Tag: family

Posted in Blog

Friday Fav: Video Chats and Parties

Posted on by Stephanie Spinapolice

Apps like Zoom, Facebook messenger, Skype, and Facetime have been a lifesaver for me the past few weeks. They have kept me and my family sane by connecting us with families and friends. The kids can have play dates, I can have virtual happy hours, school sessions occur, and my work gets done.

I think many of us were familiar with these tools and used them in various ways, but perhaps not as frequently or with the same groups of people. Now they are often the best way to share and communicate with others.

If you haven’t already connected your young kids to their friends and young family, I recommend giving it a try. I can’t follow Mr. 7-year-old’s conversation about Pokemon or whatever video game, but his friends and cousins can and seem to love catching up. I’ve seen kids playing video games together online, somehow playing hide and seek, connecting via Facebook Messenger for kids, and separately but somehow together having Bakugan battles.

Relatives can read stories, play board games (with the kids taking their turn for them), and sing songs. Sometimes just giving the kids a new audience is all they need to lift their moods (and give mom and dad a few minute reprieve).

My husband even uses such tech for online DnD sessions. We are all finding our way online to stay connected to each other. I hope you are too.

Photo Credit to Sergey Zolkin from Unsplased

Posted in Blog

“You Do You” – My Motto for the Latest (and Every) Parenting War

Posted on by Stephanie Spinapolice

I see it starting now: another great debate for parents to fall into camps regarding how to “best” raise their children. When schools starting closing a couple of weeks ago, it started. There have been articles all over my newsfeeds claiming how parents should approach homeschooling their kids during the coronavirus shutdown.

One side of the divide is to just focus on play and not worry about educational activities. Teachers are professionals, and they will catch students up when they return to school. Focus on making family memories and having kids feel safe and emotionally secure during this turbulent time. Academics will come later.

The other side of the spectrum includes a focus on academics. There are articles advocating color-coded schedules, sharing lesson plans, and talking about the benefits of creating academic structure. These parents have scoured the Internet for educational activities to keep their children on track academically. They may come across as too rigid and inflexible during this unprecedented time.

I just want to put this out there now, before the flames of this debate ignite, that parents need to do what works for them. Find what your normal looks like right now. We’re all battling different needs, ranging from the needs of others (kids/parents/employees/employers/etc.) to our needs (don’t forget about yourself).

Ultimately, come up with something that works for you and your family. Give yourself some grace. Recognize that what may work for you this week isn’t necessary going to work for you in a month. Try to roll with it.

I think many of these articles touting how to handle this situation are trying to offer support. If you’re overwhelming yourself searching for ways to educate your kids or up late at night thinking of ways to teach Timmy how to grasp common core math, then cut yourself some slack. On the other hand, if you’re unsure of what you can do to support your kids so they’re not watching TV or playing video games all day every day, there are articles offering ideas and schedules for your consideration.

Although my personality certainly leads toward structure in an effort to save my sanity, I’m trying to be flexible and follow my children’s needs. I typically work in some activity or lesson (requiring very little prep and low stress) with my kids sometime between 8am and 10am every Monday through Friday. (Support from my kids’ schools is now rolling in and supplementing whatever I plan for the day.) One day this week Mr. 4-year-old wouldn’t have it. He took off to build a train track instead. I let him go, called it a STEM activity, and focused on supporting Mr. 7-year-old one-on-one instead. Last Friday, I wanted my house cleaned. It’s irrational and not REALLY necessary, but I wanted it done. So, we spent 30 minutes working on schoolwork and then worked as a team to tackle the cleaning to-dos.

Ultimately, each day I’m trying to focus on being present with the kids sneaking educational activities into play. I’m trying to take Mr. 7-year-old’s advice that he wrote on our driveway earlier this week: HAVE FUN! I think, from the kids’ perspectives anyway, that it’s working. Mr. 7-year-old notes in his homeschool journal almost every day that he’s happy. That’s success enough for me right now.

