Today was the first-ever eLearning Day for Brown County schools, which were closed because of record-cold temps and wind chills.

Normally, on a snow day, I’d send my kids to mom’s or a neighbor’s and go on into work. But grandma doesn’t have internet, and I really didn’t want to try hauling myself or anyone else anywhere in below-zero weather if I didn’t have to. So, today, we all tried to get our work done together at home, “working remotely,” as the buzz phase goes.

Here’s how it went for us. Maybe you can relate.

6:20 a.m. I’m awake and there’s no going back. If the kids are anything like they were last night, it’s going to be a battle for me to get anything done today, so I might as well start now. My assistant is on vacation this week, so in addition to the wacky weather, reporter Suzannah Couch and I are dealing with extra tasks to get the next paper out on time.

7 a.m. Husband leaves for work. It is a balmy -3 out. My work attire: fleece and wool from head to toe, like a sheep. I set up an office at the dining room table and start herding letters to the editor into the editorial system. Through the window behind me I can hear the wind howling.

7:38 a.m. There is movement on the stairs. “Mommy!” my preschooler beams. He sprints to my empty lap carrying a Batman book and one of his friends, a robot that turns into the letter E. He has lots of questions about my keyboard. I explain that moving the cursor up and down the screen is not called “cursing up and down.”

7:55 a.m. My kindergartner bounds down the steps. “Hi Mom!” he says before running to the laptop set up next to mine. “I’m going to do my work,” he explains. Last night he had taken great pride in showing me how his teacher taught him to find his eLearning assignments. He fires up the machine and settles in. “Do you want breakfast first?” I ask. “Just surprise me,” he says.

8:10 a.m. I set the preschooler up with a printed packet of letter tracing. He didn’t have an eLearning assignment, but he wanted one. “This is my project. It’s for wedders,” he tells his biggest brother, a sixth-grader, who is plodding downstairs wrapped in a blanket. Meanwhile, the kindergartner has followed the instructions on how to log into Canvas, where his assignments are stored, all by himself. His first task is watching a video rap about reading. This becomes my song virus for the rest of the day.

8:15 a.m. The sixth-grader appears in the dining room with a family-size bag of barbecue chips, pops them open and starts eating. I send him back to the kitchen to think again.

8:18 a.m. The kindergartner has navigated to another assignment, quizzing him on facts about earthworms. I ask if he can read the questions, and he smiles and just clicks. The computer reads them to him. Mom not needed.

8:49 a.m. The sixth-grader has slipped down to the basement where the desktop computer is (with a cereal bowl full of chips). He has assignments from every teacher today, including art. Good thing I grabbed my old work laptop from the office for the kindergartner to use. Today, I have a feeling that sharing could be a problem.

9 a.m. Coffee break for everyone — “chocolate coffee” for some of us.

9:20 a.m. One of the kindergarten assignments is a phonics worksheet that is not clickable. I remake it on notebook paper and he fills it out the old-fashioned way. The preschooler, meanwhile, has lost interest in letter practice and is now playing the drums while rolling around on the couch, and the sixth-grader is playing a video downstairs so that we can all learn, loudly, about everyday applications of physics. Oh, to be in an office cubby right now.

9:28 a.m. It’s math practice time in kindergarten land. That includes watching a video of counting by tens, pretending that you are hiking up a mountain while doing it. The preschooler comes over to watch and do the motions with his brother. Big brother doesn’t like this. “Everyone’s annoying me,” he declares. Yeah, buddy, welcome to the fun of “working from home.”

9:43 a.m. The last kindergarten math assignment is an interactive one. We are to write the numbers 0-20 on post-it notes and mix them up, then put them in order. Then, we quiz each other: “I’m thinking of a number less than 12, but more than 10. What is it?” The kindergartner gets it, then challenges me. The preschooler is watching from across the table. He comes over for a turn, cautiously. “I’m thinking of number less than 5, but more than 3. What is it?” I ask. “4,” he says immediately. Then he gets another one, and another one, and asks some of me. “You’re doing it, Mom!” he says, wrapping me in hugs.

9:48 a.m. The still pajama-clad kindergartner decides it’s time to get dressed. I do not follow suit, but whatever; I support his initiative.

