I took these photographs on the very first day of school — August 8, 2019. I had them inserted into blog posts, with blank first day of school interview questions, but never managed to sit down with the girls. We’ve talked off and on about my failed interviews (the first year we’ve missed since Ella went to kindergarten) and when to squeeze them in, but it never happened. I’m not calling anything related to COVID-19 a “happy accident,” but when the first day of distance learning rolled around, I thought it was high time I got answers to my questions.
And even though I’m sure my girls would like to pretend they looked this cute today, I couldn’t help but share a photo from our first day of remote school, as well. As weird as this season is, I’m trying to be really good about preserving these memories for their future selves.
Below is a version of the interview we’ve used every year since the girls were little, but we added a few questions that are self-isolation specific.
1. What is your favorite color? blue
2. What is your favorite television show? Grey’s Anatomy
2a. What are you currently watching? Vampire Diaries
2b. What is your favorite movie? Titanic
3. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? bagel & cream cheese
4. What is your favorite meal? pasta
5. What is your favorite fruit? strawberries
6. What is your favorite snack? Little Debbie Swiss Roll Cakes
7. What is your favorite drink? sweet tea (we let her have half sweet/half unsweet occasionally)
8. What is your favorite outfit? leggings and a sweatshirt
9. What is your favorite game to play? Shang-hai (a card game similar to Phase 10)
10. What is your favorite animal? monkey
11. What is your favorite song? anything by Dan & Shay
12. What is your favorite book? The Selection Series by Kiera Cass
13. Who is your best friend? Paige & Lailee
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? swim
15. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas
16. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? a fuzzy blanket
17. What is your favorite recent memory? seeing Dan & Shay in Nashville last month
18. What do you want to be when you grow up? something in the medical field
19. Name three words to describe you: lazy, funny, loud
20. Name something you want to do this year: go to another concert
21. If you could travel anywhere this year, where would it be? Hawaii
22. If you could change your name, what would it be? something less common than Ella (we thought we were being so original at the time?!)
23. If you had one wish, what would it be? have the resources/funding to travel the world
QUARANTINE SPECIFIC QUESTIONS:
24. Are you sad that the regular school year is over? “definitely not”
25. What is one thing you will miss about school? seeing friends
26. What is your favorite thing about being home with your family? family movie night
27. What has been your favorite thing to do at home? binge-watch Netflix (She’s watched 20 episodes of Vampire Diaries since Saturday?! Also, she must not be sleeping, because she is still required to participate in family life!)
28. What is the weirdest/scariest thing about self isolation? knowing that we can’t leave our house, even though we’ve been doing that for three weeks already (she means the difference between self isolation and being told by the government we have to stay home)
29. What is something you’re looking forward to, post-isolation? spend the night parties
30. What is something you want to remember about this time? I want to remember that this time is scary and weird, since sometimes you forget after time passes.
I will be interviewing the girls on their first day of school each year for as long as they will let me. I can’t wait to see what a difference a year (or two) makes in their answers! You can see Ella’s previous interviews here: 2012 | 2013 | 2014| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018.
