Risks & Benefits

When we started thinking about what to write this month, we talked a lot about the risks and benefits, pros and cons of the shelter-in-place here in the Bay Area. As we consider things like day care, preschool, outings - weighing the risks and benefits is a major task.

So yes, we will talk about that some. We're also going to talk some about racism.

We're a white family. We have no clue what it's like to be a racial minority where we live. The risks of our whiteness are non-existent and the benefits are plentiful. We didn't do anything to be born white, and neither did our kids. They don't "deserve" whiteness, but they will benefit from it all the same.

There aren't any grand truths here - just acknowledgement. As much as we try to better ourselves and our understanding of how to be a good ally, we also have to make sure Everett and Imogen understand more quickly than we did. While we were taught to be kind to all and empathetic to the nebulous "less fortunate," it didn't go much beyond that. It's time to go beyond that - here, in our white family, where we could easily ignore it without any risk. The benefit is to encourage better allies, better partners, and hopefully part of a better future.

If you are also interested in helping your kids do better, we've found Books for Littles a great place to start.

Snuggling - May 9, 2020

Back to that other major thing going on in the world right now. Again, it hasn't impacted us personally. We have not contracted the virus, and no one in our close family or friends has died. We are extremely lucky. Part of that luck is due to our compounded privilege (which feels important to acknowledge right now).

Why to keep the kids home.

• We don't know the exact risk of infection, but it the kids are home - that risk approaches zero. It is certainly the safer option if all we consider is coronavirus particles.
• We barely use our car. Less energy use, less pollution (although the electric charge on our plug-in hybrid can get us anywhere we go these days), less time sitting in traffic.
• Lunch break with the kids is infinitely better than eating lunch at our desks.
• Spending time in a home we love and enjoying the back yard far more than we ever have before is a luxury.
• It is manic to work while child-minding, but we also get so many precious moments of interaction or observation that we don't get when we are separated. We are doing more crafts and activities together, simply enjoying our family.
• Taking walks and exploring our neighborhood has connected us more - we have met and connected with more neighbors than ever before.

Backyard time - May 1, 2020

Why to send the kids to day care / preschool.

• Everett and Imogen are getting split-focus parenting most of the time on weekdays. It's not fair to them for Mommy and Daddy to be on calls and asking for patience, for walking away because we are in the middle of something, for disappearing during important calls. They deserve an engaged caregiver.
• The other side of that coin is split-focus work. Going in and out of "work mode" and "parent mode" makes it difficult to be effective or efficient doing work tasks. A focused hour yields so much more than a split-focus three. 
• It's exhausting to switch between "work mode" and "parent mode" so often. We're mentally spent by dinnertime.
• After the kids are in bed, instead of winding down we catch up on work and do craft/lesson planning for the next day. Sometimes it's fun to plan things for them, and sometimes it's just exhausting.
• The kids miss their friends. We all do, but adults are better equipped to handle it. We are so grateful that Everett and Imogen have each other, but they are missing their peers. They pretend to be their friends or assign us roles. They have had a handful of video chats, but we all know that's not the same.
• They aren't getting the peer feedback they need. To grow and develop into empathetic humans, they need time with their peers. They need to learn how to make (and keep) friends, how their behavior impacts others, that families come in all shapes and sizes, that there are multiple ways to do things. It's very hard to do that from the bubble of our household.

Rocket ship craft - May 11, 2020

How to choose?

• Number one is going to be the public health risk that the coronavirus still poses. We are watching our county absolute numbers and trends to see when we think the benefits of outside care outweigh the risks of exposure. 
• Part of us wants to just keep them home forever, but that isn't good for them in the long run. It's true that it isn't good for us either, but we are focusing on them with regards to this decision. If we asked them, they'd both want to go back tomorrow.
• Some things that have made us feel better: kids are generally less impacted, medicine is learning more and more about treatment strategies, and some people have already been ignoring shelter-in-place and there isn't a huge spike yet.

Where do we land? We wish we knew. One day at a time for now.

Hiking at Uvas Canyon, delayed Mother's Day - May 14, 2020

Day In Day Out

How do you mark the passage of time when every day is more or less the same as the one before and the one to come? How do you coast without losing drive?

