A Walk Downtown: Tacoma's Plywood Mural Art

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A Walk Downtown: Tacoma's Plywood Mural Art

How are you doing? Hanging in there? These are strange times, right?

All sorts of emotions here - feeling a bit trapped, tired, and optimistic about some return normalcy in the near future…and then back to being frustrated and pessimistic. Ha! One of my least favorite parts of all this is the ambiguity of it all - nobody seems to know how what and when.

However, we’re all in this together and I feel lucky we have a strong community here in Tacoma. One thing that was encouraging lately was all the murals in downtown Tacoma.

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Learning at Home during the Coronavirus

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Learning at Home during the Coronavirus

What day is it? How many weeks have we been quarantined at home? When will school start again…if ever this year? This has been rough…are you with me?

Luckily, both my boys are still rather young, so school is more about socialization and learning is more through play, asking questions, doing experiments…basically happening all day. However, spending time on some age-appropriate topics each day helps the day move along is beneficial for my son as it provides some structure, focuses him, and exercises his mind and creativity on other ways. My focus right now is numbers, the alphabet, and learning to spell and write his name. I’ve been using a couple of resources to come up with fun ways for him to learn. First, I use groups on Facebook like 253 Parents Get Resourceful and Too Cool for School. Then there are two awesome Instagram accounts: Busy Toddler and Happy Tot Shelf.

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Coronavirus: Keeping Busy at Home

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Coronavirus: Keeping Busy at Home

I imagine you’re at home right now like me trying to figure out what the heck to do to keep your kids busy since school is closed (and everything else we do is closed like the zoo, YMCA, Children’s Museum, etc). UGH! I feel so much anxiety about what I’m going to do to keep my little guys entertained and learning. And social media is overwhelming me. In fact, I almost feel more anxious after going online - it’s like all this information is being tossed out into the world but I can’t seem to keep track of it all, and not to mention how to deceiver what will actually work for my kid’s age and temperament. On top of that, I’m thinking I need some sort of schedule since everyone is doing it. AHHH.

….. DEEP BREATHE ….

So I started a list since that makes me feel better usually. Below what I’ve gathered. Then as we were on a walk yesterday, I came up with a schedule. It needed to be pretty relaxed and flexible given weather and moods.

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