Right now, as I’m trying to pull two coherent thoughts together, I have fifth-grade math on one side of me and seventh-grade math on the other. In stereo. Do you know why you have to learn algebra? So that you can be prepared to fill in the gaps in virtual schooling during a pandemic. If I had to write a commencement speech today, I would tell the graduates to remember absolutely everything they learned in the last 12 years, because in the event of a pandemic, they will need to know all of it.

This week alone, we’ve hit Paul Revere’s Ride (I can still make it through the entire first verse and about half of the second, thank you fifth grade), the cell cycle (prophase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase, thank you seventh grade), and we’ve bounced between the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe and the Odyssey for the last two weeks (thank you, every English lit class and world history class from middle school through the first two years of college).

If I sound like a broken record, talking about virtual schooling again, that’s because this is my life now. I stumble through eight hours of work, with a few interruptions, mainly me shouting out reminders to everyone to check their inboxes, making sure deadlines are met, and trying to encourage people to keep working on whatever classwork they can without my help. Once I log off for the day from work, it’s time to log in to school. We used to have a little bit of a change of scenery in the afternoons when I ran everyone out to practices, and I got five minutes of downtime in the car. But, now, thanks to climbing cases, and the shutdown of many extracurriculars, we’re basically back into isolation, and I have nothing else to focus on besides making sure my kids are crossing every “t” and dotting every “i.” I can tell you, they are the antonym of thrilled.

It is also a new marking period and we’ve learned some things about time management and also that maybe, just maybe, we need a little more guidance from Mom (and Dad) than we thought we did. So, now it’s math. And pre-algebra. In stereo. This is another classic example of being careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. I have been worried all along that they’re not getting all of the instruction they would be if they were in the classroom, so I have hovered, and poked, and checked, and double-checked to try to make sure they’re “getting it.” I think they’ve finally realized that it’s easier to ask me up front rather than to wait until I find their problems myself.

One of the biggest joys of the past few months is that my kids have finally seemed to have mastered the most basics of technology, and are now logging on, zipping in and out of classrooms, and praise be, typing most of their assignments themselves. This alone is monumental and I really feel like it should get us off the hook for just about everything else they’re supposed to learn for the rest of the year.

My kids are still under the impression that I will respond to the one who is talking the loudest. I keep trying to disabuse them of this notion by ignoring them entirely, but it’s not working. So, it’s decimal multiplication on one side and constants of proportionality on the other. To all future service people in G’s life, I owe you an apology as I’m not entirely sure that he’s ever going to be able to calculate a tip properly. I’m also pretty sure he’s going to run out of gas frequently, as calculating miles per gallon is not going so well either. It’s just another consequence of Pandemic 2020.

I’m struggling with the math, but on the other hand, I’m actually enjoying getting the refresher course in grammar. I’m actually starting to think, based mainly on my extensive research on Facebook, that maybe we all could use a refresher course in some of the basics. I have vowed that if my children learn absolutely nothing else from Mom-school, they will come out of this knowing the difference between you’re and your; their, there, and they’re; and two, to, and too. I think I’ve gotten obsessive to the point where they will just find a different way to write things rather than take a chance of picking the wrong version.

I have to say, though, I’ve been playing fast and loose with the rules of grammar as I’ve gotten older, and I’m not always 100% positive what the “right” answer is. Googling, or reviewing the videos provided by the teachers, to find the answers often ends up with me reviewing 10 other grammar rules that I know I knew at one point but have since forgotten.

I’ve also gotten lazy about things and let my good friends at Office run spell check for me, and on occasion, I’ve even let them correct my grammar. Now that I’m being put on the spot, I’m getting nervous that I might lose my street cred as a published author. I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve had to resort to typing sentences into Word and running a grammar check just to be on the safe side.

I was really hoping that I’d feel comfortable sending the kids back into school by now, but the way things are going, it seems like Mom-school is going to be in session for at least a few more months. Every week feels like another adventure. In a jungle. With cannibals and ravenous panthers chasing me. And the only map that I have looks more like a maze in one of the kids’ workbooks. Luckily, I’m learning about ecosystems, indigenous cultures and the animal kingdom, so maybe by the end of the year, I will be able to find my way out!

Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.