Posted in Blog

The New Normal: Our Coronavirus Isolation Schedule With Young Kids and Working From Home

Posted on by Stephanie Spinapolice

I’m always interested in the details of others’ daily routines because there’s always something new I can tweak in my schedule by learning from others. Assuming others might be like me or just be curious, here’s our newest normal.

My husband and I are both authorized and encouraged to work from home for at least the next severals weeks (thank goodness!), so we get to tag team Mr. 4-year-old and Mr. 7-year-old. We tradeoff two-hour shifts and aim to maintain some flexibility as work calls and issues come up. Here’s the nitty gritty.

6am – 8am – I’m still getting up to an alarm just to get a few hours of work in before others start to stir. As much as I hate waking up to the beep of an alarm, I love having the quiet time for deep work, without IMs, emails, and other distractions. The kids wake up at some point during this time and play ABC Mouse.

8am – 10am – My husband logs into work while the kids and I eat, get dressed, and sit down to tackle whatever my one big learning activity is for the day. This is when reading and writing occur because I’ve already learned Mr. 7-year-old is exhausted after lunch and less forgiving of his errors. We’ve researched animals and started a book documenting where they live and what they eat, read books about how the human body works and then drawn diagrams, charted the colors of a basket of Easter eggs, and played with STEM toys to learn about electricity.

10am – 12pm – I return to work to respond to emails and take meetings. My husband is with the kids, typically having them complete worksheets, running around outside, or whatever. He has his work laptop with him since he’s always on call for spontaneous needs, so he’s focused on keeping the kids occupied with self-directed activities. If he has to take a call, the kids get educational screen time with PBS Kids or ABC Mouse.

12pm – 2pm – Sometimes I rejoin the family with lunch on the table, thanks to my husband, or sometimes I’m starting this shift making food. (I’ve been having the boys take turns making sandwiches for lunch too. They love the responsibility….for now.) When the weather is nice, post-lunch is outdoor time. We play games in the backyard, take walks throughout the neighborhood, or ride bikes. If we can’t go outside, then we find indoor activities like reading, playing with Play Doh, drawing or painting, hiding Easter eggs, doing household chores, whatever.

2pm – 4pm – This time slot is essentially a repeat of 10am – 12pm.

4pm – 6pm – My husband returns to work until everything he needs to do for the day is wrapped up. I’m back with the kids keeping it low key at this point. The kids will read me stories to earn marbles. If they haven’t gotten any screen time at this point in the day, they’ll likely get some now. I also have Mr. 7-year-old write a few sentences as a journal entry about his day. I’ll aim to have dinner ready by about 6pm.

6pm – 8pm – We eat dinner and clean up as a family. The kids then get ready for bed, and we wrap up the day watching an episode of The Great British Bake Off or reading a chapter from one of the Harry Potter books.

8pm and onward – This is my time to catch up with my husband (unless he’s retired to his man cave to play video games), read the news, review emails from the kids’ schools, and read books until I pass out only to wake up and do the whole thing all over again the next day.

I have to say, being thrown this curveball of having the rest of the kids’ academic year cancelled threw me off. I might have driven my husband a bit crazy obsessing about how to create a new normal for us because I’m the kind of person who always needs a plan. I’m open to changing it as we go, but I need an idea of how things are supposed to function. For instance, we started out working half-day shifts instead of these two-hour shifts. We found that too hard to balance work and kid needs, so we switched it up to something else.

We’ll see if or how this plan will play out when Mr. 7-year-old starts official distance learning with his class in mid-April. Right now, though, I’m happy enough with this schedule. Boy do I miss my alone time though.

Photo by Emma Matthews Digital Content Production on Unsplash.

Posted in Blog

Friday Fav: Nights Off

Posted on by Stephanie Spinapolice

Earlier this week I shared on social media the sad new reality of our family’s monthly calendar update for April — blank and boring while sheltering in place to combat this coronavirus.

Since about the only “event” left on the calendar are mom and dad’s nights off, it sparked some interest. Let me share these with you and how much I love them! I look forward to my night off coming around ever week.

