COVID-19 Parenting Misadventures

Today went really well! The morning was really unprecedented insofar as breakfast didn’t take a million years & everyone (besides me, hah) was dressed & ready for School™️ by 9:00. 6yo was in a go-getter learning mode, reading a magazine on her own while I made breakfast & then jumping right into math & writing & art assignments. She was very keen on having her own space (a play table relocated from her bedroom yesterday) at which to learn.

I made a daily checklist for 4yo, which I helped him work through amidst intermittently supervising 6yo. I felt empowered by the graphic representation of the things he needs to do *before* he plays his beloved computer game.

We decided to save 6yo’s computer homework for the afternoon, so before lunch she participated in/led 4yo’s “science class” (i.e. watering our windowsill full of plants) & “music class” (dancing like weirdos to the music of their toy microphone stand). She also read some books to him while I cleaned up the kitchen & (eventually 🙃 ) took a shower.

As I explain in the video, pre-lunch screen time turned into a bit of a disaster because they couldn’t agree on which #goNoodle videos to do (nevermind the fact that certain ones had been assigned by 6yo’s PE teacher).

After lunch the screen time struggles continued, with 6yo completing some further assignments (science, typing, reading) & playing a few games, followed by 4yo’s turn on my laptop. Tearing him away after 20 minutes earned me a nice bit of whining until we retreated back down to the basement. Heading downstairs (or outside, when it isn’t raining buckets as it was today) is a surefire distraction, with the change of scenery eliminating thoughts of snacks or screens. They played nicely enough on their own that I was able to straighten up a bit down there, a task I’ve long neglected.

Finally, we emerged for a little more reading & a snack before their evening session of TV/computer game time while I make dinner, before the nightly slog of bedtime routines.

‘Til tomorrow. 👋🏼 😴

Isolation: Day 5 - Lunch Lunacy

I’m extremely grateful that Hubs is able to work from home & that we’ve been able to practice social distancing. We’re also very fortunate to be able to procure a wide variety of foods that suit our tastes & nutritional needs.

That said, the hardest part of this week has been all four of us eating at home for every single meal. I am used to preparing 90% of our foodstuffs myself, but under normal circumstances some - if not all - of us are out of the house when eating lunch. This week has felt like one continuous meal. I’m either cooking, preparing to re-heat or otherwise assemble a meal from previously cooked ingredients, or frantically cleaning up from the last meal to begin the cycle all over again.

The top left photo is what the kitchen looked like whilst preparing this meal. It’s a hot mess, but you know what they say about the heat & the kitchen. 🔥

4yo’s lunch (bottom left) is the product of his obsession with hot dogs (this is the Hebrew National all natural frankfurter), & his preference for chips over any other form of carb. He ate maybe one grape, FYI.

6yo (bottom right) has been into peanut butter lately after ignoring it for months, etc & today decided to eschew a sandwich for some apple & banana slices with PB, with a side of Goldfish.

My salad (top right) consisted of chopped romaine, diced tomato, diced mango, mozzarella cheese, salmon, & pineapple salsa.

COVID-19 Isolation: Day 2

Today started with waking up early to make some sheet-pan pancakes, then braving the grocery store when it opened at 7:30 AM. The only item I impulse-bought was a package of marshmallow Peeps, which I intended to share with the kids & then stress-ate when they started to piss me off.

My day mainly consisted of playing Uno with 6yo, walking around the block while she used her scooter, & supervising some arts & crafts projects in our very messy basement.

Today’s schedule as I conceived it last night & the required revision this morning after we all slept later than expected.

I’ve always firmly believed in mapping out a schedule the night before, revising it in the morning, & then completely disregarding it throughout the day.

Seriously though, while we didn’t strictly adhere to the schedule, it served its intended purpose as a guideline agenda. Clearly delineating that there would be specific meal & snack times was vital to avoiding an all-day eat-a-thon, to which 6yo is especially prone. The fact that she had a snack at 10:00 instead of 10:30 & 2:45 instead of 3:00 seems immaterial. We also didn’t spend as much time outside as I had anticipated, but it was chilly so that seems warranted. Whilst inside, she & I played around 47 hands of Uno & made a few FaceTime calls.

For his part, 4yo, spent nearly the entire day in Hubs’s office, “helping Dada work.” I was able to get him outside for the morning play session, & Hubs said he wasn’t disrupting whatever actual work was taking place, but I still feel guilty that I failed to keep both kids occupied (though 4yo & I played a few very rousing rounds of Greedy Granny 👵🏼).

Day 0

For a day & a half, my husband (hereinafter “Hubs”) & I pondered (read: lowkey argued about) the boundaries & limitations we should be imposing on our selves & our kids given the increased prevalence of coronavirus in our area. Was avoiding everyone all weekend really necessary? Can we eat takeout food? Should our kids go to school on Monday? What about after-school activities? What about the fantasy baseball draft we were supposed to host next weekend? Or the slew of small children’s birthday parties scheduled for the coming weeks?

Hubs was already planning on working from home, which he does often the last few years after his firm moved to a “hoteling” style office. My work is very flexible part-time & gets done whenever I can fit it in around everyone else’s schedules, i.e. can also take place from home if needed. 

Then, today, we got word that all local schools will be closed for 2 weeks. So at least that’s settled. 

Now, we’re confronting the challenge of how to go about our daily lives under these strange new circumstances. Namely:

The need for some kind of scheduled routine. We have a first-grader & a preschooler. They are absolutely wonderful, but go entirely bonkers if we’re home without any structure. They’re also in completely different places as far as personality, temperament, & educational needs. 