It would be wrong to say we aren't happy. Everett and Imogen are adorable and hilarious as often (or more) as they are frustrating and exhausting. At the same time, this isn't what we want for them - we want them to interact, to experience.

Santa Teresa County Park - April 22, 2020

Obviously, coronavirus has caused an unprecedented, worldwide pandemic. It has changed a lot for millions of people in far-reaching and sometimes tragic ways. We don't want to minimize any of that, but we can only really share our own perspective here.

At the beginning, we figured keep our heads down and just get through it. Give them love and support, get work done, don't let the stress make things worse. Now after 6+ weeks of shelter-in-place and at least 5 to go... it's starting to feel like we may need to reassess the routine.

His coloring has improved so much at preschool - April 16, 2020

Do we need to carve out time for more preschool activities? More 1:1 time? More video play dates? All of that will push our 9-to-5 work later to the bedtime-to-midnight hours, sapping our energy for the following days. It's a tricky calculation trying to figure out what is best for them, best for us, and best for our family as a whole.

All this mental (and often physical) juggling makes the days extremely long. The weather barely changes. No celebrations, no performances, no parties, no museums, no zoos. It's starting to feel like Groundhog Day to us. Does it feel like an endless loop to them? Is it any different from how they normally feel?

A lot of physical contact is happening - April 4, 2020

We have tried to mark special days - Easter, our anniversary, Immy's half-birthday - but it's tough. It feels reduced to sweets and presents. Even that is starting to bleed together.

Easter outfits - April 12, 2020

Oh yeah, our girl is two-and-a-half! SHe can do monkey jumps, eats everything, and has at least as many words as Everett did at this age (which was a mountain). Her imaginative play is a sight to behold - whether she's Oliver crawling around on all fours, a princess searching for her crown, or simply riding a flying Dumbo in our living room. It's abundantly clear that having a role model in the house impacted her development in the best way and it is fascinating to watch them play together.

This clown is 2.5!

We can't even type that last sentence without firing up that familiar twinge of guilt. Everett was learning and growing so much in his preschool environment. He vocalizes missing it, his teachers, and his friends.

It's always toughest trudging through the middle of a situation - when the ending is undefined and elusive. Someday we will look back at this time as an anomaly. We will joke about how crazy hectic it was and reminisce about how much time we spent together.

Stevens Creek County Park - April 15, 2020

We're also starting to wonder about the post-quarantine era. What will it look like? Will the kids be eager for the transition or confused, frustrated, and acting out? What will it feel like for our little family to not be together every hour of every day? Only time will tell.

In the meantime, we'll have cake sometimes, exchange gifts sometimes, make crafts sometimes, and snuggle all the time. Maybe add some more dance parties. We know we have it pretty good all things considered. At the same time, we are doing our best to parent our kids - minimizing stress and trauma, offering them chances to grow. Now... exactly what do we do?

Keeping Balance in Quarantine

We promise, we won't just talk about yoga.

Evie in "semi-truck" pose - March 28, 2020

If you're reading this, you have internet, so you are aware of the global pandemic happening right now. We live in California and are two weeks in to government-mandated "shelter in place" meaning we may only leave our homes for essential business and exercise (while keeping appropriate distance from others). Schools are closed. We are working from home. We only go out for food, medicine, and walks / hikes. That's it.

For reasons that may become clear while reading, we're not getting into the more serious topics surrounding this pandemic. We are appreciative of, grateful for, and worried about our healthcare workers. We empathize with those who are already economically impacted. We acknowledge the fear, anxiety, and uncertainty this all brings. Because of these serious topics, we wanted to focus on balance.

Hiking - March 21, 2020

Our Minds

• This is temporary. We don't have to do the best at everything, this isn't how we will be judged for the rest of our lives, it's merely an episode.
• A lot of our focus is in the present. The kids help a lot with that - planning and doing activities, meals, naps, storytime, snuggle time, what have you. There's not a lot of time for the mind to wander and that's probably a good thing.
• We are both working from home full time, which is a challenge. Tag-team parenting helps one of us have more clear focus while the other one juggles and then vice versa. We are super grateful for naptime.

