Great Expectasia: Permission to Survive and Let Go

I have given myself permission to survive.

We are playing a lot. We have a really rough - meaning flexible - schedule of play, outside, lunch, music (~1pm), play, clean/chores, outside, dinner (~5:15), bath/screen time, bed (7 for the boys, 8 for Samara). Thank god our neighbors gave us bins of lego last summer. The kids are building some amazing things. We have enough toys, puzzles and crafts to last us months. Nothing new - things that sit on shelves while we're running with our lives. We have a jar of ideas of "things to do" to pick when we need them.

I am not worried about my kids learning. They are learning - just not the same way or things that they would learn in school.

I know that all kids have different needs. Some need structure. Some thrive without it. I also know that at different ages, the social needs and needs for stimulation are totally different. My kids are at a sweet age where they are very happy to chill and play for hours and days at a time. I also understand that moms and dads have varying needs for structure and control. I'm usually one with a whole big need for control - but I'm trying to just. let. go.

As part of that, I have given myself permission to not know everything.

I usually listen to NPR and podcasts all day, read a whole lot of New York Times, check a lot of news sources on Twitter and am fairly informed about what's going on. I am one of the few that usually finds facebook a happy space where I can see friends and their lives. I usually find it a place to de-stress and fill my heart.

Right now people's anxieties, articles they're posting and other things are stressing me out - so I have been on facebook for about five minutes a day, until I see something that makes my heart pound, and then I turn it off.

I haven't opened Twitter since the weekend.

I read the New York Times headlines and that's it. I cannot do much to help the situation, and I find it so incredibly stressful to read about shortages of supplies, dying people and a whole world that is out of control.

I know that when I read that stuff I am short with my family, I feel paralyzed, I don't sleep and I can't function well. My main goal right now is to do my part by staying home - and to keep my home and my family in peace. I can do that by checking out, slowing my brain, playing with my kids, doing a puzzle, baking, going outside as much as we can - and just surviving.

I have lots of strengths - but being around sickness and germs is not one of them. I am awake at night in the midst of the summer worrying about the stomach bug. I'm the crazy one that my kids' friends know will make them drop everything, take off shoes and go immediately to wash hands upon arrival at our house. And then again before eating - even if they hare barely played with anything. I am USUALLY crazy about this stuff.

So what can I do to help? I have decided that I can't do much. I am not the person who is going to volunteer to do things out of the house or go shopping for anyone. However I am able to do a challah delivery (I think I can handle Rosenfelds - order and pay online and then just pick up) and I can order groceries online and deliver them from my house to someone else's doorstep. That's about all I can do (until we know where we can donate resources) - other than giving you permission also TO JUST SURVIVE RIGHT NOW.