We made it! The boys are going back to school this morning and we’re all really hoping that our home learning experience is over for good! To be honest it hasn’t been too bad this time round – Toby and Gabe have been amazing at coping with everything and we’re super proud of them but I know there is so much that they get from school that we just can’t give them at home.

On Thursday the boys enjoyed some World Book Day activities – they both had class Zoom sessions so they could show everyone their costumes. We went very low effort this year though. Gabe was George of Marvellous Medicine fame and Toby was a character called Balloon Boy from the Kid Normal books which basically just needed him to wear his own clothes and hold a blown up vinyl glove! They had fun though, and we did plenty of reading so I guess that’s all that matters really.

Toby had been asked to take some photos of our local area for Beavers this week so on Saturday we all went for a walk to town so he could take his pictures on the way. It’s increasingly rare to catch a proper smile from him on camera these days – he always pulls a face whenever the camera is pointing at him. I love this one though, and I’m glad we captured his massive hair before I cut it yesterday for the return to school!

Speaking of pulling faces – I’ve no idea what Gabe was doing here but it made me smile so that’s why I chose it for this week’s picture.

I hope you are all feeling OK about the children being back at school today. I know we’ve still got a long way to go before we can say this pandemic is over but it feels like the first step on the road back to normality.

This is my ninth year taking part in this linky celebrating childhood, based on a poem by Kahlil Gibran, “You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth” .

If you’d like to see the rest of my Living Arrows posts you can find them all here.