Climbing on Mommy during Cosmic Kids Yoga - March 27, 2020

Kiss Immy, she's Irish! - March 17, 2020

Our Bodies

• It would be so easy to just eat junk food all day. While snack food has certainly ticked up, we're also focusing on vegetables in our litany of home-cooked meals.
• Getting outside at least once a day is so helpful for all of us. A little Vitamin D, stretching the legs, and waving to the neighbors are each little boosts.
• We are observing all the directives in the "shelter in place" order. We are keeping our 6ft distance and staying home. We aren't in the highest risk categories, but none of us want coronavirus and we don't want to become carriers. 

Tee ball became "real tee ball" with live pitches - March 19. 2020

Evie getting really good at hide and seek - March 18, 2020

Our Hearts

• We check in with each other, to make sure our emotional states are OK. We know how quickly things can get very dark and very heavy, and we want to be there for each other if that starts to happen.
• That said, we've been pretty fine. What matters most is family, and we are staying close to our little unit right now. We aren't in deep grief, we aren't in postpartum purgatory, we just are. We know what fear, uncertainty, anxiety, pain, and loss really feel like. This isn't even close.
• Our stock portfolio obviously is taking a beating... but we have a stock portfolio. While it would be easy to get swept up into economic anxiety, we aren't doing it. We are comfortable and it feels wrong to obsess over any economic hits we will take when so many people have it so very much worse.

Sidewalk chalk to encourage neighbors (Evie wrote the OBIE) - March 20, 2020

Pretend lunch... NOM NOM NOM - March 23, 2020

Our Beasties

• They need a lot of attention at these ages (2, 4) and that can be tiring. While the days seem long (so long!) we aren't worn down emotionally. It's GOOD to spend this much time with them and it's a happy, content type of tired at the end of the day - not a stressed out, frazzled one.
• They don't really "get" what's happening, so they aren't fearful or anxious about it. That is a bonus for us as we don't have to navigate through those complicated emotions. Our biggest hurdles with them emotionally are (1) isolation from their friends and (2) distracted parents when we're working. These are surmountable.
• When they look back on this time, we truly hope they remember feeling loved and supported. That it is simply a blip on their personal experience. When they learn about it in school, I hope it helps give them perspective that even in uncertain times we can be kind to each other and ready to work together.

Ready, set, go! - March 24, 2020

Playtime on the swing set between raindrops - March 18, 2020

Activities We Love

• Making a list of what we (mostly the kids) want to do each day
• Cosmic Yoga
• Sensory Bins - we like these & these, but making your own works great!
• Practice Easter Egg Hunts (filling eggs with small toys at night and hiding them around the house to be found the next day is time well spend each evening)
• Reenacting their missed activities - The Little Gym & Swim Class
• Sidewalk chalk art to brighten our home and the neighbors' walks
• More movie time than ever before
• Sticker and coloring time
• Pen pals
• Creating a store and shopping
• Jazz up the snacks - branded crackers / cookies go a long way (Scooby snacks!), sprinkles in the yogurt, mochi ice cream, s'mores - it's time to indulge a bit

Evie paints one of Obie's Bees - March 23, 2020

Making Puppy Chow: Immy wanted to get messy, Evie did not - March 28, 2020

It's really been a nice mix of technology and not. We use technology to stay connected, to occupy when we need to focus on other things, and to give us ideas. On the flip side, most of our day is totally disconnected. Chalk, crayons, glue sticks, toys, blocks, plastic eggs, these are the things getting the most use. Aren't we fortunate to live in a time with both?

At the end of the day, we love our family. We love our kids and we love spending time with them. Of course, when things settle down we'll find happiness in socializing with our friends and family, in coffee dates, in group experiences. It's because those things bring us joy, not because we need an escape from our home life. We know not everyone is so lucky, and we feel for them. We hope you find the things that bring you comfort during this quarantine. There sure is a lot out there!

Welcome to Disney+ with Frozen II - March 28, 2020

  

He claims Green Tea is his favorite flavor - March 27, 2020

 

Where Evie hides his eggs after finding them