I learned today that some of the stuff we’ve been stockpiling to keep our kids “entertained” (read: to get them tired enough to sleep for part of the night) might actually be useful for adults, too.
Like so many parents right now, I’m with my son for the majority of the hours of the day...and the night at this point. Hello, COVID-19 sleep disruption! In order to make the long days of mostly just the two of us more manageable, I have stockpiled numerous learning materials, books, toys, apps, and outdoor toys. I was fortunate enough to acquire a trampoline about an hour before the world turned off in March. I thought it would be a great thing to help my son with his sensory issues and hyperactivity for the few weeks we might be home until this whole virus thing got sorted out. Feel free to laugh at me for just the first time in this post now.
Cut to four months and two days later, my son rarely uses the trampoline except as a place to lounge and spill juice boxes. Tonight I realized that this toy was only ever meant for me.
When I was a young girl, I would spend hours in my room making up dances. Accompanied by 80s pop, classic rock, and Motown music on my cassette deck, I would make use of every corner of my Laura Ashley-wallpapered, pink-carpeted “studio.” I spun around, I shimmied, I jumped, I crawled on the floor like a cat, I pretended I was leaning back against a chainlink fence, and pretty much fantasized that I was Madonna, Janet Jackson, Prince, Laura Brannigan, Donna Summer, and Duran Duran. When I was feeling truly inspired I was all of them at once!
An early ballet school dropout, I feel pretty confident that those dances were probably terrible. I have no idea since I didn’t have a full-length mirror and the point wasn’t to watch myself. If anything, the point was to escape my awkward self and my suburban, middle school reality. I was sweaty and transported and in the flow.
This evening, around 30 years later, I was finally able to recapture that feeling. On my way home from that walk we all take now, “Rock and Roll” by Velvet Underground sprang through my headphones and I was obligated to dance up my driveway. Then I spotted the trampoline in the yard and I was obligated to kick off my sneakers, climb in, and jump and dance like crazy. I kept going for close to an hour, reaching sublime physical and emotional heights. I sang “I Can See Clearly Now” at the top of my lungs (obviously the Jimmy Cliff version). I jumped to songs former students of mine recommended ("Lost in the Light" by Bahamas). I got in my feelings about Sia’s “Elastic Heart.” I made up a jump/dance to Lower Dens’ “Ondine” (download it, you won’t regret it). My sweaty shirt flew up and my quarantine pooch bounced over my elastic pants (yep still wearing those) during Wang Chung's "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" and the Rolling Stones' "Heartbreaker." I used every inch of that trampoline like it was my old room with the thick pink carpet I begged my mom to get me. I was red and sweaty and far from graceful. It didn’t matter because no one could see me.
I have felt invisible lately. Most of my time is spent trying to keep my son regulated and happy and healthy. I’m a food deliverer, playmate, iPad-provider, swim instructor, online-orderer, game-inventor, toy-fixer, amateur occupational therapist and physical therapist, failed potty-trainer and occasional punching bag when he loses control. Like everyone else, I’m also an amateur plumber and carpenter (thank you, YouTube and my late father’s giant toolbox). Sometimes I feel less than invisible - only visible for doing or providing things. I danced and jumped like no one was watching, because these days it feels like they aren’t. And that isn’t always a bad thing.
I try not to give unsolicited advice, but I will just say that if you have a trampoline, get yourself to it and do your own safety dance, so you, too, can dance when everything is out of control (courtesy of Men Without Hats).
Friday, July 17, 2020
Monday, May 4, 2020
Hot for Teacher - Quarantine Edition
It’s day 50 of the COVID-19 pandemic for our household. It’s important for me to begin by saying that we have been incredibly lucky and blessed to be healthy and safe and staying put in our suburban house with a yard and cars we can take for rides. We also have a swingset, a trampoline, and the beginnings of a tent village on our lawn would have rivaled Occupy Wall Street.
This manic Monday morning found me at 5:08am with the remote control in one hand trying to find the correct episode of “Max and Ruby” for my three-and-a-half-year-old son. The keyboard of my laptop was under the other hand, attempting to fix mistakes made in my online college course posting for Blackboard in time for it to be meaningful to my students, who have their online final exam tomorrow. This kind of multi-tasking has resulted in things like apple juice in my coffee cup and coffee creamer in an OXO straw cup (love those things, but we were finally having some luck graduating from them to open cups before this whole thing hit. We had also moved up from Paw Patrol, but have regressed back to that, so I’m the one yelping for help. If you don’t get that joke, congrats! I don’t know how to play Animal Crossing and you probably do.) I don’t want to disappoint my students anymore than I already have by trying to move an in-person advanced college seminar onto Zoom and Blackboard, with the computer angled away from the messy parts of my bedroom and the sweatpants I’m wearing, so I’m feeling the pressure to respond to them even more quickly than usual and to catch any mistakes made online as efficiently as possible, so fewer of them notice.
The Mondays are even Monday-er than usual during quarantine. Perhaps this was the case this morning for happy reasons: We had a glorious weekend enjoying the beautiful weather here in suburban New York State. We were also treated to a social distancing visit from my son’s wonderfully supportive preschool teacher. Even though my son is invited to more Zoom meetings than I am, he has informed me when he is calm that he really only wants to see people in person in the places he’s accustomed to seeing them (i.e., school) and when he is less calm by crying and screaming and pounding the floor with his extremities. So, we’re taking a break. His teacher wants to make sure that they still have time together, so she’s been stopping by for outdoor social distance visits. I was already keenly aware of how special she is, but that she’s taking time out of her own day and whatever ups and downs she may be facing to personally visit and check in, and stay for so long, demonstrates even further what an extraordinary gem of an educator and human she is.
As if visiting weren’t fantastic enough, my son’s teacher made sure to take pictures of us playing outside. She snapped several of my husband, son, and me, and we remarked on all the families engaging in front porch portraits from a distance with local photographers. I have seen many families’ finish products, including close friends, and they look fantastic. Their hair looks beautiful and coiffed, they’re wearing pants that don’t stay up with the help of elastic, they look fit and healthy, and their faces look relaxed and stress-free. I have even had the privilege of having one of the wonderful well-known photographers who is taking these photos snap pics of my own family during normal times.
Yesterday’s social distancing portrait was a little different: My hair was twisted into a wet bun, my stretched out t-shirt did nothing to hide the minimum of 10 extra pounds I’ve gained since staying at home started, and my overgrown eyebrows and red, winded face definitely didn’t look so healthy. But at least I had on my “outside” pajama pants! The bigger win was that despite my misgivings about my physical appearance, the end result was a beautiful, happy picture full of love of the three of us. My son even looked directly at the camera and smiled, undoubtedly because his beloved teacher was smiling back as she snapped the image. Because I’ve pledged to be honest here, I need to say that I sent the photo to a friend with accompanying text that she should look at how fat I’ve become. She immediately responded that I should look at how happy we all looked.
This manic Monday morning found me at 5:08am with the remote control in one hand trying to find the correct episode of “Max and Ruby” for my three-and-a-half-year-old son. The keyboard of my laptop was under the other hand, attempting to fix mistakes made in my online college course posting for Blackboard in time for it to be meaningful to my students, who have their online final exam tomorrow. This kind of multi-tasking has resulted in things like apple juice in my coffee cup and coffee creamer in an OXO straw cup (love those things, but we were finally having some luck graduating from them to open cups before this whole thing hit. We had also moved up from Paw Patrol, but have regressed back to that, so I’m the one yelping for help. If you don’t get that joke, congrats! I don’t know how to play Animal Crossing and you probably do.) I don’t want to disappoint my students anymore than I already have by trying to move an in-person advanced college seminar onto Zoom and Blackboard, with the computer angled away from the messy parts of my bedroom and the sweatpants I’m wearing, so I’m feeling the pressure to respond to them even more quickly than usual and to catch any mistakes made online as efficiently as possible, so fewer of them notice.
The Mondays are even Monday-er than usual during quarantine. Perhaps this was the case this morning for happy reasons: We had a glorious weekend enjoying the beautiful weather here in suburban New York State. We were also treated to a social distancing visit from my son’s wonderfully supportive preschool teacher. Even though my son is invited to more Zoom meetings than I am, he has informed me when he is calm that he really only wants to see people in person in the places he’s accustomed to seeing them (i.e., school) and when he is less calm by crying and screaming and pounding the floor with his extremities. So, we’re taking a break. His teacher wants to make sure that they still have time together, so she’s been stopping by for outdoor social distance visits. I was already keenly aware of how special she is, but that she’s taking time out of her own day and whatever ups and downs she may be facing to personally visit and check in, and stay for so long, demonstrates even further what an extraordinary gem of an educator and human she is.
As if visiting weren’t fantastic enough, my son’s teacher made sure to take pictures of us playing outside. She snapped several of my husband, son, and me, and we remarked on all the families engaging in front porch portraits from a distance with local photographers. I have seen many families’ finish products, including close friends, and they look fantastic. Their hair looks beautiful and coiffed, they’re wearing pants that don’t stay up with the help of elastic, they look fit and healthy, and their faces look relaxed and stress-free. I have even had the privilege of having one of the wonderful well-known photographers who is taking these photos snap pics of my own family during normal times.
Yesterday’s social distancing portrait was a little different: My hair was twisted into a wet bun, my stretched out t-shirt did nothing to hide the minimum of 10 extra pounds I’ve gained since staying at home started, and my overgrown eyebrows and red, winded face definitely didn’t look so healthy. But at least I had on my “outside” pajama pants! The bigger win was that despite my misgivings about my physical appearance, the end result was a beautiful, happy picture full of love of the three of us. My son even looked directly at the camera and smiled, undoubtedly because his beloved teacher was smiling back as she snapped the image. Because I’ve pledged to be honest here, I need to say that I sent the photo to a friend with accompanying text that she should look at how fat I’ve become. She immediately responded that I should look at how happy we all looked.
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
Outside the Frame - Quarantine Edition
It’s day 44 of the COVID-19 pandemic for our household. It’s important for me to begin by saying that we have been incredibly lucky and blessed to be healthy and safe and staying put in our suburban house with a yard and cars we can take for rides.
My three and a half year old son and I spend the bulk of each day together. We also spend a good portion of each night together, since he began transitioning from his crib to a bed just before this whole thing started and has not been sleeping well. Thankfully we’re at the point that we’re averaging one 3am wakeup that requires me to go into his room and help him get back to sleep. It’s a good morning if he sleeps past 5:30am. This morning counted as a good morning, even if my alarm clock was him accidentally kicking me square in the nose (this is the third time my nose has been injured during quarantine, so my first stop when things reopen will likely be a plastic surgeon).
In the beginning, as worksheets and videos began to ping my email inbox and my FaceBook feed surged with educational ideas and color-coded schedules, I felt overwhelmed. I felt a lot of pressure to emulate what others were doing – something I thought I had let go around the time that my son was being evaluated for all of his differences and I had to accept that it would be a while – maybe never – before we would be doing what everyone else was doing. That was back when going to a simple birthday party was something to seriously consider and probably forego because he would become overstimulated and try to leave or get upset by a sound or sight and lash out. Thankfully, birthday parties have become something he mostly likes now (except when “Happy Birthday” is sung, although I know adults who don’t like that, either).
But this new challenge, this being at home with no school, no afternoon gym or science classes, and no in-person therapies (no SEIT, no Occupational Therapist, no Physical Therapist, no _T of any kind), was going to be difficult in an entirely new way. So why did I think that I should just jump on the homeschooling bandwagon? I’m happy for others for whom that has worked. But after a few days I realized it wasn’t going to work for us and I significantly lowered the bar for what counted as a good day.
What’s working is a goal of one eight-minute quasi-educational activity every day. What counts as a quasi-educational activity? Anything we do while awake that doesn’t involve an ipad…unless that ipad has a teacher on Zoom or a letter or number activity, then that totally counts!
I’m here to be honest about what this looks like. If you need an antidote to all those curated FaceBook highlights of preschoolers baking neat loaves of banana bread, making sidewalk chalk “thank you” signs that double as letter-tracing work, or basically anything anyone is doing from the Busy Toddler website, you’ve come to the right place.
Earlier this week, I convinced my son to engage in a rare sustained pretend play session. This was sparked by my giving him an electronic cash register with a scanner. We set up the aisles with toy food that has been laying untouched around our house for months. We grabbed a toy shopping cart that he inexplicably had only used to load down with random items and cover with a blanket (creating his own heavywork?). We took turns being the shopper and the cashier. When he was the cashier, he helped me find items I needed and even asked if I would like “big broccoli” or “small broccoli”? I definitely wanted small, or none, but he insisted I take the big one. Maybe he knew of a sale that day? He scanned and bagged my items, loaded them into my shopping cart, and even carted them all the way home to my play kitchen. We both laughed when we realized the supermarket cashier had left his post and had somehow ended up in my kitchen, as if that would be so funny if it happened in real life and not creepy at all. Then we switched roles and he shopped and I checked out and bagged his items.
But for every half-hour supermarket play session there are 33 refusals to make seed balls out of recycled paper for Earth Day and a baker’s dozen refusals to make cupcakes, ice them ourselves and top them off with ample rainbow sprinkles. Who doesn’t want to make cupcakes?? I mean, I shouldn’t want to since my sweatpants are fitting like a second skin... For every supermarket play session, there are also failed introductions of new Play Doh sets where I extrude, mold, and model shapes, and he takes the remaining Play Doh, smushes it all together into a ball, smears it like a new finish all over the table, then wants me to extricate it back to separate colors, and lays on the floor having a tantrum when I can’t.
I think we need an Instagram post about which stand is best for your child to be on your iPad all day while you make your seventh cup of coffee. I think we need an Instagram post about how to make a homemade pooch patch for your leggings so you can let them out and keep eating. How about an Instagram post about how okay it is if you want to put your maternity leggings back on during this time? Or one suggesting the best flavor ice cream to let your child have for breakfast?