We started these nights off when Mr. 7-year-old was a baby and it’s been a tradition ever since. The person with the night free is off the hook from making dinner, cleaning it up, and putting the kids to bed. Typically, we are free to leave the house and do whatever we please or lock ourselves in the basement and binge watch Netflix or play whatever video game.

Why once a week? It works for us. Typically we share evening duties at home, and it’s a weekly chance to take a break. I know myself. If it’s not scheduled, I’m not going to take time for myself. It’s a way I hold myself accountable.

Of course, we’re flexible. Typically there’s one Friday night a month that I get to hang out and drink wine with my neighborhood friends for ladies night, so we switch off. My husband recently took a weekend off to binge play Dungeons and Dragons, which was completely fine.

These nights off have been particularly important for my mental health now being trapped here homeschooling and working what feels like 24/7. I think I’ll use my next night off to go to bed early!

Photo by Mutzii on Unsplash

Posted in Blog

Friday Fav: Egg Hunts

Posted on by Stephanie Spinapolice

It’s really Friday? All of my days are blending together, one a repeat of the other as we continue this social distancing effort. Our kids are officially not returning to the classroom for the rest of the academic year, which takes us to mid-June. That’s three months of a new normal of attempting to balance homeschooling or just generally keeping the kids alive with working. So far, it’s working out with my husband’s support. I don’t know what we’ll do when he has to go back to the office.

But, for now, it’s Friday. My family is all together and healthy. The weather is beautiful. And there’s two days on the horizon that I can just focus on the family instead of work too.

With every event under the sun cancelled for the foreseeable future, all neighborhood and family egg hunts have been called off as well. We’ve had our own egg hunts throughout the house, but then decided to start spreading the love to our neighbors. We took all of the supplies we had of little Easter toys and stuffed them in the couple of dozen eggs we had around the house.

We then spent the afternoon hiding them in a couple of neighbors’ front yards. We even got to watch (from a safe distance) some of the kids go on their hunts because my kids were caught hiding the eggs. Apparently, my kids are impossibly loud, making it difficult to sneakily hide eggs.

Anyway, it was fun and hopefully brought some joy to the neighborhood. I know my kids enjoyed it!

Photo by Denisse Leon on Unsplash

Posted in Blog

Tips for Low-Stress Homeschooling from an Instructional Designer

Posted on by Stephanie Spinapolice

I’ve built a career creating face-to-face and online learning for adults. Now I find myself like many others spontaneously needing to homeschool my kids. We are in a slightly unique situation that our public school teachers haven’t reached out to us with specific lesson plans yet for the first grader, so we’re largely left to our own devices.

The Internet has exploded with ideas of things to do with your kids. I’ve explored some of them, but I’m taking a different approach. I promise they are all very simple and easy to implement. I am NOT prepping instruction. There’s enough stress and to dos on my plate right now with everyone stuck at home while I’m working that I’m not adding to it anymore than necessary.

Ask Them What They Want To Learn

At ages 4 and 7, I don’t really care what subjects they learn about, but I need them to be excited about it to keep their interest. It’s motivation theory 101. I just need the 1st grader to read, write, and do some math. My pre-K kid is ready for kindergarten, but we’re working on fine motor skills and starting to learn to read. I can meet these objectives regardless of the subject. Mr. 7-year-old wants to learn how a lot of things work: eyes, drawbridges, trees, etc. (Look, STEM!) Mr. 4-year-old wants to learn how to do things, like stop a baby from crying (?) and how to see things far away.

Get Moving

Sure, we have plenty of worksheets for the kids that I found online or received from pre-K teachers that we work through, but they can’t do those for hours a day. Even for adults, you don’t want them sitting all day listening to a lecture. You have to get them up and moving!

We have been lucky that the weather has been nice, so we’re going outside every day. I’ve been pulling out the chalk and creating games for the kids to play. One day I wrote a few sentences and had the kids jump to each word I said to complete the sentence. Once they mastered that, I explained pronouns, verbs, and adverbs and had them jump to different types of words to build their own sentences. They then added their own new words and had each other jumping around for 30 minutes or so.

