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Hello, friends, and a blessed Holy Thursday to you.

This week I learned that my summer class will be online. This is sensible and unsurprising and also a bummer. I'm teaching research methods, which is rarely a class that our students approach with enthusiasm. They want to learn how to assess and treat, and research methods feels like a distraction from their real purpose. I used to joke about it when I taught the class in an actual classroom. I'd say, "No one comes into this program saying, 'You know which class I'm really looking forward to? Research methods!'  So I figure the bar is set pretty low -- my goal is for you all to finish this semester saying, 'Hey, that was much less boring than I expected it to be!'" And it always worked out -- in an in-person class.

When I am teaching I rely a ton on facial cues. Once I get to know my students I'll often pause and check in with them if people look confused. It's not unusual for me to say to an individual frowning student, "Hey, [Name], do you have a question I can help with or are you just thinking hard?" That is a zillion times harder in an online class -- both reading the faces and building the trust, so they know it's perfectly fine either to ask a question, any question, or to say "Nope, no questions here." I'm not delighted about the combination of a class that students don't really want to take and a setting that makes it harder to foster community. But hey, I'm also not delighted about the prospect of spreading a potentially fatal disease to vulnerable members of my community, so I guess I'll need to make the best of it.

This morning we got a delivery from Target for the first time. It was mostly fine, but they made a couple of substitutions, swapping in two medium-sized chocolate bunnies in lieu of a box of small chocolate bunnies and a box of hazelnut chocolates. This is a teeny tiny problem in the grand scheme of this particular week, I know, but I had a small pang at the thought of dividing two chocolate bunnies across four Easter baskets and a larger pang at the thought of going to Target to figure out my own Easter candy situation in person. (Is the acquisition of additional Easter candy truly an essential errand, given that the jellybeans and the caramel eggs AND the Reese's eggs all made it into the Target order? Probably not.) But! My 20yo heard me mumbling about this and said, "I don't need a chocolate bunny in my Easter basket," and then the 14yo chimed in, "Neither do I." Later in the day my 17yo heard about the bunny situation and said, "Oh, no, I don't need a bunny; it's perfectly fine," and Stella said in a brave voice, "I don't mind if someone else has a bunny and I don't." I don't think I would have believed, back in the days when everyone was small (and feral), that at some point in our future 100% of the children in the house would offer, freely and cheerfully, to go without a chocolate bunny so a sibling could have one instead.

There's a little echo of Gift of the Magi in that story, is there not, in the way everybody is willing to sacrifice in order to give to others? If nobody wants a chocolate bunny, maybe I'll have to eat them both. [She said piously, heading into Good Friday with her priorities 100% in order.]

[Also, lest you envision us floating on a golden cloud of Good Catholic Family-ness, I should tell you that when someone asked "So how will we decide who gets the bunnies?" the deadpan answer was "Fight to the death."]