Parenting during a pandemic
I’m crouched in a makeshift shelter assembled from scraps, cheerfully reading a story to my kids so they don’t realize there’s a war zone outside.
I’m clawing my way out of a volcano with both kids strapped to my back, calmly pointing out the pretty orange colour of the coals.
I’m hustling them towards lifeboats but making it into a silly, lighthearted race to see who’s the fastest runner.
I have always been a parent who’s really honest with their kids. I taught them about puberty and sex and LGBTQ+ issues early — too early, maybe. I’ve never been great about upholding Santa Claus/Easter Bunny/tooth fairy lore. There’s nothing I haven’t been able to discuss with them, but suddenly I’m lying through my teeth every single day.
At almost-eight and almost-10, my kids are old enough that they’ll remember living through the COVID-19 pandemic. Is it going to scar them for life?
I have one child prone to bouts of terrible anxiety and another who lives for socialization and is crushed, daily, that she can’t be with her friends and teachers.
I need to be strong for them.
And so, every day is an acting exercise …
Continue reading in my weekly parenting column over on SaltWire.com …
DIY school picture timeline
Please note: This is the last Handmade Home column for a little while. I hope to be back at it as soon as possible.
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Without fail, we buy a package of our kids’ school photos every single year. Some years, the photos are really nice. Other years, the kids have an awkward smile or a wary gaze. It doesn’t matter to me — I’m ordering them anyway.
I dutifully give copies to the grandparents, but the problem was that I didn’t actually display any of the 8x10s I’d ordered for myself. I just couldn’t decide how or where.
Would I only keep the current year’s photo on display? Would I hang them all somewhere? A gallery wall of school photos wouldn’t be practical, since I’d have to update it every single year.
So I did nothing with my copies of the school pictures, except keep buying them and carefully storing them away.
Recently, I had an idea. What if I hung the school pictures in a way that I could show them all — in order — while also being able to add new ones?
Continue reading in my DIY column, My Handmade Home.
Thought work is going to be the key to getting through this
If you’ve never heard of “thought work,” don’t worry.
I hadn’t heard it myself until probably six months ago, when I really dug deep into working on myself.
Yesterday I listened to a special bonus episode of one of my favourite postcasts, Unf*ck Your Brain, by Kara Loewentheil. It was a virus dedicated to virus panic so I knew I NEEDED to listen to it.
Oh boy, not only did I listen, but I took notes the entire time (which I texted to my sister in 30-second intervals for a full hour) but I also just went to her website and pored over the show’s transcript.
SO MUCH GOOD INFORMATION IN THERE!
Basically, “thought work” is focusing on managing your thoughts. How we THINK controls how we FEEL, and how we FEEL controls how we ACT.
While I highly encourage you to listen to the full episode — and subscribe to the Unf*ck Your Brain podcast because there are SO MANY back episodes to catch up on — I’m going to summarize my main takeaways here. (Mostly so I can come back and re-read this post when I’m spiraling, but also for you guys, too.)
Ready? Let’s go …
Read MoreBreathing tips for when you’re panicking
If you follow my Instagram stories, you already know the unfolding Situation I Refuse to Name has put me in a very anxious state.
For example, I drove myself to the drugstore in PJs, late at night, panicking that I was having a food allergy reaction and needed antihistamines urgently. (I do not have any known food allergies — just imaginary ones when my anxiety is bad and right now it’s REAL BAD, GUYS.)
I bought the damn antihistamines and took them, even though I knew I probably didn’t need them, but because I needed SOMETHING to calm me down and convince me I (probably) wasn’t going to stop breathing because I’d stupidly taken a bite of my husband’s Hawaiian pizza when my anxiety was already off the charts and pineapple is a weird I-think-I-might-be-allergic trigger for me.
Read MorePre-plating = the ultimate dinner prep
It’s 11:30 a.m. and I just finished making dinner.
Well, it didn’t require much effort — let’s be clear. I shoved a frozen meatloaf in the oven, worked for the 70 minutes it was cooking (and forgot about it completely, thank God for timers) and then yanked it out of the oven.
I stuck some rice and water in the microwave and let that cook while I was slicing up the meatloaf and putting it onto four plates. Then I scooped the rice onto each plate and tossed on a handful of still-frozen vegetables.
I covered each plate in plastic wrap, used a sharpie to write each person’s initial (since portion sizes, veggie preferences, etc. are all very different), stacked the plates and shoved them in the fridge.
In the 5 p.m. panic to get some food into us all of before Taekwondo, I’ll just need to retreat the plates. Bingo bango!
I work steadily from about 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every weekday, but afternoons tend to be the busiest time for me because it’s (maybe?) when people suddenly realize they need to return a call/email and now things are urgent, etc. Wednesdays, I have learned, tend to be REALLY busy — and that’s the day the kids need to be out the door at 5:10 p.m., having already eaten dinner and gotten dressed.
I HATE having to try to make something at 4/4:30 on these days because what I NEED is to be working, still. And so … pre-plating to the rescue!
(Darling Husband will heat his plate later, since he wakes up just in time to scoot out the door to Taekwando. #shiftworklife)
I’ve written about this before, specific to lunches. (You know, so I could eat an actual lunch and not just starve and work and type and then stuff in a bowl of cereal and/or a granola bar at bus stop pick-up time.)
I know making dinner at lunchtime is something I can only do because I work from home, BUT! This isn’t a hack just for work-at-home types.
I did the same thing two nights ago — cooked chicken and noodles at 7 p.m. and then stuck it all in these cute sectioned containers* I bought off Amazon — because I knew I’d never, ever have time to make dinner with a full workday, driving the dance carpool and getting the kids ready for the choir/band concert.
I hate, hate, HATE cooking and this is still cooking (which I hate, as I mentioned) but at least it’s making dinner prep slightly more bearable, if only because I get to feel relieved that it’s over.
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