Kids VT — May 2020

MAY 2020 VOL.27 NO.4

Birth Contemplation The uncertainty of welcoming a baby during a pandemic

BY ALISON NOVAK, P. 26

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STAFF QUESTION

What’s your favorite sign of spring?

STAFF & CONTRIBUTORS

I love seeing my NEIGHBORS out and about in their yards. It’s so nice to go for a walk and be able to connect with a handful of people. The interactions just make me feel so much more connected to my community.

COPUBLISHER/ EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Cathy Resmer

cathy@kidsvt.com COPUBLISHER

KEEGAN ALBAUGH, “POP CULTURE” COLUMNIST

Colby Roberts

colby@kidsvt.com MANAGING EDITOR

Alison and Mira heading out for their morning walk

Alison Novak

alison@kidsvt.com

under the bark of trees and emerge on the first nice warm days.

Brett Stanciu

brett@kidsvt.com

ASTRID HEDBOR LAGUE, “MEALTIME” COLUMNIST

ART DIRECTOR

Kirsten Thompson

EDITOR’S NOTE

MARKETING & EVENTS DIRECTOR

Corey Grenier

corey@kidsvt.com ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

Kaitlin Montgomery kaitlin@kidsvt.com PROOFREADERS

Carolyn Fox, Katherine Isaacs PRODUCTION MANAGER

John James CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Don Eggert DESIGNERS

John James, Rev. Diane Sullivan CIRCULATION MANAGER

Matt Weiner BUSINESS MANAGER

Marcy Carton CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Keegan Albaugh, Meredith Bay-Tyack, Cat Cutillo, Heather Fitzgerald, Astrid Hedbor Lague, Elisa Järnefelt, Jennifer Osgood, Trish Van Vliet PHOTOGRAPHER

Andy Brumbaugh ILLUSTRATOR

Michael Tonn P.O. BOX 1184 • BURLINGTON, VT 05402 802-985-5482 • KIDSVT.COM

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Spring peepers and the first MOURNING CLOAK

BUTTERFLY! Mourning cloaks overwinter

STAFF WRITER/ CALENDAR WRITER

Losses and Gains

Y

ou know that advice, when you’re contemplating a big decision, to make two columns and list pros and cons on either side? I sometimes find myself trying to make sense of this new reality we’re all living in by creating a chart like that in my head — the things we’ve lost and the things we’ve gained.

There are so many losses — a multitude of lives and livelihoods — that seemed unimaginable just a few months ago. That side of the chart often feels like it has no end.

It’s difficult and painful to wrap my mind around.

But there have been small bright spots, too. There’s a humanity that seems to infuse many of my interactions, mostly virtual ones, these days. It’s an unspoken understanding that we’re all trying the best we can. I’ve almost forgotten what the hectic school-day shuffle — of making lunches and brushing teeth and trying to get my kids to school before the drop-off rush — feels like.

Nowadays, my husband and I wake early and drink coffee at the kitchen table while preparing for our day. And, almost every morning, I take a short walk with my daughter, who’s on the brink of being a teenager. As we cut through the gravel path that connects our neighborhood with another, Mira and I pass painted rocks that other families have left along the trail to brighten the world a bit. As we walk, we talk about how she’s managing online school, analyze the latest episode of the TV shows we’ve been bingeing — “Survivor” and “Gilmore Girls” are recent favorites — and share the things we’re looking forward to, from a virtual “visit” with friends to a yummy takeout meal. Sometimes we just retreat into our own minds, thinking in parallel. It’s time spent together I imagine I’ll always remember.

May is typically our Mom & Baby Issue, timed to coincide with Mother’s Day on Sunday, May 10. Though much of what you’ll find in these pages is related to our current reality, we’ve tried to stick loosely to the theme. On page 26, read “Birth Contemplation,” about what it’s like to have a baby during a pandemic, both at home and in the hospital.

You’ll also find a sidebar that outlines some of the updated protocols at the University of Vermont Medical Center’s Birthing Center. And in “Welcome, Babies” on page 21, we share dispatches from local farms, where barnyard animals are still being born, adorable as ever.

In these pages, you’ll also find articles about how COVID-19 has changed Vermonters’ lives — from a Barre play space owner who’s decided to shutter her business (“Getting By,” page 18) to a mom of a kindergartner with Down syndrome contending with online education (“Use Your Words,” page 35). Other pieces are intended to help make these rocky times a little bit smoother, from tips on how to create a visual schedule (“Growing Up Green,” page 12) to ideas for how to stay connected with grandparents (“Pop Culture,” page 16).

If you haven’t heard about our Good Citizen Coronavirus Challenge, check it out on page 20 and 33 and at goodcitizenvt.com. Every week, we’re posting three activities related to history, news literacy and community engagement — all subjects that will help guide us through these tough times.

