Last week I shared the lessons that God has taught me personally after a month of quarantine, so this week I thought I would share the practical ways our family has been making it through this unique season. This is a little bit of a different post than I typically write, but I'm hoping it will be helpful and encouraging nonetheless! One thing to note: we definitely don't have this quarantine stuff "down" by any means, and I promise you we still struggle big time some days! With time and lots of prayer and God's grace, though, we have found a few things that have helped, so I want to share those things in case they can be helpful to others.
1. Routine or Schedule?
Early on in the quarantine we started seeing lots of really awesome examples of routines and schedules popping up for this time, so one of the very first decisions our family made was whether we needed a fairly set schedule (assigning each activity to a set time) or if we wanted to follow more of a routine (doing the same activities in the same order, but not necessarily at a set time). Our family has always done better with the flexibility of a routine, so we chose to move forward with that. Our weekday routine in quarantine looks something like this:
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| Our Quarantine Routine |
Now, we don't even follow this very strictly (particularly the specific snacks and meals. Some days just call for the ease of cereal for breakfast...or lunch...or dinner...am I right?) but it helps to have it semi-planned out so that we can kind of stay on track and get the important things done. As for the weekends, that's really more of a "free-for-all" since Daddy doesn't have to work and we let him decide how to spend those days.
I'll do a quick walk-through of our routine to cover anything that needs more explanation:
- Breakfast and Bible: I usually read a little devotional or Bible story while the kiddos are eating breakfast. This way they are semi-contained, and they tend to pay more attention while they are eating! We also saved all of the Christmas photo cards we received this year and we choose one each morning and pray for that family.
- Morning Chores: These are just the daily responsibilities I want the kids to complete before we can start school. My 8-year-old does most of these (feeding the cats, cleaning the litter box), but my 6 and 4-year-old help with getting the cats water, cleaning their rooms, and getting themselves dressed and ready for the day. (I will say, I often let the kids have a "Jammy Day" if they ask. That's one of the happy parts of being at home, right? Goodness knows I like to just stay comfy sometimes, too!)
- Regular School: This is our set curriculum that we already had started this school year. Because we are so far into the year, all we really have left to work on is math, reading, handwriting, and a little bit of spelling and language arts for my oldest. Only my older 2 kiddos have actual school to do, and I like to divide them up and teach one at a time so we can really focus and I don't have to have my attention divided (I tried teaching both at once early in the year and it was just way too much!). So I start with one kiddo and send the other one out to either work on a chore or play with my youngest (so it kills 2 birds with one stone, because otherwise my little dude tends to get into a bit of mischief!) School usually takes us about one or two hours, depending on the kids' attitudes and willingness to work. That's the cool thing about schooling at home; because I only have to focus on one kid at a time, we can typically get through the work pretty quickly!
- Bonus Chores: I found that it's easiest for me to keep up with chores if I assign a specific one to each day of the week. After school we work on whatever the chore of that day is (or sometimes whichever kids aren't doing school will work on their "bonus" chore while I am teaching the other kiddo.)
- Snack: For whatever reason, my kids are pretty much continually starving. So if they have gotten school and chores done by a decent enough time, we squeeze in a snack between breakfast and lunch. This doesn't always happen, though; sometimes if we wake up later or school takes longer, we skip this and just have a bit of an earlier lunch.
- Bonus Activities/Outside Time: For us, bonus activities include things like extra school subjects (like science); specific things we never had time to do before (like baking/cooking lessons); and just fun little things to brighten the sometimes lonely/challenging days of being away from those we love. I'll explain a lot more about our bonus activities in the next section. If the weather is particularly nice or I have to work on chores a little longer, I'll send the kids outside to play and we postpone the bonus activities for the afternoon.
- Quiet Time: Every day after lunch the kids go to their own spaces for a couple of hours and have some time to rest and play quietly, and I work on my own projects that require a little more focus. Often my older two kids play together during this time (as long as they can get along), and I always let them choose a toy from our garage (where we store all of their toys). Since they don't get to play with the toys any other time, it usually holds their attention for a good while!
