Playtime

National Library Week is April 4 -10 and there are certainly reasons to celebrate it. The Edmonds and Lynnwood Libraries are now offering limited in-building services on top of the current contactless services. Recently, I stopped by to pick up a hold at the Edmonds Library and was offered contactless pick-up or the option to…

Shortly after quarantine started, it felt like we were seeing more and more birds in the yard. Our initial intermittent efforts to identify the birds we’d seen over the years — Steller’s Jays, different kinds of woodpeckers, an unidentified hawk, robins and a ton of “little brown birds” — took a more intentional turn once…

On the school front, we went from telling our high schooler to prepare to not go back in-person this year, to “do you want to do an in-person hybrid model,” followed by “if yes, did you grow out of all of your pants suitable for leaving the house?” Turns out, we don’t have enough pants…

Planning things for the summer feels as hard to comprehend as the anniversary of one year in a global pandemic. Information on both what options lie ahead and what we have already done seems to be showing up at the same time and feels dizzying. On the same day, I saw a social media post…

During our most recent snowy weekend, I got a text from a neighbor that included a video of her two little ones playing in the snow wearing snowsuits that we had handed down to them that had been previously handed down to us, they were now on their third family. I find this kind of…

Each year when the Edmonds School District Calendar comes in the mail, I put it aside as a “present” for a friend of mine who uses not one but TWO of them in her house each year. When it came this year, it felt so weird to be looking at a school-related calendar that I…

Last week was the end of the first semester for the Edmonds School District. Semesters weren’t even really on my radar until I had a middle schooler and didn’t have the full “I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record” feeling until I had a high schooler — last weekend…

This seems to have been a particularly rough week for just about everyone I know. On social media, I have seen lots of talk of hitting the “Pandemic Wall.” In fact, there are a couple of recent articles about it — there are also articles about it from earlier, so I suppose we could all…

Before we get to some local school registration information for the next school year, I wanted to share a library event for those of us taking care of children during the pandemic. Sno-Isle Libraries is offering an “Issues That Matter 2021” series. The next free installment, “Issues That Matter: Recognizing Anxiety and Depression in Kids”…

On Thursday, I was in Half Price Books picking up a hold (the Hunger Games prequel because I am trying to use books for kids and teens to break up the doomscrolling),. I had an exchange with some young shoppers about a viral video they had playing on their phone (they for sure don’t call…

Throughout 2013 we added little pieces of paper into an old spaghetti sauce jar with fun or special events or accomplishments written on them with the plan to open the jar on New Year’s Eve. This might have been the only year we were able to fill the Memory Jar, an exercise in gratitude mixed…

Either more people are decorating for the holidays earlier than normal this year or they’re more comfortable posting it on social media. I have seen a few houses lit up already, which seems earlier than expected, and I saw post after post on social media of people putting up Christmas decorations last weekend. I also…

Our Halloween routine has looked the same for so long, it’s safe to call it our Halloween tradition. We took pictures with the neighbors across the street, met a group of friends on Sunset Avenue in Edmonds, took a group picture, and knocked on doors while taking in the view, heading back on 2nd Avenue…

Earlier this month, Edmonds School District Food and Nutrition services, which provide seven days a week of free breakfast and lunch to kids ages 1 through 18 at local schools and community locations, said that many parents are asking if they “‘choose school meals’ will they be “taking away from someone else who needs it?”…

Before quarantine, our management of screen time looked much different. Computers and phones were almost exclusively used and charged outside of bedrooms. It wasn’t far into our time at home that we realized we had to do something differently for all of our sakes. We ended up getting a different router and pairing it with…

Sno-Isle Libraries is providing access to live online tutoring and homework help for free. I usually ease into the information, but in the land of a million terrifying headlines, it feels right to lead with great news. If you go to sno-isle.org/kids/homework you can access many homework-related resources including Brainfuse HelpNow, which offers “online tutors…

In years past, I have always waited anxiously for the Edmonds School District Family and Community Calendar to come out. Since it has all of the important dates — days off, early releases, holidays – I was anxious to get those in my calendar even though I’d often end up surprised by the schedule change,…

As kids around the country head back to school — many of my friends and family in other states have started their school years already– the typical “first day” photos look much different. Those attending school in person are wearing masks and those learning virtually are in their workspaces or posing with their devices instead…

This week, the Edmonds School District held two community forums, one to address special education and one to address child care options. Both sessions were recorded and can be watched at YouTube.com/EdmondsSD. The district announced that it partnered with four child care providers to support families during the 2020-21 school year. The YMCA will be…

“School shoes” were always something I was excited about as a kid and that excitement has continued to buying shoes with my kids ahead of their first day of school. It occurred to me as I breezed past the school supplies section of Target, I still don’t exactly know what we’ll need for this school…

We first talked about Pokémon Go, the mobile Augmented Reality game involving Pokémon characters popularized on cards of the same name, in 2016 — just after the app was released. Throngs of users crowded Pokéstops, where you gather supplies and catch the characters, at the Edmonds Waterfront playing the game. About two weeks ago, the…

Over the last couple of weeks, we (OK, I) have been hyper focused on taking the kids’ makeshift workspaces and preparing them for more long-term use — the Edmonds School District announced this week that the 20-21 school year would start with a remote learning schedule. It has been all kinds of cleaning out closets…

Earlier this month when writing about Southwest County Park, I found out that along with being the “largest single parcel of open space within the Edmonds city limits,” it is a Snohomish County Park. When I went through the list of Parks and Facilities listed on their site, SnoCoParks.org, I recognized more names than I…