This pattern of play is a bit tricky during these times. Team sports, play dates, school recess, all of these obvious social play situations have been banned in many of our areas. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t still be social!
Some great ways to keep your children social during this isolation include:
Video call a family member or friend
Write a letter or card to someone
Play with a sibling! Board games, musical chairs, cakewalks, etc. Anything to get them interacting with each other. (Hint: video games aren’t very socially interactive)
Being social, especially right now, is SO IMPORTANT! It helps build emotional connections, something that the world is lacking, badly. Now, as our distractions are limited, is a great opportunity for us to relate to one another and get to know each other better. If there is anything this world needs, now more than ever, I believe it is human connection.
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I could go on and on about this type of play! In the last couple of months, my children have become masters at playing with their toys. Up to this point I feel like they were interested in anything BUT the toys we bought for them.
However, Object Play is more than just playing with toys. It is learning to manipulate, build and fix objects.
Along with other special patterns of play, the curiosity about and playing with “objects” is a pervasive innately fun pattern of play, and creates its own “states” of playfulness. Early on, toys take on highly personalized characteristics, and as skills in manipulating objects (i.e., banging on pans, skipping rocks, etc.) develop, the richer become the circuits in the brain. Hands playing with all types of objects help brains develop beyond strictly manipulative skills, with play as the driver of this development.
I will post links to my favorite toys that promote object play at the bottom of the post, but I want to share one of the BEST things I ever did with my kiddo!
We built some bunkbeds together, the kids helped me sand and paint them. But with all of that we had lots and lots of extra little blocks.
First, I let the kids paint the blocks. I only had ugly gray and black paint, but it turns out they didn’t really care! They had a great time painting and making a mess. I enjoyed watching them 🙂
After these blocks were all dry I thought it would be fun to do some string art. So I bought the little nails and pulled out the hammer we had. I put in a couple nails but something came up and I got distracted.
A little while later I came in to see my 3 year old daughter hammering away! She did a great job at hammering in the little nails. When she filled her own block she even started on her brother’s.
My first thoughts when I walked in on her were definitely all the ways she could hurt herself and that I had neglected her. But this experience taught me that kids are WAAAYYY more capable than we give them credit and if we give them the chance to learn they become so much more independent then if we do everything for them.
Semi-supervised, she hammered nails into that block for at least an hour. She was learning what would happen when she tilted the nail or missed it with the hammer. She was figuring out how much force was required to get the nail in. Her fine motor skills definitely improved after that experience.
In the end, she used the nails to wrap string around.
I love that all this took was some random, left over block.
Here are some toy-free object play ideas:
Cups or a pitcher in water
Pots and pans drum set
Tupperware stacking
Hammering nails
Screwing screws (for the little bit older kids)
Recycling- late them play with boxes!
Scavenger Hunt- send the kids outside with a list of objects to look for! Then turn them into a craft.
I came across the National INstitute of play. They have studied the benefits of all different kinds of play. I’ve decided for this first week of quarantine for my family, I would be studying and implementing (and sharing with you) one of these areas of play every day.
Today, the category is MOVEMENT.
The benefits to this kind of play seem pretty apparent to me: EXERCISE! It is healthy, it helps these little bodies full of energy release that energy in a productive way.
But there is even more to it!
Learning about self movement structures an individual’s knowledge of the world – it is a way of knowing, and we actually, through movement and play, think in motion. For example the play-driven movement of leaping upward is a lesson about gravity as well as one’s body. And it lights up the brain and fosters learning. Innovation, flexibility, adaptability, resilience, have their roots in movement.
Incredible, right?! So much is learned by our children about themselves and the world around them when we allow them to play.
Here are a few ideas that you might like to try!
Races
Mini Obstacle Course: JUMP, spin in a circle, touch your toes
Crawling, crab walking, wheelbarrow, hopping on one foot
Use a stopwatch and let the kids try and beat their time.
Following a certain path
These are great because they don’t need ANYTHING, just their bodies and space.