- Screen Time: Once the kids have cleaned up their toys and put things away, I let them watch a TV show (or sometimes two, let's be honest!) and have a snack while I finish up whatever project I was working on and/or start dinner. After that, if we haven't done our bonus activities yet, this is when we do them.
- Family Time: After dinner we try to spend time together as a family. This is another part of the written routine that we don't necessarily follow exactly, because we leave it up to my husband how he wants to spend the time. If we are short on ideas, though, we have this layout to help!
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| The Activity Jar |
2. Bonus Activities
At the beginning of this quarantine, I assigned specific learning themes and activities to work on after our "regular" school was done. We enjoyed doing a rainbow theme, a weather theme, and a spring theme, and I chose a specific type of activity for each day of the week:
- Monday: cooking/baking (usually a snack related to our theme for the week)
- Tuesday: learning games/printables (pattern blocks, bingo, math printables)
- Wednesday: sensory time (playdough, slime, bubble foam, etc.)
- Thursday: experiments (whatever science I could find for our week's theme)
- Friday: art (painting, coloring, chalk, drawing, etc)
Weekly Themes and Activities
Activity Jar Printables
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| Free printable pack by The Mom Creative |
3. Processing and Documenting the Times
We are living through a historical event. Sometimes I think that is really neat in ways, and other times I just hate it and want to have my normal life back. Nevertheless, this is a very unique season we are in that will leave a permanent impact on us, our families, and likely the entire world. Because of the magnitude of this event and the intense effects it's having, our family has found it really helpful to process it and also to document it. These are some of the ways we are doing this:
- Weekly one-on-one walks with each kiddo. I am very blessed that my husband can work from home the majority of the time, so a few times a week I take one of my kids out of quiet time early or let them start it late, and we take a little walk around our neighborhood together. I try to use this time to help them talk through what they might be feeling. I ask how they are really doing, if there's anything or anyone they miss particularly, if they can think of ways to make the time easier, as well as what things they have enjoyed and are happy with. The last time I took my oldest on a walk, he surprised me by asking me what I've enjoyed and what's been hard. These walks only take 10-15 minutes, but they have really been a sweet time for us.
- Taking photos. I've always loved using photography to capture moments and memories, and this season has been no different. There are things about this time that I don't want to forget--both sweet blessings and also painful challenges. Someday I would love to share the pictures I take of empty store shelves, "window visits" with dear family and friends, and neighborhood chalk art with my grandchildren so they can understand in a more real way what it was like to live through COVID-19 and how God worked through it all.
- Journaling. Another way I personally process things is through writing, so I made a special page in my bullet journal broken down by weeks to jot down specific thoughts and feelings I have had each week. This helps me to see any specific struggles I need to pray about and work on, as well as any blessings and growth.
- Posting up the week's biggest blessings. Every Friday evening I choose 9 of the biggest blessings from the past week and make a collage of photos relating to them, and then I post them on Instagram with a short description. This simple practice helps me keep God's goodness in mind even in the most challenging weeks, and it is also my heart to encourage those that see it and to help them to also see the goodness and faithfulness of God in the midst of this pandemic.
- Special printables. Something that has been so helpful and special for our family in this area is the use of printable packs that others have put together specifically for the purpose of processing and documenting this time as a family. Right now we are using two very good resources that I would love to share with you. First, the Mom Creative has a free printable pack with lots of great journaling prompts and a fun idea to turn the pages into a time capsule to look back on in twenty years. I included a photo of the cover page above! You can get this product by signing up at her website here.
