Are you Thriving or Surviving?

Can we pause for a moment to check in? How is your weekend going, friend?

I don't ask that in a nonchalant, stranger-passing-stranger on the street kind of way. I ask that question as I grab my coffee and get comfy on my couch. I want to hear how you are really doing. I'm ready for the long drawn out version. The version that rabbit trails through frustrations and humor to fully depict how you're really doing?

How are you friend? How is your weekend so far?

My weekend is a weekend of solitude and quiet as my husband took all 5 of our girls up to the cabin. Now, I'm not writing this to spark a sense of jealousy, but I think he saw the writing on the wall. There was either going to be a homicide, a suicide or a missing persons report. Meaning me. I was getting my running shoes laced up and ready to take off.

I don't meaning "running shoes" in the terms of, I was going for a run. Think more of like "Run Away Bride." Except this was going to be the sequel called "Run Away Mom." Also known as, "Catch Me If You Can," or better yet, "Gone Baby Gone."

I have officially tapped out.

So my husband has given me the weekend to be in a glorified "mom timeout."

Yup, I've officially been benched.

And surprisingly I have a level of FOMO that I was not expecting. When I called them today they were all in great spirits, playing, laughing, you know all those things that they seem to have forgotten how to do when they're home with me. Now, I'm not sure if he bribed them all to make sure that I didn't get in the car and head up there, but they seem to be having the time of their lives without this rule enforcing mama. Dad is being their friend. Candy. Soda. Movies til midnight. It's a "win' all around weekend. (I'm just glad I don't have to deal with the sugar rush.)

But nonetheless, God bless his soul, he is braving the wild, wild, west of unbridled emotions, hormonal sensitivity, and girl chaos on steroids.

Husband and Father of the year Award for sure!

However, I'm not sure that you are in the same boat as I am. You may be lacing up your own running shoes, and rightfully so. I think it is safe to say we are all tapped out! This has gone on longer than any of us expected when we gallantly went to the store to make sure our families were set for a 'brief' quarantine. Here we are, 8 weeks in and ready to sell our kids to whoever will take them.

Don't get the wrong impression here, I love my girls. They are fun, energetic, creative, spirited, beautiful girls with their own individual independent flairs, but Lord have mercy, I need to miss them sometimes to remember that they aren't the little terrorists that they seem to have become the past 2 weeks.

I figured I would share a couple of things that broke the ice and kept us laughing when we all wanted to pull our hair out.

I don't even remember which weekend it was, since they all just run together anyway. In fact, can we pause really quick and give a shout out to April finally being over! Man, that seemed like the longest month yet. Praying in hopes that May brings us a closer sense of normal.

Back to my point, one night I was not in a good mood and the girls asked me to watch the Adele "Hello" parody (If you haven't seen it, here it is) What started as a somber-faced mom, turned to a smirk and by the end of it, I was in tears from laughing so hard. You know that contagious kind of laugh. The ugly face laugh, when weird noises are made. Yeah, my girls were laughing because mom was crying, I was laughing harder because of them. In fact, to be honest, by the 5th time we watched the movie, I'm not even sure if we found it funny anymore, but we found each other funny. We were sharing a moment of deep laughter and our souls were alive and playing freely in each others presence. We continued to spend the next 2 hours scrolling through COVID parody's and laughing. By the end of it all, I was back to enjoying my kids again. We needed to just pause our "hard" and enjoy each other.

What started as a not-so-good night, turned into one of our favorite memories. In fact, we all have written our own parody's since then. Some moms have their kids writing in journals during this time, we're over here writing parodies to "Let it Go," "Into the Unknown," and "Happy Birthday." (Yes, they created one to the tune of happy birthday). It has been one of our most cherished memories in the middle of this really hard, difficult time.

Here are a few of our favorite ones that have kept us laughing and our own creative juices going.

These ones are the girls top songs,

These 20 second parodies are a fun to get your kids creating their own. In fact our "hippie" home school curriculum accepts their parody submissions as credit for Music 101, Writing 101, Art 101 and if there is a dance involved, then P.E. gets credit also.

How are you spending your weekend? What have your best quarantine boredom busters been, or favorite memory makers during this time?

We would love to hear from you!

Stay Safe out there. Don't forget to enjoy each other. Laugh as often as possible.