Action Songs
Button Factory
Once their Was A Snowman
The Princess Pat
Itsy Bitsy Spider
Ring Around the Rosies
Hokey Pokey
Chicken Dance
Limbo
Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
If you have never been on Go Noodle I HIGHLY recommend it! Lots of moving activities and action songs. Even if you aren’t comfortable with them always looking at a screen, its a great resource to learn new songs.
Honestly, you can take any song your kids know and add actions to it to make it movement play!
Outdoor
Ball Sports: Soccer, catch, basketball
Hikes
Neighborhood walks (although, you probably should still avoid people)
Chalk obstacle course
Bike
Playground play
There really are endless activities to do that involve movement! I hope that this gave you a couple more ideas to fill this day.
**Don’t forget to enter our giveaway on social media!
Well this week was EXCITING! The world, collectively, “knows not what tomorrow brings,” which is a bit terrifying. However, what a unique situation- we are all in this together. Every single person in the United States, and basically the whole world, is faced with the same challenge. Never have I personally felt so connected to so many people around the world.
One of the challenges those of us with children face with quarantine is that on top of being parents, we now our children’s sole educators and entertainers. We all know it takes a village to raise a child, so what do we do if we are separated from our villages?
For better or worse, the cyber village is always here!
We are going to do our best to help you get through this quarantine! Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for daily ideas and activities .
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We’ve had some lazy days around here this week, first, thanks to the time change (which seemed to wipe me out, not my kids), and now thanks to self-quarantining. So I have spent lots of time in pajamas and thought I would share with you my most favorite nursing nightgown!
Things I love about it:
The fabric is amazing! Soft, stretchy, thick enough, and washes well. It is super comfy.
The cut makes nursing easy and discreet.
It is LONG. I had such a hard time finding a long nursing gown, one that I can sit crosslegged in appropriately. Also has short sleeves. I never felt like it was overly hot, but it keeps me warm when it needs to. Not sure how.
I love running. Like a lot. When someone suggests exercise, running is my go to. I spent a whole bunch of money on a treadmill last year and was SO HAPPY.
But guess what! In my mind, I have never “run” more than a mile and a half. I have run a mile quite a few times, but that is usually when I give up mentally.
So… do I really love running? I don’t know. But this post isn’t about my opinion.
It is about a mind-blowing conversation I had with my husband.
He IS a runner. He won 2nd in his age division in a race he didn’t train for. He is tall, lanky, full of energy- the perfect combination for a great runner.
When we got the treadmill, I started running my signature 1 mile, and I would get hurt. Shin splints, pulled muscles, weird spasms. My husband would keep telling me to take it easy and go slowly. But to me, if I took it slowly I felt like a failure. What sort of person who loves to run can’t even make it a mile?
This is what he said: You need to learn that you can stop and walk if you need to.
You mean… if I run 1/4 mile, walk 1/4 mile, and then run 1/2 mile I can count it as a mile? Does that mean I can “run” a 5K but walk some of it if my body is about to give out or I feel a shin splint coming on?
Then it dawned on me:
SLOWING DOWN WHEN YOU NEED TO DOES NOT MAKE YOU A FAILURE.
I don’t know why I always figured I had failed if I had to walk. I would push and push until I hurt and then HAVE to walk which led to discouragement, anger, low self-esteem, and ultimately NO progress.
That is pretty dumb now that I think about it.
But don’t we do that ALL the time in so many other parts of our lives? How many of us just go and go until we crash? Trying to do everything we think we need to. Do we spend all our strength and energy to reach something that maybe we aren’t ready for? Or maybe it’s not the right time? Or isn’t necessary at all?
We need to slow down. Listen to our bodies, our minds, our spirits. The most progress will be made if we take life at a reasonable pace.
It seems apparent to me that there is a WHOLE lot more mental illness now than there used to be. I am sure some of that is a result of more visibility for the topic, but after reading this story I think perhaps one reason the increased instances of PTSD are due to the medical advances that save souls who have traveled to the edge of mortality. We survive harder things. This mom I met as a missionary and have looked up to from day one. She is strong and beautiful and has always just exuded joy and love. Here is Sydney’s Story:
The Source:
I feel like there are a lot of factors that brought on PTSD, anxiety, and postpartum depression; just as there have been many factors that have brought on my healing.