Another day I created a number line and gave the kids math problems to solve. They had to jump to the correct number. We were able to cover low number addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

Word learning with pronouns, verbs, and adverbs

Integrate Assignments

Since we’re focused on reading and writing with my first grader, I look for ways he can practice both in whatever activity we’re doing. He wanted to learn about the eyes, so we read a related book, watched an online video, and found a Nat Geo kids webpage. I encouraged Mr. 7-year-old to take notes while learning. I then created quick, handwritten worksheets for each kid that they had to read to answer questions about what we learned. Of course, the questions I gave Mr. 4-year-old were different than the ones I gave Mr. 7-year-old, and I helped Mr. 4-year-old read his worksheet. When we next practiced handwriting, they had to trace a paragraph about eyes that I made at worksheetworks.com.

Use What You Have

I’m not a Pinterest mom. I’m largely not interested in arts and crafts. I don’t have a stash of toilet paper rolls or egg cartons to make all of these cute projects with the kids. But, we do have tons of generic art supplies, like paint, clay, coloring books, markers, etc. We also have about 10 million toys. They are all at my disposal for learning. We can use board games to learn colors, shapes, words, math, whatever. We have a bunch of STEM toys the kids have been given over the years stashed away in corners of the playroom. I pulled them out and have them in our homeschool area (the space formerly known as the dining room) to use when the mood strikes.

I will admit, the hardest part of this approach is that I’m with the kids the entire time they’re working, which means I’m NOT working during homeschool time. I can’t leave them in front of a computer to work on their own. I don’t think that approach would typically work for Mr. 7-year-old for any length of time and forget it for Mr. 4-year-old. Well, I take that back, they have fallen in love with ABC Mouse. I’m not sure how much they’re learning on that site, but it is educational and they love it. My oldest mentioned in conversation that something was in the shape of a cylinder. I asked how he knew that word, and he said he learned it on ABC Mouse, so that’s something!

Posted in Blog

COVID-19’s Impact at Home

Posted on by Stephanie Spinapolice

I had so many other posts planned for this blog, and then COVID-19 happened. My other thoughts on my favorite purchases from Costco (not toilet paper!) and ways I aim to maintain my sanity with busy schedules just don’t matter anymore or aren’t important.

In the course of a week, where we live, we’ve had all activities and events cancelled. No cub scouts, no school, no sports, no libraries, no rec centers, no travel for spring break. My monthly calendar is depressingly bare. Schools have been closed until further notice, and the rumors I’m hearing is that teachers are being told to prepare to distance teach for the rest of the year. Our school year ends in mid-June…..

So, I’m sad about this. I’m sad for my boys who don’t get to go back to school and see their friends. I’m sad for those who are or will soon be directly impacted by this virus, either sick themselves, caring for someone who is sick, or mourning the loss of someone else. I’m sad for those who are losing their jobs because restaurants, schools, and “non-essential” services are closed. And I’m tired.

Thank goodness my husband and I each have jobs that allow us to work from home, and I largely have the flexibility to work whatever hours I want. With the kids home 24/7 and with the new plan to homeschool, I’m not getting up before the sun to crank out a few hours of work. Once I drag myself out of bed, it’s kind of nice because I’m the only one awake in the house and online at that hour, so I get a lot accomplished in that block of time.

Once the kids are up, we move on to getting them ready for the day and starting school work. We’re only one week into homeschooling, and it’s very obvious that I need to do the serious school work in the AM when they are fresh. Then it’s back to work to log some hours during the work day (which typically means I’m on back-to-back calls), making dinner, and winding down for bed. My free time to unwind has evaporated.

My opinion and mood of this entire situation changes frequently, even within one day. I do enjoy spending time with the kids. They think homeschooling is great (yay, I’m doing something right!) and will hopefully look at this time as fun-filled and family focused. They have FaceTimed regularly with family and friends, and we get outside every day.

