• Set a priority for what tasks have to be accomplished
  Everything else that gets done is my bonus
• Always have my cup of coffee and taking time for a little fitness every day – so I have something for myself to look forward too
• Plan activities that my kids find interesting and will give me relief to tend to the household or my business. I set these up every Sunday night. It typically only gives me about 30 minutes of time, but it’s good for handling emails and packing shipping boxes
• Communicate with my husband about our schedules in order to create time windows to give the kids attention when they need it – and not having to rely on saying “I need one second to work, to clean, to accomplish something”. I noticed that the more I was involved to provide my children my attention and support them with creative ideas, the better they were able to play independently. This reminded me that children need our attention and love as a way of staying confident and grounded.
• Be more patient with myself that some projects and goals would have to wait for future times - for when my calendar had more capacity to take on additional activities
  
  
  

Parenting tools
Also, during this time, I am relying a lot on external resources to help me with my parenting and to find new and cool activities to do with my kids:

• I read: ‘The Creative Family Manifesto’ by Amanda Blake Soul

This helped me put perspective on enjoying the speed at which my children take in the world around them. As adults, everything is set to a particular time table: when we wake up, when we get to work, when projects are due, when stores are open to run errands. And I think this creates a 'need to move at a speed where everything is relative to what needs to be accomplished'. Based on this book, I tried to move less - thinking of the end goal and enjoy the same things that my children were taking in. For example, a butterfly’s path between flowers or seeing a rainbow-like iridescence in the sap on a pine tree during a nature walk.

• I loved instagram accounts that gave tips on creating with kids— like:
  @mothercould or @mericherryla
• I loved listening to the podcast from @simple_families for living a minimalist life with children
• A real win for us is when we moved some furniture— like our play kitchen and toys to create two new play environments in the girls' bedrooms. This gave the girls a fresh feeling in the house without having to buy new toys. It really helped them become excited about their toys again
• We used TSA Stay at Home resources ‘Bullet Journal’ as a diary of our days. It was a fun way to recap the day together and remember some of our favorite activities
• I was reminded of gratitude during this time and the importance of teaching my daughters about thankfulness for our friends and family, our health, and our ability to stay safe at home.  We started reading the children’s book, This is How we Do It by Matt Lamothe - and we talked about where we lived on the map and the similarities and differences of other cultures and economic statuses. This was a way that we could tie together what areas of the world were being impacted the most and try to explain why it was our responsibility to come together and stay home to protect others

Yet, the biggest thing I’ve learned so far - is that sometimes, when everything around us changes, getting weighted down in the negativity of the circumstances doesn't help anyone move forward. We don’t have to have it all figured out right now. We just have to keep searching for solutions.

A million wishes for you and your family,

Nicole