2020 has been a terrifying year for almost everyone I know. It’s been filled with uncertainty, fear, chaos, and stress. It’s been nearly impossible to navigate. Impossible to know what’s right, what’s wrong, our life as we know it has changed and will never be the same.

I haven’t been trying to protect my kids from the reality of the situation but at the same time, I try hard to let them be little and not feel the weight of the world on their shoulders. My job, as their mom, is to hold the world on MY shoulders and slowly, but surely, teach them to hold their own weight of the world as they become able.

I recently read a story about a woman who retold a story of this “magical” place she went to as a child. It was a happy place, filling her mind with wonderful memories. Turns out, this magical place was a hospital room where her mother spent her final days, dying of cancer. She recalls balloons, rides on a magical bed and treats all day, every day. It wasn’t until she was an adult that she realized how her parents protected her from the pain, the fear and the chaos. They made the conscious decision to fill her mind with good memories.

So here we are, faced with the same decision. We can choose to allow our kids to know our fear, our pain, our chaos, or we can fill their world with balloons, magical rides and treats all day. My kids have flourished in this strange world. They have loved more time with me and each other. Without a schedule, places to be or things to do, every day feels like the best summer day which means popsicles for breakfast, baking cupcakes on repeat, pillow forts everyday, books and snuggles followed by dance parties and sleepovers every night. We’ve traded overly scheduled nights for simple nights in the sprinkler, bike races in the cul-de-sac and swinging on the swing set until we can’t anymore!

My husband and I recently chatted about if our kids will remember the year 2020. I don’t think they will remember it specifically, but I pray that when they look back in history books on the year of the pandemic, the taste of popsicles, the smell of cupcakes and the sound of Disney music will bring them right back to these sweet days, and it will warm their little hearts.

Praying for you mommas out there, realizing this isn’t easy for anyone. We have a big job in the most normal of times and then we were handed this. I write this as a reminder to myself that I got this and so do you!