Daily I also try to have my picture-perfect moments. A recent high for me: My son building LEGO with me and actually completing something. A recent low for me: Just as the last little brick is going in, a little Godzilla stomping all over it before the first pretend scene even began. If that’s not a good metaphor for these days, I have others...and they’re not metaphors, they’re things that have actually happened. Like the joy of seeing my son rediscover puzzles and start putting the pieces together on his own, only to misplace one piece, scream “It’s ruined!” as he chucked the whole thing to the side of the room followed by his body onto the floor. No biggie, not like I haven’t done this in my attempts to cook dinner.
My three and a half year old son and I spend the bulk of each day together. We also spend a good portion of each night together, since he began transitioning from his crib to a bed just before this whole thing started and has not been sleeping well. Thankfully we’re at the point that we’re averaging one 3am wakeup that requires me to go into his room and help him get back to sleep. It’s a good morning if he sleeps past 5:30am. This morning counted as a good morning, even if my alarm clock was him accidentally kicking me square in the nose (this is the third time my nose has been injured during quarantine, so my first stop when things reopen will likely be a plastic surgeon).
In the beginning, as worksheets and videos began to ping my email inbox and my FaceBook feed surged with educational ideas and color-coded schedules, I felt overwhelmed. I felt a lot of pressure to emulate what others were doing – something I thought I had let go around the time that my son was being evaluated for all of his differences and I had to accept that it would be a while – maybe never – before we would be doing what everyone else was doing. That was back when going to a simple birthday party was something to seriously consider and probably forego because he would become overstimulated and try to leave or get upset by a sound or sight and lash out. Thankfully, birthday parties have become something he mostly likes now (except when “Happy Birthday” is sung, although I know adults who don’t like that, either).
But this new challenge, this being at home with no school, no afternoon gym or science classes, and no in-person therapies (no SEIT, no Occupational Therapist, no Physical Therapist, no _T of any kind), was going to be difficult in an entirely new way. So why did I think that I should just jump on the homeschooling bandwagon? I’m happy for others for whom that has worked. But after a few days I realized it wasn’t going to work for us and I significantly lowered the bar for what counted as a good day.
What’s working is a goal of one eight-minute quasi-educational activity every day. What counts as a quasi-educational activity? Anything we do while awake that doesn’t involve an ipad…unless that ipad has a teacher on Zoom or a letter or number activity, then that totally counts!
I’m here to be honest about what this looks like. If you need an antidote to all those curated FaceBook highlights of preschoolers baking neat loaves of banana bread, making sidewalk chalk “thank you” signs that double as letter-tracing work, or basically anything anyone is doing from the Busy Toddler website, you’ve come to the right place.
Earlier this week, I convinced my son to engage in a rare sustained pretend play session. This was sparked by my giving him an electronic cash register with a scanner. We set up the aisles with toy food that has been laying untouched around our house for months. We grabbed a toy shopping cart that he inexplicably had only used to load down with random items and cover with a blanket (creating his own heavywork?). We took turns being the shopper and the cashier. When he was the cashier, he helped me find items I needed and even asked if I would like “big broccoli” or “small broccoli”? I definitely wanted small, or none, but he insisted I take the big one. Maybe he knew of a sale that day? He scanned and bagged my items, loaded them into my shopping cart, and even carted them all the way home to my play kitchen. We both laughed when we realized the supermarket cashier had left his post and had somehow ended up in my kitchen, as if that would be so funny if it happened in real life and not creepy at all. Then we switched roles and he shopped and I checked out and bagged his items.
But for every half-hour supermarket play session there are 33 refusals to make seed balls out of recycled paper for Earth Day and a baker’s dozen refusals to make cupcakes, ice them ourselves and top them off with ample rainbow sprinkles. Who doesn’t want to make cupcakes?? I mean, I shouldn’t want to since my sweatpants are fitting like a second skin... For every supermarket play session, there are also failed introductions of new Play Doh sets where I extrude, mold, and model shapes, and he takes the remaining Play Doh, smushes it all together into a ball, smears it like a new finish all over the table, then wants me to extricate it back to separate colors, and lays on the floor having a tantrum when I can’t.
I think we need an Instagram post about which stand is best for your child to be on your iPad all day while you make your seventh cup of coffee. I think we need an Instagram post about how to make a homemade pooch patch for your leggings so you can let them out and keep eating. How about an Instagram post about how okay it is if you want to put your maternity leggings back on during this time? Or one suggesting the best flavor ice cream to let your child have for breakfast?
Daily I also try to have my picture-perfect moments. A recent high for me: My son building LEGO with me and actually completing something. A recent low for me: Just as the last little brick is going in, a little Godzilla stomping all over it before the first pretend scene even began. If that’s not a good metaphor for these days, I have others...and they’re not metaphors, they’re things that have actually happened. Like the joy of seeing my son rediscover puzzles and start putting the pieces together on his own, only to misplace one piece, scream “It’s ruined!” as he chucked the whole thing to the side of the room followed by his body onto the floor. No biggie, not like I haven’t done this in my attempts to cook dinner.
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