1. Social Distance / Shelter In Place / Quarantine.
Adhere to all suggested government guidance. Currently, that means we are social distancing. Rob and I decided that we would think of ourselves as already infected and behave as if that were true. Of course, without quarantining. We could never live with ourselves if we exposed someone with an impaired immune system or someone who will have contact with someone who could. So that has meant not going into public places, taking walks and giving 6’+ space if we see someone, finding creative ways to get groceries without going in any place, and no play dates, even with our neighbors who are currently still needed to go to work.
2. What do we do with our Time Now?
I want to redeem this time – treat it as a gift from God to connect deeply with my family, to catch up on things around the house, to connect more with friends and family all over, and to help those in need. I have never felt that self care is more important. Pour over Scripture and get to know our Lord more, fill your home with worship music (a phone in a glass with a great Spotify playlist will do the trick), light soothing candles if you have any on hand, go to bed early, pray and give God all of your cares and concerns in prayer. Here is a list of ideas and resources for you, your kids, and family activities:
Activities For You
- Rest
- Declutter the house
- Learn a new hobby (sewing, knitting, painting, baking, fermenting, photographing the moon – there are a million things!)
- Buy a kit and learn to do your own gel nails at home! (I’ve linked mine here – I LOVE it!!)
- Learn a new way to style your hair, here are some fun YouTube videos… I obviously need to work on my braid skills! (This. This. This. This.)
- Order a cleansing face mask and have a self pampering night… Throw some Epson salt and bentonite clay and baking soda into a bath with a few drops of essential oils (mixed into your Epson salt first) and relax while hubby takes care of the kids.
- Put the kids to bed early and cook up something special for date night in with hubs.
- Read. Make a list of the books in your house and pick the one you want to start with (Tip – only books that will fill your cup right now, save the stressful ones for another day). Grab some audio or ebooks using your local library virtually with services like Hoopla , OverDrive, or Libby.
- Catch up on putting together family memory books, children’s memory books, baby books. We just got our family yearbook back that I put together on Shutterfly (not an affiliate link, but I was so dang pleased with it and seeing the kids squeal over it has been awesome!)
Activities for Kids
Let me start by saying I have seen some seriously awesome resource lists out there and I will try to find them again and link them here. We are all in this together and I have never been more grateful for my online village!
- Crafts (if you don’t have a stash in your closet of supplies, grab some from Amazon)
- Learn to read using this book – it is what I used for both of my older two and it has been such a gift!!
- Find a book series and read through it together. One of our favorite is the Little House on the Prairie books series. Link here for you.
- Little Passports just announced they’re offering a TON of free resources on their site!!
- Get outside as long as you can safely!
- Don’t be upset if their screen time gets a little higher when you have work or things to attend to. Deep breaths!
Activities for the Whole Family
- Games! Here are some top picks (This get to know you game pack – includes one for your stay at home date night!; Super fun classic Card Game)
- learn a new skill together, like baking bread, or making sauerkraut… The last one is the one we are tackling!
- Family Movie Night! Make it new with a blanket fort with an open front to watch!
- Virtual museum tour or take one of the Natural History Museum (real life Night at the Museum, anyone?!) !
- Start Family worship times – I think we’re going to try out this!
3. Give yourself AND the kids a daily schedule to follow
This will give you all a consistent sense of normal and of accomplishment. Especially as we head back into homeschooling! The most important thing (all the time, but especially during these times) is give yourself and them GRACE! It won’t always go perfectly – love them well and that’s a day well lived! I’ve put together our schedule and attached it. I gave options for babies taking 2 naps, toddlers with 1 nap, and school age kids AS WELL as momma so you can see how it works together, and giving everyone their own schedule to follow along. Kate at HouseMixBlog has an amazing one that I drew inspiration from – I just needed the me portion and Winnie’s naps mapped out to figure out how we’d get it all done. If you have school age kids, check out Kate’s!!
4. Avoid stressors and too much media.
My goal is to be a resource and a place of calm for you, while adhering to wisdom, I don’t feel it is best for ourselves or our communities for us to over consume news that will cause us to be stressed out.
I love this post by Paul Tripp – I hope you find encouragement in it! This is what I mean by saying the book by Tozer above is perfect for this time!
God Bless friends!!
