Protecting Our Physical and Emotional Health

By Paint Her in Color Founder, Laura Spiegel

A lot has changed since this time last week. This time last Saturday, I was sitting at my son’s basketball game and preparing for a much-needed girls’ night out. Today, I’m wondering how I can keep my family occupied and reasonably sane while we stay home for the foreseeable future.

My daughter’s cystic fibrosis puts her at a higher risk for respiratory infections, so my husband and I have decided to limit our family’s physical exposure to the outside world as much as possible for the time being. I work from home, and my husband can without penalty, so we are both really fortunate in that regard.

This past Thursday dawned bright and clear for us. I told the kids they were going to stay home from school and that odds were their friends would be doing the same shortly. (Later that evening, our school system cancelled live classes until the middle of April). I reinforced that we were going to try our best to follow a routine and find fun opportunities to learn every day. As the morning wore on, my kids gamely sat at the dining room table and indulged my efforts to stump them with homemade worksheets. My son and I wrote math facts on slips of colorful paper and hid them in the back yard for my daughter to find and solve. I was especially proud of this “math fact scavenger hunt.” In my mind, I was giving Frauline Maria a run for her money...

Then Friday came. The kids’ willingness to play school plummeted. My daughter read a couple of books and called it a day. My son couldn’t be bothered. We went for a bike ride, played HORSE in the driveway, and ordered Disney Plus. We argued over video game time. The kids sold each other stale Halloween candy. They ran around the house smacking each other’s booties then crying foul. I made Nutella crepes and do-re-mi’d myself toward a glass of wine. For the first time, I wondered why I’d failed to buy more alcohol whilst hunting for Lysol wipes and hand soap. Frauline Maria felt like a distant memory. Another week of this, and I’d be Miss Hannigan.

As I watch the snow quietly fall this morning, I’m realizing that I need to get real with my priorities.

My top priorities are the physical and emotional health of my family and the overall well-being of our community. What this looks like will likely evolve over time. Our game plan may change on a very regular basis, and we need to be okay with that.

But for now, we will stay home, control what we can control, and do our best to enjoy our time together as a family. I will remind myself daily to not let “perfect be the enemy of good.” Some days, a walk to the park, a glass of wine, and Disney Plus are just going to be have to be good enough.  

So what next?

We will make a chart of fun things to try over the coming days. We will play HORSE until I finally beat my son. We will watch Top Gun and hope it doesn’t spark an impromptu lesson on the birds and the bees. We will set up Facetime on my daughter’s iPad so she can style her Barbie’s hair, apply gobs of Claire’s makeup, and play pretend “alongside” her bestie.

We will set up a reading competition between my son and a handful of his friends from school. We’ll track the number of pages read and award points for reaching certain levels. Obviously, the points will be pretty meaningless in their eyes, as will the books. The real draw will be the competition!

We will watch The Sandlot 1, 2, and 3 and learn new insults from the sixties and seventies. We will mail letters to our loved ones and run on the treadmill. We will play in the snow and sing from the swing set. We’ll climb trees and read How to Eat Fried Worms.

We will try to focus on the good and do our part to support others through the bad.

We will continue to advocate for flattening the curve. We will pray for all the doctors, nurses, and scientists who are saving lives and for the families who are hurting. For those who are sick and those who are increasingly anxious about lack of sick days, lack of flexibility at work, lack of childcare, or lack of health insurance.

We will continue to be grateful for all the friends and family members who check in and offer their love, supplies, and support. We will continue to return the favor where we can. We will not hoard TP, cleaning supplies, or hand soap. We will do our best to role model a community of strength, love, and hope.

We will take our game plan day by day. We will continue to look to the future. And yep, I’ll probably still yell at everyone under my roof. Because I’m not perfect, and I don’t have to be.