It’s the last day of a long, crazy school year as I type this. I am so excited for two months of vacation, swimming, beach, adventure, quiet, and family time.

A few reflections:

• It’s been a challenging and unique school year. It felt long and short, hectic and tedious, calm and crazy.
• It’s been a year of feeling guilty. When I was working remotely, it was about feeling guilty for not working when I was home with my boys, and then feeling guilty when I was working because I wasn’t giving them my full attention.
• It’s been a year of mega multi-tasking – always doing multiple things at once, always juggling, never fully present anywhere.
• The end of this year is also the end of my three years at my current school. In the fall, I’ll be switching to an elementary school closer to home. I am so, so excited for the change – and yet, so sad to leave my current co-workers and students.
• I feel exhausted. I often do, at times like this. The last few weeks of the school year were a sprint to get everything done in time. When I walked out the door today, I was completely done – everything filed, everything signed, every e-mail addressed. I’m a little in disbelief that I am actually all done. Can I relax? Can I actually feel comfortable with the fact that I did everything I needed to do and can now fully focus on being present with my family and enjoying my summer?

A few intentions:

• This summer, I am striving to do one thing at a time, fully. Especially when I’m with my boys. The OPPOSITE of remote learning multi-tasking.
• Enjoy the opportunity to reset family routines, rhythms, and rituals, without the burden of work/life exhaustion getting in the way.
• The summertime for me is always a great time for a reset – a reset of my exercise routine, my reading habits, my eating habits. Today, I am exhausted. I’m hoping that after a week of work-stress-free living, I’ll be feeling renewed and refreshed.

Happy official summertime to all! May we spend this season doing whatever we do to feel rested and rejuvenated.

For the past few days, I’ve been having a lot of fun exploring activity ideas for my days with the boys.

Once you start looking around for ideas to teach or entertain your toddler and preschooler, it is an endless rabbit hole. There are so many amazing parent bloggers out there, with great ideas for activities. It’s incredibly helpful. I am a fun and silly parent, but ideas for crafts or sensory activities don’t come to me automatically. And I definitely benefit from the pro tips these bloggers provide. Many of them are current or former teachers, and have pro tips about how to set up these activities so that your kids are engaged and your house doesn’t get destroyed – both good things.

These are some of the activities we’ve tried out so far:

• Oobleck.
• Bubble foam.
• Number Match – car parking lot.
• Salt dough.
• Free the toys from the Jell-O.
• Frozen paint.
• Cloud dough.
• Freeze pom poms in an ice cube tray. (Again, I know I didn’t come up with this! But it’s pretty much exactly what it says.)
• Lava lamps.
• Erase the ABCs.
• Easy alphabet post-it match.
• Easy Shapes Fire Truck.
• Frozen toys. (I can’t remember where I got this from, but I basically just froze some of their toys in a block of ice. They had fun trying to break them out – for a short while. I think this activity will be more fun and science-y when they’re older.)
• Mixing play-dough with ANYTHING else. Play-dough and trucks. Play-dough and spaghetti. Play-dough and cups. Anything to mix it up and inspire creative play.
• Making slime.
• Hidden colors science experiment.
• Animal tape rescue.
• Easter egg suncatchers.

My favorite website so far has been Busy Toddler – such a great resource with so many fun ideas, and really easy to read and follow.

It’s been challenging, not being able to go out and about with the kids. They are pretty easy-going and have been fairly content, but I can tell there are times when they’re bored or feeling uninspired by the same old toys and activities. For them and for me, it’s been fun to break out a new and unexpected activity; they try out new things, they experiment, they figure out new and creative ways to play. It’s been really fun to find creative ideas for experiments and sensory play. Hoping to add to this list throughout the spring and summer.

 

 

This happiness project is a BUST so far! I’m mostly laughing about it.

My plan for 2020 has been to pick a theme for each month, and make a few small resolutions every month that are aligned with that theme. But it just hasn’t worked out. Life gets busy and crazy, and I have trouble even remembering what my resolutions are, let alone actually keeping them!

Looking ahead to March 2020, my main priority is diet and exercise. I have made some progress in this area, but I still struggle to refrain from candy and junk food, especially when I’m feeling stressed.

My second goal is to prioritize creative writing. And my third is MEETINGS. I’m abandoning meditation for the moment. I love to meditate, and I do think that prioritizing that habit would be beneficial, but having too many goals and priorities means that I accomplish none.

I don’t know how I’ll structure these posts about my goals and priorities moving forward, but for today, I’m just trying to stay in the moment and keep these words in my mind: Kind. Healthy. Creative. 

Kind. Healthy. Creative. Let’s do this.

 

This month, for my 2020 Happiness Project, I focused on health and longevity.

It went – okay. My resolutions related to meditation, AA, exercise, and caffeine were successful. My resolutions related to healthy eating were not successful, and I’ve been reflecting on that a lot.

My plan for February 2020 was to focus on service, but I think I sort of need a combo month, so that I can continue to focus on healthy eating habits, meditation, and mindfulness. Stay tuned for that!

Good-bye, January!  How the heck did you fly by so fast?