Quarantine Life

What a strange time this is in our world. Many of us are starting our third month of quarantine… How are you holding up? Stircraze setting in? Honestly, I have good days and cranky days. And my kids have good days and cranky days. I’m left to wonder - is it the chicken or the egg? Does their behavior affect mine or does mine affect theirs?

Whether you’re working outside your home or working from home or you’re stressing about not having work or you’re managing the extra laundry and dishes and clutter AND trying to be a full-time parent-teacher, it’s exhausting. It’s all exhausting.

I was that gung-ho-I’m-going-to-be-a-Pinterest-mom during the first few weeks of our “stay at home” order, but there are some days when I’m not feeling so Pinterest-y. So we’ve done a lot of walks and outside time, baking and play time, and more screen time than usual. And I’ve come to realize that it’s totally okay to feel “meh” some days. I’m grateful to my village of parents, mom-friends especially, who are helping normalize this experience for me. It’s far from perfect over here but we are doing our best. We are all just doing our best.

When I’m struggling with my patience, I try to go back to the basics and the “roots” of my behavioral training - increase reinforcement for the behaviors I want to see, talk calmly instead of yell, praise more than I punish, and engage instead of get on my phone or do chores. And when I do these things, we do better. So for now, that’s what I’m working on.