First-grader (hereinafter “6yo”) is kind of a high-strung, type-A, preintellectual. She needs a full briefing about what’s happening every hour of every day. If plans change, she has a million questions about what the alteration entails. (If she’s conscious, she has a million questions, period.) She enjoys so many great activities - artistic pursuits, imaginative play, dancing, & really anything else that involves running around like a banshee - but constantly asks for TV time and/or a snack anyway. Historically, it’s been nearly impossible to set her up with an activity & walk away for more than 10 minutes; she’s just the sort of kid who needs/expects an adult caregiver to provide companionship, guidance, & answers at all times. I’m hoping that having an agenda mapped out for each day will remind her of school & she’ll be more amenable to doing things independently for a relatively short, set amount of time. I can also meet her halfway & do my work at the dining room table while she embarks on a quiet activity. Finally, it sounds like the school district is hatching a contingency plan for remote student learning, complete with daily homework posted online, which is comforting to say the least. 

Preschooler (”4yo”) is a rambunctious ball of energy, but tends to be pretty easygoing overall. If left to his own devices, he’ll wander over to his trains or his blocks or even a book & play on his own. The problem, of course, is that when left to his own devices for too long, he’s probably up to no good. His favorite pastime of late has been playing in Hubs’s office, using some old printers & other computer accessories to “build Robot Marty” (a.k.a. the robot that roams the aisles at Stop & Shop). This activity will be mostly off-limits while Hubs works from home - a deprivation that I’m sure will be ill-received & spawn all sorts of disruptive discovery missions, i.e. let’s see what happens when we stick the end of Mama’s headphones into the electrical outlet. Oyyy. My hope is that if I break out some toys he hasn’t used in a while, & a few shiny new (read: held in abeyance since his birthday) ones, he’ll amuse him accordingly while 6yo & I do our thing. 

Getting fed. I am really, really nervous about consuming commercially prepared food right now. The chances of contracting COVID-19 from it are small, but it doesn’t seem worth the risk. As it is, I’m a bit of a DIY food purist, frequently eschewing restaurant food for my own creations. I have a whole separate blog detailing my experiences with Whole30, in which I take my appreciation for clean-eating to the max in order to improve my health. Tl;dr I cook a lot of fresh veggies & lean meats & try to minimize the amount of processed foods in my diet. Doing this is hard enough under ~ordinary stressful circumstances, let alone a global pandemic. I’ve already slid into some unhealthy reflexive stress-eating that needs to be curtailed ASAP. 

The biggest point with this, I feel, is establishing a meal+snack schedule. Else, the kids will constantly be asking for things to eat, interrupting any hope of sticking to a playtime/learning/physical activity schedule. On certain days spent mostly at home, I feel like all I do is stand in the kitchen cutting fruit, & we will not survive the next few weeks if that’s how it’s gonna be. Granted, this is sometimes exacerbated by my own penchant to use a free minute here or there to chop & roast some Brussels sprouts or eggplant. But there has to be a point at which “oh look, Mom’s in the kitchen” doesn’t automatically translate to “let’s give her something else to do”.

A possible strategy to alleviate this involves cutting a bunch of fruit in advance, portioning it out, & storing it on a fridge shelf the kids can reach, so they can get it themselves. I don’t want to deprive them of food; we just feel that they shouldn’t be eating a constant stream of processed garbage. This is a particular risk for 6yo, who has the metabolism & appetite of a hummingbird & openly fixates on the constant quest for treats.

Dealing with life’s other extenuating circumstances. As others with young children can likely attest, our life is constantly in several different states of flux, limbo, and/or disarray. Some other things we’ve been dealing with lately and/or will be dealing with shortly:

Hubs’s dad is having a hip replacement tomorrow. Several people tried to talk him out of it, but he’s been having terrible sciatic pain for a long time & as long as the surgeon/hospital will have him he feels he needs to go ahead with it. Who will take care of him afterward, & whether/when we can visit, remain uncertain. LATE-BREAKING UPDATE: surgery cancelled. A relief insofar as one variable eliminated.

Last week I definitely herniated/tore something in my abdominal area while pulling the kids in a wagon, & need to see a doctor for that. I’m not thrilled with the idea of being in a highly-trafficked public place, but I also don’t want to put off getting myself looked at & aggravate the injury in the meantime. As it is, I’m trying not to lift heavy things (e.g., our 4-year-old) or spend too much time on my feet, but that in itself is a struggle. Right now my appointment is scheduled for a time at which Hubs has a very important (virtual) work meeting, so I need to reschedule it and/or find someone else who can watch the kids. I’m praying for the former outcome because it begs the question “Who should we be letting in the house?!”

We’re in the early stages of renovating our kitchen. This means that we’ve met with a few designers/contractors about possible layouts & options, inching towards finalizing a plan & selecting one of them to carry it out. It sounds like Hubs wants to move ahead with this process as before, but suffice to say my mental bandwidth is now sufficiently occupied with other shit. 

I’m always in the middle of 187 different things, & it feels like they’re all now on hold: purging the house of outgrown clothes & toys, organizing the basement, learning German, catching up on continuing legal education credits,

Processing the fear + existential woe. None of us have ever lived through anything like this. It is fucked up. I try to take comfort in the fact that the isolation protocols are empowering: by staying away from others who might be carrying the disease, we’re taking control of an uncertain situation. 

But there’s still so. much. uncertainty. Right now, the kids are scheduled to go back to school March 30th. Then their spring break will start on April 8th, to coincide with the start of Passover (as well as Holy Week & Easter). Last year, we hosted a seder for 18 people. Can we do that this time? I have tickets to one concert (locally) in late April, & to another (abroad) in early June - will either one actually be happening?!

“coronatastrophe”.