My daughter has taken to creating a "reality series" on snapchat, and she sends 10 second snippets of life during the pandemic with young children. Her captions are hysterical and we enjoy the creative efforts made every day to provide a sense of normalcy for the kids, and truthfully, it overlaps to us, too.
Ex.- They live a block from a playground. How hard is that explain to a three year old that you can't go right now? Within the last week, they have made their front yard into a playground of sorts.
They hung a baby swing from the front porch (that faces the street) so when the baby swings, she says Hi to passers-by and I can only imagine the sound of a young one's greeting eases the innate tensions we are all feeling these days. A simple hi from afar feels good even to me- miles away.
The parents hung a disc swing for big sister so now both girls have swings in addition to the family porch swing that has been so popular for a while.
A neighbor from across the street brought over a slide that her child had outgrown, so after a good cleaning, it joined the swings to expand the front yard family playground/ neighborhood entertainment!
They have a pair of 3' skeleton twins that they use in their Halloween decorations. Big sister baby- bonded with those twins when they were taller than she, and one of the snapchats from this week shows her at the top of the slide pushing one of those Halloween creatures down and we can hear her explaining to the boney doll not to be afraid -then comes the push and, "Wheeeee!"
We got a snap of the library with a big blow up pool in it, full of pillows with a caption that read something like: "We've also installed an indoor pool complete with pillows and a pregnancy wedge that has been very popular."
Sometimes the familiar kid songs we grow up with get just plain worn out. Old Macdonald can have all kinds of animals, so that song is open to some creative variety, as is The wheels on the bus, but If you're happy and you know it -maybe not so much until... We got a snapchat that had the family at the table, dad feeding the little one in her highchair, mom had the camera and big sister, singing, "If you're cranky and you know it, say I'm mad!" Her face squinches and her hands scrunch and there is a booming chorus of "I'M MAD", even the baby chimed in with "I Ahhhhhdd!" It says a lot about figuring out ways to survive containment, and it also says a lot about how we are all feeling right about now.
What crazy wonderful ideas are you discovering to brighten these days? I mean, besides reading silly chronicles?
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