I miss my friends and going to the bathroom without someone searching or shouting for me. Quarantine for me means being surrounded by people (I love!) constantly. I’m used to significantly more alone time. My husband and I are hanging in there. It’s a change in routine for us, which neither one of us tends to love, but we’re all home and healthy. We haven’t lost sight of what’s most important. Though, I’m going to continue hoping this virus dies out quickly and normalcy returns soon.

Photo Credit: Photo by CDC on Unsplash

Posted in Blog

Making the Best of Working and Learning from Home

Posted on by Stephanie Spinapolice

So, this COVID-19 business is taking over all conversation, social media, and the news. It has certainly been the focus of my attention recently because on Friday both of our sons’ schools closed until at least April 10th. Four weeks. That’s four weeks that the kids are home unexpectedly when my husband and I are still slated to be at work.

I know that we’re not unique in this situation and that schools globally are making similar decisions. Really, in many ways, we’re lucky. My husband and I are capable of working from home, and with my part-time schedule, it’s easier to fit in the work hours I need each day while simultaneously keeping the kids alive and educated. I’m fully anticipating it taking 10 hours or more to get 6 hours of actual work done though. Blargh.

This weekend, I took some time to plan out how we’re going to make this work. Mr. 7-year-old and I created a checklist of things to do each day, with a focus on reading and writing and time to fit in whatever academics the teachers eventually email us. Until we hear from the teachers, the boys made lists of topics they want to learn about, like how to stop babies from crying (???) and how marshmallows are made.

With this move to online learning for K-12 kids, a variety of companies are offering discounts and free deals to use their products. Scholastic’s Learn from Home website is one resource we plan on using, and I also downloaded the free 30-day trial of ABC Mouse. The kids tried out ABC Mouse today and loved it! When I asked them why, they mentioned the “fun activities” and “learning path” where you can track your progress and earn digital prizes.

As long as the weather cooperates, I’d like to also get the kids outside every day. I’m keeping a list of what the boys have learned during this “break.” So far, Mr. 7-year-old has learned how to catch a baseball, and Mr. 4-year-old learned how to throw a mean heater!

We’ll see how this whole working and learning from home business goes. I’m sure there will be bumps along the way, but we’ll handle it. I’m such an introvert that it’s going to be strange having people in my space all of the time. Even bathroom breaks don’t see to go uninterrupted. I thought we’d grown out of that phase…..

Posted in Blog

2020 Goals and Progress So Far

Posted on by Stephanie Spinapolice

As much as I identify as a planner, I never used to be into creating personal goals and New Year resolutions. But, I gave it a try at the start of 2019 and kept it simple. I had goals to drink so many ounces of water a day, cut out evening snacks, and other small steps to lead to healthier life choices. On the whole, I stuck to the plan and am happy with the results.

I wanted to build on my momentum, so at the start of 2020 I created seven personal goals and put them in my planner. I thought about what I wanted to do outside of work that would bring me personal fulfillment that relates to myself and my family. (My professional goals are a separate list.)

Again, I kept them simple or fun. I actually want to do these, not challenge myself so much I get disappointed or feel guilty for breaking them. Here are the goals and my progress so far.

  1. Take a family trip to Florida – On the books, as long as this coronavirus business doesn’t get more out of hand.
  2. Read 25 books – I’m 18 books in already. I’ve cut out a lot of wasted time scrolling online (goodbye, Reddit app!) to read instead and “magically” found the time to devour books. I’ll probably up this goal to 50 later on, if I feel like it.
  3. Donate a set amount of money to charity – This is a fun one! Our family has been discussing what efforts we want to support but haven’t made any final decisions yet.
  4. Go on at least 25 dates with my husband, with at least four of them being to new locations – We are at least seven dates in already, mostly to restaurants. We both work from home on Wednesdays and make lunch a date by going out to eat. So far, we have tried a new Italian restaurant nearby and visited The VOID (an immersive virtual reality experience). Side note, Matt loved The VOID. I was less impressed because it was short and expensive.
  5. Complete two home projects – No progress here yet. At the very least, I want to remodel our half bath and stain our deck.
  6. Complete a 5K race – I have a couple of race options for May. I just need to pick one and register, then I know I’ll train and actually do it. I need a goal to work toward or it will never happen. I’m not super interested in running or exercising in general, but I’m a fan of being healthy.
  7. Floss daily – I have a daily habit tracker (shown above) hanging in my bathroom to remind me to floss. The visual cue is essential or I’d totally forget. I’ve only missed a few days so far!