There was definitely a big event that triggered the PTSD, but I have always mildly struggled with anxiety. Plus, I had never had much experience with newborns so I was terrified of anything happening to my son. These things culminated and resulted into me being a complete mess but it was a time of growth and learning. Just as a warning- my story gets graphic in the delivery room so feel free to skip it.
It started when I was pushing, delivering my baby boy. The pregnancy and most of the labor had gone smoothly and I was so excited to meet my baby boy! As I was pushing, the midwife decided that I needed an episiotomy. As soon as the cut was made, my son came through insanely fast. Turns out the episiotomy should have been made a lot earlier and my son’s head was also in the 99% percentile. Not only was there a cut from the episiotomy, but I also ended up with a third degree tear, a peri-urethral tear, and an artery had torn so I began bleeding out right away.
(Thank heavens I felt strongly prompted to get an epidural when I did, if I did not I feel like the mental scarring would have been a lot worse.) My boy was suddenly on my stomach and I was so happy! But I couldn’t get him up to my chest. I asked myself: “why did they put him so low?” I noticed his umbilical cord was pretty short… “why were they not asking me to push again to deliver the placenta?”
After the initial moment of pure bliss of admiring my baby, I took a look around to figure out why they still weren’t asking me to deliver the placenta. I wanted to hold my baby closer, and it was annoying that I couldn’t. There were a lot of people in the room rushing around that I did not notice before. There was a lot of blood on the floor and even on the wall behind the midwife. The midwife was shaky and I heard her tell her assistant “I cannot find the bleeding”. I looked at my mom (who is an RN and worked in deliveries at the time) and my mom was sheet white. I asked her if everything was okay and my mom nodded and weakly said yes. I knew right away she was lying. I heard someone tell me (which after all the chaos I now realize it was the Spirit) “just let them do their work. You cannot feel anything so you just enjoy your baby.”
I got to enjoy my baby and look into his eyes and relish in the bliss with my amazing and supportive husband. But still, I could not bring my baby closer to me. I finally heard the midwife on the phone with someone in the OR saying “there is a torn artery and we cannot stop the bleeding”.
I felt myself growing weaker and weaker. I started getting scared and immediately thought that this might be the only time I would ever have with my baby. I asked my husband for a blessing. One of the nurses in the room heard my request and went to ask for another priesthood holder to help my husband with the blessing. But I asked my husband to start the blessing anyway because I felt so weak and started wondering how much time I had before going unconscious. I do not remember the blessing, I just remember two things that happened after the blessing: I heard someone tell me once more (again, it was the Spirit) say “just take this time to enjoy your son.” (Which kind of scared me cause it made me speculate on how much of “this time” I had left. ) And I also heard the midwife on the phone with the OR saying “we have found the bleeding and the bleeding has slowed down considerably.” That seemed like a miracle in itself.
Since they found the bleeding and the midwife had the damaged artery clamped with her hand, they had me deliver the placenta and they cleaned up my son and weighed him. Shortly after, a second priesthood holder came in and helped my husband with a second blessing. After that blessing, I felt that everything would be okay. The midwife had to keep the artery clamped down for over 40 minutes while they waited for the surgeon to come in to stitch me up because the damage was so great. Clean up and stitching took over 2 hours. I lost a lot of blood and had a lot to recover from. I couldn’t recognize my body anymore.
They took me to the bathroom to clean me up. The nurse told my husband to wait with me in the bathroom while she helped the other nurses with the soaked sheets. As my husband was trying to help me in the bathroom, I passed out on the floor. I woke up looking at the bathroom ceiling, the nurse holding my legs high above my head and another nurse near my head. DeGrey was next to one of the nurses, trying to help. Panic set in. “WHERE IS THE BABY? WHO IS WITH THE BABY?” They reassured me that he was swaddled and in his crib sleeping. I did not believe them. I told Grey to sit with the baby. If I could have gone from fine to bleeding to death in a matter of minutes then that meant my helpless baby could die any second- at least that’s what my mind convinced me to believe for the next year.