10:10 a.m. The two little ones have lost interest in the novelty of computer work. They have commandeered my phone and are playing “Endless Alphabet.” It’s an app that teaches letter sounds while teaching challenging vocabulary, words like “gargantuan,” “contraption” and “graceful.” The preschooler’s current word is “forgive.” The two monsters on the screen are knocking down each other’s toys, then decide to hug it out. “When you forgive, you stop being angry at someone,” the app tells him. “Forgive. Forgiving is awesome,” the preschooler declares.

10:40 a.m. The two older ones are now playing “pillow” on the couch, where they take turns sitting on and punching each other. I am engrossed in the grown-up equivalent: Reading Facebook comments on news stories.

11:04 a.m. The kindergartner’s eLearning day is complete. His last assignment was to write a “small moment” story and illustrate it, one sentence on each sheet of paper. He writes about the time he asked me for a patio and I didn’t give him one. (We’ll call this realistic fiction, because I don’t remember this ever happening.) I don’t know what the sixth-grader has accomplished. I asked him 20 minutes ago to bundle up and go check on his chickens, and he’s still in a T-shirt, singing commercial jingles as he wanders around the house looking for shoes.

11:20 a.m. The big one heads out for animal duty in double socks, double pants, a parka, double gloves, a hat and an infinity scarf. It’s -7 outside. All the chickens are OK, even the babies, snuggled next to an infrared heater.

11:30 a.m. Back in the house, the big one’s glasses have frosted over.

12:09 p.m. Midway through lunch prep I go check on the trio, who are being extremely quiet except for electronic beeping sounds. I find them playing a game on the laptop with a message of “no internet” on the screen. (Apparently when you’re in Google and have no internet and you press the spacebar, you can play a game where you’re a T-rex jumping over groves of cacti. It will endlessly distract you from the fact that you can no longer accomplish anything.)

12:30 p.m. Lunch is served, and thankfully the internet has fixed itself. The three boys gather around one laptop to watch “5-Minute Crafts” videos while devouring multiple bowls of spaghetti.

1:25 p.m. The three have been sucked into the YouTube vortex; they’re now watching videos of things you can make with paper. I kick them off for real this time and move the sixth-grader to the computer beside me. How much of my own work have I gotten done by now? I don’t want to talk about that.

1:34 p.m. After making origami butterflies for his brothers, the big one is starting on his art assignment: Drawing different textures, like brick, or skin, or bark. The kindergartner has decided to do his own project, pulling scissors, glue sticks and paper out of the art drawers. He learned about paper chains in school and now he must make his own.

1:55 p.m. All three are now gathered around YouTube again watching Veggie Tales music videos. Can we get another internet outage, please? This is going to be a long day.

2:54 p.m. Careful what you wish for. The internet is out again. I switch on my phone hotspot so we can get back on track.

3:17 p.m. With no more projects to work on, the youngest two have resorted to their old standby: fighting. “I wish you guys were never born,” one of them shouts to the rest of us as he stomps upstairs. I try to explain that if I were never born, he would never have been born, and if his older brother had never been born, he wouldn’t have been born either, but he fails to appreciate me pointing out the illogical nature of his argument and goes to take a nap with the cat instead.

3:34 p.m. We would normally be heading home from school by now, but instead we’re still trying to finish our work. The sixth-grader has just started a 104-question algebra assignment (which is not actually due for two weeks, but I’m not going to tell him that), and I’m editing and formatting 87 inches of copy for the spring Almanack which was due yesterday – and doing algebra. Do you remember the difference between the distributive and associative properties? I don’t either.

4:25 p.m. A friend of the big kid’s calls my cellphone with a question. I hand the phone over thinking it’s about an assignment, but it’s about Minecraft strategy. “They’ll trade rotting flesh for diamonds” is part of the advice. Also, apparently you can find saddles in ancient temples, and you can die from trident-throwing drones. This conversation goes on next to me for 55 minutes until I walk away just to save my sanity.

5:20 p.m. The big one is calling it quits on his eLearning assignments. He was able to complete all of them – allegedly – except for one, which involved an actual piece of paper he couldn’t find. Thankfully, the kids have a week to get everything done.

One advantage to eLearning: You can’t lose your homework. You can lose your internet, you can lose your focus, but you can’t lose your homework.

Speaking of losing your focus, I’m saying uncle; this day has beaten me. Polar vortex or not, I’m going into the office tomorrow.