I review these goals about once a month, just to see how I’m doing and whether I want to focus on any of them for the month. For instance, this month I know I need to actually register for a race and start training. I haven’t run a mile in ages! It should be interesting….

Posted in Blog

Weekend Adventures

Posted on by Stephanie Spinapolice

What a weekend! It started off great with a mother son day at the zoo. It was around 35 degrees Saturday, but sunny, so we adventured off to look at the animals. It was great! The zoo wasn’t crowded, and there were enough indoor exhibits that we didn’t have to be outside for too long.

Our plan was to come home, make dinner, and have a family movie night. Like most plans, they change with the circumstances. While I was making dinner, the kids got themselves into PJs. When Mr. 4 Year Old was done, he came downstairs and sat on the stool at the kitchen counter that faces the stove. I had just finished making mac and cheese on the back burner and moved the food to the front of the stove to stir in the remaining ingredients. For some unknown reason, Mr. 4 Year Old thought it would be a good idea to smack his hand in the middle of the burner I’d turned off minutes ago. In all fairness, I don’t think he knew it was hot because he didn’t see me using that burner, but he figured it out pretty quickly.

Mr. 4 Year Old screamed from the start, and I rushed him to the sink to run it under cool water. After about 20 minutes, Mr. 4 Year Old was still unconsolable and needed his hand under the water to relieve at least some of the pain. I’m googling during this episode and seeing that hand burns are particularly concerning and could lead to permanent damage if not treated properly and to get it checked out if it’s anything more than a first degree burn. Since I definitely saw blistering, and Mr. 4 Year Old still couldn’t calm down enough to stop crying, I called my husband (who was on his way home) and 911.

Our awesome local fire department responded with 5-6 responders. It was a bit difficult to tell how bad the burn was because Mr. 4 Year Old’s hand was wrinkled from being under the water for so long. They discussed where and how to transport the little guy. Apparently, not knowing how bad the burn was when I first called 911, they dispatched the helicopter to transport him to the children’s hospital, along with the ambulance. We could hear it overhead. I couldn’t believe that!

We ended up in the ambulance that transported us quickly to the best children’s hospital near us. Mr. 7 Year Old was a nervous wreck through this whole event, panicked and hiding away in the basement for stretches of time. Things turned around for him when he got to ride in the front of the ambulance and use the air horn to honk when we arrived at intersections. I stayed in the back with Mr. 4 Year Old who finally started to calm down after the pain medicine EMS gave him started to kick in. My husband beat us to the hospital.

The ER was PACKED on a Saturday night, but we were rushed to the back since we arrived by ambulance. There were no rooms available, so we chilled in the hallway where we were seen by a nurse and two doctors over the course of an hour or two. Mr. 4 Year Old was such a trooper. Once he started to feel better, he was making jokes and being his cute self again.

The doctors confirmed it was a second degree burn and that, thankfully, he wasn’t going to need plastic surgery. He would heal well enough over time and likely without scarring or permanent damage. We just need to keep his hand wrapped, so Mr. 4 Year Old doesn’t pick at his blisters, and make sure it doesn’t get infected. His hand was wrapped up one final time and we were sent home with popsicles for each boy. It was a happy ending to a long and stressful evening. Thank goodness!

Typically, I would not rate myself high on handling emergencies, but I think I did pretty well yesterday. I was only a bit crazed getting out of the house trying to think of what I needed to do and bring while dealing with one panicked son and one in pain and crying. I have thought through events like this in the past though. I’ve practiced calling 911 with the kids, including how to call and what to say. I’ve thought about what I’d need to take with me if I had to leave the house in two minutes (like last night), two hours (like a wildfire evacuation), and two days (like a hurricane evacuation). Here’s hoping that I don’t need to use this information again anytime soon.