The nurses, as well as everyone else, would mention how scary the last bit of the delivery had been and told me that I went through a lot. I was told that once I got home, I should not leave the house for at least 3 weeks because if anything were to happen like a car wreck, I would not have enough blood to survive.
Recovery:
For the next couple of weeks I did not sleep- even when my son was asleep. I would stare at my baby the entire time to make sure he was breathing. My mom and my husband would force me to sleep and would sit and watch the baby sleep so I could sleep. They became my greatest supports. It was really hard when my mom left for home (she and my dad lived out of state at the time.) The next several months I struggled mentally worse than I ever had in my life.
My mind started messing with me. I would wake up screaming, scouring through the sheets and blankets convinced that my son was tangled and trapped in the sheets- when in reality he was safely sleeping in his crib. At one point if I saw a spider (we lived in a basement at the time) I would not smash it because I was convinced that the spider’s life force was somehow connected to my son’s and if I killed the spider then my son would die, too. I would have nightmares that I died in delivery and that I could not be there for my son. I would have nightmares, or just be convinced while I was awake, that my son would stop breathing and would die.
When I started getting my period back, the cramps would send me into panic attacks because it reminded me of when I was in labor and would make me re-live those scary moments and “what if’s” in the delivery room. Intrusive thoughts came all the time, whether it was about my own demise, my son’s demise, or thoughts about harming my son or myself. I would never ever act on those harmful thoughts, but the intense and dark thoughts would come so often and were so disturbing. I had lost my mind. I feel like I cried every day for the first year of my son’s life.
Healing:
I got blessings what seemed like every day. I began seeing a therapist. A big turning point was when I was in a community play about 6 months after my son was born. That helped more than anything because it got me feeling like I was myself again. The character I played (her name was Ida) was not afraid to take risks, she loved and enjoyed life. She was so brave. Ida became an inspiration to me and I was the one who brought her to life- just like my son was an inspiration to me and I was the one who brought my son to life. That play helped me feel like a mother.
Creativity has always been a healing factor in my life, and it still is. I began drawing again after that play and made creativity a priority. The second year of my son’s life became easier although panic attacks happened still. I tried to have more meaningful scripture studies and prayers. I prayerfully made changes in my life to forgive things that happened to me in my past. I went back to therapy and ended up taking medication. I wrote in my journal and began seeing patterns in my life that God has given me and helped me through.
Healing is not a linear thing, there are ups and downs and lessons to be learned.
Now that my son is approaching his 3rd birthday, I finally feel like I am back to normal. Well, not back to normal, but that I have grown and healed into a better person. I have learned (and continue to learn) to trust my Heavenly Father to control things that I cannot, to trust that my son will cry or signal me for his needs, and to trust myself and my motherly instincts. Although I still have fears of having another baby when that time comes, I know that I have gained the experience and tools to help me through more challenges in the future. I have a wonderful support system, talents that I love to focus on, the rewarding feeling of being a mom, and my Savior- Jesus Christ who has taken this journey with me every step of the way. Healing is not a linear thing, there are ups and downs and lessons to be learned.
My healing has taken a lot of time and a lot resources, but it has made all of this a very long yet sweet journey so far that I hope can tell to help others some day.
At our house, we LOVE breakfast. And oats, and cinnamon. This simple, yummy oatmeal combines all three, plus even more goodness. I first tried this while living in Uruguay, and have since made modifications until I feel like it is just right. This has been a family favorite for some time, and I hope you enjoy this new twist on an often boring breakfast food.
3 c oats
½ c brown sugar
2 t baking powder
½ t salt
2 t cinnamon
½ t nutmeg
1 c milk
2 t vanilla
¼ c melted butter
Prepare your ingredients and preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
Combine all dry ingredients. I love to add two HEAPING teaspoons of cinnamon. If you want sweeter oatmeal, add more sugar.
