Pandemic Parenting

DVOM

Sun, Mar 22 2020, 8:44 am

Good Morning mamas!

I've decided to take some daily notes about my 'pandemic parenting' schedule and activities.

Schedules, predictability, order, keep me and my kids calm and feeling purposeful. I'm hoping this will help me stay organized and also give me ideas as other mama's post their schedules and activities and what works and what doesn't.

My kids have been home since schools closed here in Lakewood last Wednesday. I know some of you guys have had your children home for a lot longer than that and might have good wisdom to share.

So far, some days have worked, some days have totally tanked. For reference: I have four boys ages 4-11. My husband is studying for his post-graduate licensing exam. As of last week Monday, all testing has been canceled. This really threw us for a loop, he was scheduled to sit for the exam right before Pesach. He is going to continue to study each morning until around 1 pm, after that we'll be manning the fort together. I'm not working at the moment, scheduled to go back to work after Pesach.

Today's Schedule:

Wake up, breakfast, bath, davening

Phone-based school learning and worksheets, plus some worksheets we didn't get to on Friday

Continue Pesach cleaning upstairs bedrooms

Screen time: watching Magic Yarmulka from the Shmorg on Youtube (this is also mommy's relaxation time! I'll be scrapbooking)

Lunch: Picknick: challah sandwhiches

Field trip: Wharton State Forest/Batsto Villiage. In NJ all state parks and forests are open for 'passive recreation'. While they stay open, we've been visiting a different one every day. The Batsto village is supposed to have an audio tour you can access on your phone of all the historical buildings. We're taking our bikes, hoping the tour works.

Art: Last week we collected loads of seashells. Seashell projects today

Make sugar cookie dough for shaping and baking tomorrow.

Dinner: chicken, leftover chicken soup and veg, mashed potatoes

Free play

PJ's and bedtime

DVOM

Sun, Mar 22 2020, 8:14 pm

DVOM wrote:

Good evening M'dears!

So, the day went pretty well. I was a little grouchy in the morning and needed to reset myself. I find that I'm talking to my boys in a sharper way than I'd like to and I really need to watch that. I think I need to start getting up a little earlier so that I've eaten and done my morning meditation before my boys wake up. I end up feeling edgy and resentful if they interrupt those quiet morning moments.

I am slowly learning that I hate distance learning. One of my boy's rebbe's is making a lot of effort to make it interesting and engaging, but the other two are bored and hate calling in. We are going to do our best to listen in most mornings, but no promises.

The Shmuel Kunda Smorg video was great! The kids all enjoyed it and the midmorning break was really important for me.

We got less Pesach cleaning done than I'd like, but two out of three upstairs bedrooms are done. My husband and I chose to ask my cleaning lady to stop working in the meantime, so I think I'm going to need to get more organized about Pesach cleaning.

Wharton State Forest: This was such a great field trip! If you live in Lakewood (or Cherry Hill) this might be a good outing for you. You couldn't go into any of the buildings, but they were interesting to look at and to read the info placks. We never found Batsto Villiage. There are apparently several historic villages in the forest, and we parked near a different one. There was a cemetery from the mid to late 1800s that we spent some time wandering around there and reading tombstones, very cool. It was about an hour away, which also worked for us. We listened to music and snacked and got some sunshine.

We didn't get to our artwork or baking today. By the time we got home everyone was starving and after supper, we ended up making a bonfire in the woods behind our house to roast marshmallows for dessert. Great fun, but also a little sobering because a few of our kids' little neighbor friends came over to investigate and we needed to very firmly send them away. This was hard on our boys and on our neighbors. They get the whole social distancing thing, but it's hard to keep it sometimes.

Now the house is quiet. My husband is telling goodnight stories to the little boys and my oldest is listening to a story on the Pirchei hotline.

Looking forward to another Corona-crazy day tomorrow!