Second, my very good friend over at Raising Rices designed a wonderful faith-based printable kit with 46 pages of more terrific journaling prompts, ideas for how to love/serve others in this season, Bible verse coloring pages, a Mad Lib (that I actually had the honor to write for her!), and prayer pages. While this product isn't free, it is very affordable at only $5.00, and all of the proceeds will go towards helping my friend's husband attend seminary! Here are a few photos of this resource:
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| A few of the awesome pages included: a couple different blessing trackers, some pages about processing the hardships of this season, ideas for how we can show blessings to others, a page about a day in our life... |
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| The pages can be printed in color or in black and white, and they turn out adorable either way. This is the "About Me" page that my oldest is working on. |
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| One of the beautiful Bible verse coloring pages that are included. My daughter did this one! |
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| My littlest guy coloring in the adorable puppy on the "how can we love others" page. |
- Post-Quarantine Bucket List. Any time we think of something that we wish we could do but aren't able to right now (park playdates, dinner with grandparents, seeing a movie at the theater) we write it down and put it in another jar that we set aside, and after things are open again and we can see people, we can pull an idea out every few days and celebrate that we can enjoy that activity again! This helps us to keep in mind that this season isn't forever; we will have a chance to do these things again someday, God-willing. And I think we will enjoy them with even more gratitude and joy because we will remember how it felt to not have that freedom before.
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| One of the chalk activities we set up for the neighbors |
4. Brightening Days and Being a Light
Everyone knows that there are some truly painful, scary, discouraging, and downright dark moments in the midst of this season. We can all relate, at least on some level, to the challenge of living through this event. Because of that reality, it's been so important for our family to find ways to both discover little bits of joy and light, as well as creating it for others. Here are some of the things that we have done.
- The best way that I've found to brighten the darkness and be equipped to be a light for others is to spend time with the Light of the World. It's been a hard adjustment for me to no longer have as much opportunity for extended one-on-one time with God, but something I've found that has really helped is taking Bible/prayer walks each day. Because my husband usually works from home now, I can easily slip away for an hour (either before the kids are up or while they are in quiet time/watching a show) so that I can walk around my neighborhood, listen to my Bible reading through the YouVersion app, and take some time to pray through my prayer list and share prayer requests and prayers with others via the Marco Polo app. This practice has had so many benefits for me: I am getting a little bit of exercise and fresh air; I have the chance to get away and focus on God for a while; and I also often have opportunity to connect with others who build me up in my faith when I listen to their video messages and get to reply back. It's amazing the difference it makes in my ability to love and serve my family and others when I have taken the time to let God minister to my heart and equip me for His work first. After all, God has everything that the people all around me need in this season; it isn't really possible for me to effectively help others and be a light in this darkness if I haven't first been equipped and filled by the One they need most of all.
- For the kids, I have tried to budget for and find little "surprises" each week from our local bookstore (that way I can support a small business, and I also get my items that day or the next because they offer free local delivery! A lot of small businesses are doing this, so definitely check them out!) Usually they are just $5-$10 little activity books (stickers, hidden pictures, scratch & sketch, etc) and they always make the kids' day when they get them (and buy me some extra time, too, since it keeps them engaged.)
- I also will sometimes get little surprises for myself, for the same reason as I get the kiddos' stuff: just to bring a smile. Something I've noticed in this season is that even little things just feel a lot happier than they used to, and it can really boost my mood to get a little package in the mail with a goody for me!
- For our neighborhood, we have gotten to draw a fun chalk obstacle course, paint our window with encouraging words and happy pictures, set out teddy bears to help with a bear scavenger hunt our community held, and most recently went around and left chalk hearts all around the neighborhood as well as a message challenging others to find them! We have been very blessed by the little things our neighbors and communities have done for us, and we have SO much fun doing these things for them!
- For friends and family, we have ordered little surprises to be delivered to them to brighten their days, made Easter cards and delivered them, done a few drive-by "hellos" (just driving by their houses and rolling our windows down to have mini visits and say hi), and written letters to tell them how much we love and miss them. Again, it is so amazing how much joy it brings to get to bless other people that we love! Try it and I'll bet you'll feel the same.
