walking to school again, which will be nice.

It’ll be very weird to have the school routine for just a few months before summer vacation hits…but in this peculiar time it’s certainly better than nothing.

Notes

*I mentioned the snow melt above - it’s been a real good week for it. We’re back to being able to see grass in certain places, and the driveway is no longer shrunken by snow piles on the sides. It’s certainly feeling like spring is on the way.

*There’s spring training baseball games starting today. I am not sure I’ll be watching but it’s certainly an exciting stepping stone on the way to baseball season.

*Composting - still great. I am very happy we’re doing that.

*If you don’t already like the Facebook page, a reminder that you can do that here. And you can follow me on Twitter here.

*If you read the title of this post or ever hear the term ‘back to school’ and this scene doesn’t come to mind, well, our brains just work differently, that’s all.