Keeping my daughters – ages five and two – occupied for this long period of isolation during the current blizzard or Snowmageddon or Snowzilla or whatever you are calling it – has been more of a challenge to my organizational and management skills than anything I’ve done at the office within recent memory.
You may not have heard, but the East Coast is undergoing something of a weather event. Yeah, it’s a thing. Popular hashtags include #Blizzard2016, #SnowZilla, #Snowmageddon2016, and #JonasBlizzard. It’s been falling since yesterday afternoon and is still going strong. I haven’t seen my car in hours, and honestly don’t think we’ll be able to get out of the driveway for weeks.
I haven’t had time to worry about any of that, though, because I am fortunate enough to share my life and home with two very active girls – ages 5 and 2. Keeping them occupied for this long period of captivity has been more of a challenge to my organizational and management skills than anything I’ve done at the office within recent memory. And so I present this rundown of our time in isolation so far in case it’s funny, helpful, or sounds hauntingly familiar. I’m also sharing a couple of resources on this Pinterest board in case it’s helpful to anyone else trying to keep things light in the parenting trenches.
I’ll update it until we’re dug out. Or May. Whichever comes first.
Friday
- Breakfast
- Long walk to Safeway and back
- Play with blocks
- Paint in ziploc bag
- Watch ‘How to Train Your Dragon II
- Lunch
- Snow begins
- Feliz Navidad dance party
- Game of “ball ball”
- Watch ‘Big Hero Six’
- Make a ring-toss game out of cardboard
- Leap around the living room
- Head outside with tiny shovels to throw some snow around
- Dinner
- Play ring-toss game
- Watch ‘Peppa Pig’
- Bath
- Books
- ‘Zen Den’ video
- Bed
Saturday
- Breakfast
- Watch ‘Peppa Pig’
- Glue shells to things
- Play iPad games
- Dance party
- Yoga mat hopscotch
- Make Mancala board with egg carton and beads
- Play Mancala
- Tantrum (9.4 from the U.S. judge)
- Development and implementation of the “cool down cloth” (patent pending)
- Watch “How to Train your Dragon”
- Snack
- Dress for the snow
- Undress because socks are wrinkly/pants confining
- Dress for the snow
- Play in the snow
- Get stuck in the snow
- Play iPad games
- Lunch
- Glue shells to things
- Use tent poles as giant toy chopsticks
- Read books to mommy in bed
- Watch “Zoo Clues”
- Snack
- Painting cat food boxes
- Snowblower observation
- Tent pole jousting
- Dinner
- Watch ‘Epic’
- Bath
- Extended dessert negotiations
- Finish watching ‘Epic’
- Watch “Mister Rogers”
- Dueling tantrums (5.9 and 8.0, respectively)
- Bed
Sunday
- Breakfast
- Took the mermaid on a trip to the dinosaur museum
- Living room camping
- Game of “fetch” between sisters
- Clay
- Yoga mat hopscotch
- iPad games
- Dress for the snow
- Play in the snow
- Picnic lunch in living room
- Books rejected in favor of ‘Daniel Tiger”
- iPad/nature shows
- Snack
- More snow time
- Some movie, I forget
- Shrinky-dinks
- Dinner – largely ignored
- Bath
- Hot chocolate and cookout marshmallows (toasted over an LED candle)
- Bed
Monday
- Breakfast
- Tantrum (9.4)
- Watch ‘How to Train Your Dragon’
- Coloring
- Discussion of snow
- Look for plow guy
- Make hot chocolate for plow guy
- Watch ‘Wonder Pets’
- Pancake lunch
Thea Joselow is a digital media writer, editor and social media director based in Bethesda, Maryland. She has worked for such illustrious institutions as National Public Radio, Smithsonian Magazine, and at a strategic communications firm in Washington, D.C., but please don’t hold that against them. Thea likes to think she has a good sense of humor. All opinions, omissions and offenses are entirely her own. She can be found on Twitter at @tjoselow.
Image courtesy Joanne C. Bamberger/All rights reserved.