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| Staying connected with those we love |
By far the hardest part of quarantine for our family (and probably most of you, too) has been the heartache over missing "our people". Worshiping and learning with our amazing church family; dinners with the grandparents and aunts/uncles/cousins; playdates with sweet friends...each and every one of us has felt the loss of not being together in person with those we love. We see messages all over the place about the importance of staying connected; the question is, how? Here are a few things we have done:
- First, the obvious choice that most of you are probably already doing: video chat. Zoom, FaceTime, Facebook Messenger, Google Hangouts...all of these are great options for seeing some loved and ones and hearing their voices. We've done virtual coffee dates, Bible study groups, meetings, and are even planning some virtual playdates! We have the technology; let's use it!
- Something that has been a huge help for my kids is the Facebook Messenger Kids app. It is linked to the parents' account, and the parent is the one who adds/approves every single contact. The app allows kids to do video chat, regular chat, a "guess this drawing" game (probably my oldest son's very favorite perk), and some other cooperative games to do with whoever they are messaging. Right now I only allow my oldest son to use this, but the other two kids are allowed to watch (and of course they jump on whenever he is video chatting a grandparent!) We only allow the kids to use this app while sitting in the room with us, and we check the messages carefully. If you are comfortable with your child using this technology and have safeguards and rules in place, it can really be a big help in letting them feel connected.
- While our new video-messaging technology options are awesome, don't discredit "older" ways of communicating and connecting. We've grown a lot in having phone conversations again in this season, and I have even gotten to start a "pen pal" email relationship with a newer friend! And tried and true "snail mail" is actually really, really awesome in this season. I had a friend send me a letter a few weeks ago, and I was surprised by the level of joy and connection it brought me! Don't discount the power of a handwritten letter!
- ***DISCLAIMER: These next ideas might be controversial. First and foremost, be sure that you are following the laws and guidelines set down by your particular state/country's leadership. I recognize that some places need stricter boundries in order to protect people, so always defer to your unique location's needs when considering how to follow social distancing. Also, keep in mind that everyone's comfort levels and convictions are going to be a little bit different when it comes to social distancing. Please don't use any of these ideas to shame another person, either for being "more fearful" than you because they aren't willing to do them, or for being "too careless" because they are willing to do more than you are comfortable with. We can't say we are "in this together" if we are too busy nit-picking each other's choices in how we can/cannot connect in this season. Each of these ideas are ones that still follow social distancing guidelines in my state of Oregon (maintain a distance of at least six feet from others, no gatherings of more than ten people, stay home if you have any symptoms) but I know that some could view them as still taking too much risk. Pick and choose ones that you think would work for your family, but don't worry if they don't feel ok for you!***
~During my first virtual counseling session, my counselor suggested some ways to connect with people in a more "face to face" way, knowing that our family was struggling with only getting to connect over a screen. Her suggestion was to try doing things while being quarantined in our car still, like car coffee dates with friends. I have gotten to do this with my parents for a little icecream outing with the kids, one friend for a "lunch date", and another for a coffee date, and have also seen others parking their cars six feet apart and sitting in their trunks just to talk for a bit.
~Something else we have done a few times is to drive by friends' houses and roll down our windows to talk.
~I have also gone on some walks with people (again, maintaining that six-foot distance)
~We have had several sweet "window visits" with family and friends who come up to our big front window at home to talk for a few minutes.
It's been pretty amazing to see the difference in our family's overall mood, disposition, and hopefulness just from getting a few opportunities to see people we love face to face. Now, these are probably ideas that should be saved to do just once in a while; the very best way to stop the spread of this virus is just like they have been saying: to stay at home. I also know, though, that there are a lot of different things to factor in when it comes to staying healthy and being able to continue this lifestyle long-term. I think the main things to do when it comes to figuring out ways to connect in this time are to pray for wisdom and discernment, seek to truly love and serve others, submit to governing authorities, and then make these circumstances work for your family.
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