 | | | Photos provided | | | | | | Moraga mother of three, Tami Shaffer, who is also owner and manager of children's play space Gymboree Play & Music in Lafayette, found some silver linings after the few first weeks of shelter-in-place, the first being that her family was way overscheduled.
"Before SIP, I had a color-coded calendar on our kitchen wall (each person in our household had a color), in addition to a Google calendar to try and manage activities. After 5 weeks of SIP, I am realizing that maybe we went a little bit overboard," Shaffer explained. "Because of the overscheduling, we really missed out on the simple pleasures. Before SIP, we rarely walked around our neighborhood. Now, we make it a point to take a family walk every day. We connect with neighbors and spend quality time chatting (from a safe social distance, of course). We also sit down for a nice family dinner every night. Everything is less rushed, slow-paced, and quite simple. But it's pretty darn cool."
Shaffer has also found that her kids can manage without her micromanaging, they can do chores, devices are not evil and community is more important now than ever before. "People need people! And you can find community in many forms," she says. "My oldest kid has his virtual gaming community; my younger two live for FaceTime or Zoom calls. My husband and I need the live `hello' from neighbors from a safe social distance, and we are also able to find community through social media. We will make it through as long as we have each other!" |
Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA