Hear me out.
During this quarantine when my son goes for more, than say 2 days, inside without an ounce of fresh air because the weather has been bad, he becomes a bit sad and can be real crabby. He needs sunlight and fresh air. The obvious of “watering and feeding” him is a daily essential.
I joke that he is like a plant because without the sunlight, he really does not thrive or “bloom” you could say.
Our family sanity has been okay and surviving so well because we have been able to enjoy the spring weather when the sun makes is appearances on weekends. (This week’s weather in southwest Pennsylvania is a whole other story for another day to discuss. WTF?!)
We have picked up a new hobby with all of our time at home of hiking and more recently, morel hunting! My husband has got to enjoy it a little more than me since I’m still working weekdays. But man, he learned a lot and got to teach me on the weekends as we scavenged the woods for our new treasures, morel mushrooms that taste amazing!
If you do not know what these are, I encourage you to look them up! Especially if you’re in the colder states that may be able to forage for them in a later spring. Pennsylvania is about done with these but we have so much more to learn and forage in the woods ahead.
Have any of you enjoyed the outdoors during all of this? Sure the memes are out there joking that it took a quarantine to get people outside and doing things, but it’s true and necessary too. Necessary to get outside for your own mental health!
We purchased a bike caddy to put our little guy in while we pedal (and burn up our quads), also a sweet secondary hiking backpack off of Facebook Marketplace that has proven to be the best money we spent in a while! The outdoor world is what is helping us stay sane or cope, as some other might say.
I encourage families to use this time and get outside TOGETHER. Don’t just push your kids out the door and lock it like mine used to do. We didn’t have touchscreen cellphones then so that was their only option to entertaining us without ringing our necks.
Seriously, when I say we have learned a lot as a family, I mean it. We took the time to hike several different areas together. We saw different landscapes and learned what is okay to eat and forage.
So we may be the weird family that likes to cook homemade meals. I am a little over the whole cooking every meal thing and we have ordered out for take-out more lately. However, when you make an entire meal from scratch and know you worked for the food that is on your table that night all while including your kids and making memories together, it means a hell of a lot more than it did when you were throwing something together from the freezer that night.
Again, I encourage you, while the weather is getting nicer, go outside! Go find something to search for together. Make memories. Even if it means getting lost in your backyard woods like my mom did with me and my friends years and years ago. Guess what? I remember that and we STILL laugh about it! Same for the year we got lost in the woods with my cousins and found a deer skull and saw a man with snakes in a bucket. I don’t remember the year or age, but I remember the experience.
My son may be 11 months old right now, but we hope to continue doing this because my husband and I grew up playing in the woods and being outside. We plan to keep him going out with us as much as possible and joining us so he can remember the fun times and moments we have in the woods!
Make the most of the time we have at home with the little house plants we created! (The kids are what I’m referring to if you didn’t follow that from the beginning) 😉
Two Cents Worth of Mom Life 