To melt the butter, pour your milk in a microwave safe liquid measuring cup, like this one. Put your butter in the milk, and microwave both on high for about 2 minutes, checking/stirring every 30 seconds. Add the vanilla.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, then dump the bowl into your 9×13 baking dish and push around until relatively flat.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes. Best served with warm milk. Enjoy!
Just over a year ago, we bought an indoor trampoline for our kids. BEST $80 SPENT. They love this thing! It fit just great in our 800 sq foot apartment, and our homes since then. When they are young enough, you can zip it up and it is a safe place. It is just as fun for my 4 year old now as it was for my 1 year old then. And it burns lots of their energy!
I feel like I talk about energy a lot. Am I the only one who’s children have seemingly endless amounts of energy?? I love it! But sometimes I can’t keep up, actually most times. This is why I am always on the look out for things that help them get it all out while I can sit by and enjoy it still.
This is great to entertain when you need to get stuff done, and it is nice to give children exercise should you be homebound for some reason, or if you are depressed and not in the mood to go out! And if they are jumping on the couch you can say: “Now where do we jump kids? Not on the couch, on the tramp!”
Also! It makes some pretty great huts.
Y’all should definitely check this one out! Find the link in my shop!
This post is from an incredible woman I met during college, my dear friend: Jerica. She is one of those people that you meet and know you will become a better person just by knowing her, the kind of woman that I will always hope to become.
Here is a bit of her story:
“I was standing in the kitchen holding my crying toddler and my crying newborn. We were living at my parents at the time and even though there were four adults living there I was the only one home at the time. I don’t know what happened but a switch flipped in me. All of a sudden I couldn’t handle it. Tears started flowing, my breathing was going out of control, and I knew I needed help. I had heard of those stories of people being prompted to drop by a loaf of bread or just go visit someone who they hadn’t thought of in a while. I prayed that someone would think of me and stop by.
But no one came.
I sat by the window sobbing and looking for someone, anyone. I didn’t care who it was. Even a hug from the neighbor who I hardly even know would have been a saving grace.
But still no one came.
The thought of that made it worse. Why isn’t anyone coming to help?! The tears started turning into uncontrollable sobbing, hyperventilating and I couldn’t move my hands at all. They had contracted in such a way that even with all the energy of thought I gave I couldn’t move them. I now know it was a psychosomatic response to my anxiety attack.
I called my husband who was on his way home from work but he was still 30 min away. I texted my mom who was at a meeting and said “I think I am having a panic attack, I just need a hug”.
It was getting worse and worse. The more I cried the more my kids cried in my arms.
My husband Carston, stayed on the phone with me trying to walk me through it, but he could tell it wasn’t going to get any better. He called his parents, they came but still it took 21 minutes to get to my house and I counted every second of it. My mom had called my brother who was at his house celebrating his birthday and just had blown out his candles, but he rushed over. My mom stopped her meeting and rushed home. My in-laws were the first to get there. I must have looked horrible. I was laying on the couch sobbing unable to talk holding two crying kids with my hands in a distorted position unable to move them. My brother soon after arrived and then my husband and then my mom.
Carston held me, my in-laws watched the kids and my brother massaged my hands until I could move them again.
“These are your people, these are the people that came to rescue you.”
It was then, when I could open my eyes again and see all the people surrounding me that I had the thought “These are your people, these are the people that came to rescue you. You didn’t need a stranger to come and save you. You have people that love you but sometimes we just need to give them a little time.”
Looking back I can tell that I have struggled with anxiety my whole life, but never to this extent. I sincerely hope that that scenario never happens again but if it does I know who to call. My people.
I have learned to recognize the times I can feel it coming on and I tell someone. Meditation, deep breathing and Marco Polo (an app where I can chat with dear friends) have saved me numerous times.
I’m glad a stranger didn’t come that day, because I wouldn’t have realized what I had surrounding me the whole time.”