The wide variety of new frog friends in our backyard makes spring truly magical for my family. We love listening to the peepers all night and finding surprise TREE FROGS clung to our screens in the morning.

CAT CUTILLO, CONTRIBUTOR

I think my favorite sign of spring is how everything in NATURE WAKES UP. It starts with the distant sound and sight of the returning wild geese and then, week by week, continues accelerating. The amount of light, and every returning animal we happen to see, makes me feel almost a bit celebratory.

ELISA JÄRNEFELT, “MOM TAKES NOTES” COLUMNIST

My favorite sign of spring is RAIN; with its arrival comes budding trees, bare feet, mud puddles and the promise of sun. (And no more snow!)

TRISH VAN VLIET, CONTRIBUTOR

CONTRIBUTOR’S NOTE CAT CUTILLO (“Stay-School Adventures,” page 19) is a photojournalist, writer, video producer and multimedia storyteller. She lives in South Burlington with her two kids, Remy and Bo, and husband, Ross. When she’s not documenting weddings, she can be found still holding her camera and capturing life’s everyday moments.

ALISON NOVAK, MANAGING EDITOR KIDSVT.COM MAY 2020

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Birth Contemplation

Knowledge & Experience from a

LOCAL REALTOR

The uncertainty of welcoming a baby during a pandemic

Robbi Handy Holmes • 802-951-2128 robbihandyholmes@c21jack.com Find me on Making it happen for you!

Critical Need Snapshots of three programs providing care to children of essential workers

Calendar 25 Virtual Listings

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Good Citizen Coronavirus Challenge

Jungle Party

35

Staff Question Contributor’s Note

Short Stuff Trending 8 Getting Personal Yoga Pose of the Month Community Connections Nutrition Tips

Unlimited Play Time

Coloring Contest Winners Good Citizen Entries Pet Corner Puzzle Page Kid-Created Art Puzzle Answers

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Columns 10 Kids Beat 11 Mom Takes Notes 12 Growing Up Green 13 Mealtime 14 Art of 15 Good Nature 16 Pop Culture 17 Destination Recreation 18 Getting By 19 Stay-School Adventures 21 Baby Animals 23 Green Up Day 35 Use Your Words

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Birth Contemplation The uncertainty of welcoming a baby during a pandemic

BY ALISON NOVAK, P. 26

A woman prepares to give birth in this original illustration by Michael Tonn.

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TRENDING Jenny Rooke of Burlington-based soft-drink business Rookie’s Root Beer is delivering cans of soda to locals while wearing an inflatable dinosaur costume.

She’s been dubbed the “QuaranT-Rex,” Facebook will host a virtual graduation ceremony featuring Oprah Winfrey as the commencement speaker. Tune in on May 15 for her wise words of wisdom.

Mattel is paying tribute to doctors, nurses, EMTs and delivery drivers with a new line of action figures. Batman and Wonder Woman have nothing on these real-life heroes.

Canadian 6-year-old Callaghan McLaughlin set up a “drive-by joke stand” at the end of his driveway to make people laugh while social distancing.

McLaughlin told CBC News that he dishes out one-liners for about an hour, before taking a “12-minute” lunch break.

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GETTING PERSONAL

A Stitch in Time

BY ALISON NOVAK

O

n March 13, the orders stopped.

Sophie Kirpan of Fayston had spent the last four years building her brand, Vermont Tribe. The business specializes in baby onesies and shirts emblazoned with patches in the shape of Vermont, flannel bibs, dog bandanas, and plush bunnies with floppy ears — all sewed

by Kirpan. Prior to COVID19, she sold her goods at local gift stores like Birdfolk Kirpan and Collective in Waterbury and son Sylvester Winooski and Common Deer in Burlington, as well as at boutiques all over the country, from Alabama to Wisconsin. But with stores closed, “I went from sewing being the main source of income for my family to nothing,” said Kirpan, who has a 10-month-old son, Sylvester, and a partner in his last year of nursing school at Vermont Technical College in Randolph.

Immediately, people started telling Kirpan that she should sew face masks, but she was skeptical. “The market is going to be flooded,” she thought.

But then the wholesale platform she works with to sell her goods put a call out to sewists, asking them to make masks.

For seven days, said Kirpan, she barely slept while she experimented with mask designs, trying to find one that could be adjusted to different sizes and didn’t slip. She settled on a version with elastic that goes around both the head and the neck, rather than the ears.

Within one week, she had orders for 360 masks for retailers in ten different states, mostly shops she’d never worked with before. She also received requests from a handful of pregnant women, who told her they were ordering a mask that they could use when they went to the hospital to deliver their babies. Having just had a child herself, Kirpan said she was “honored” to make masks for them.

Now Kirpan and her partner, who is in the thick of his final online nursing exams, are taking turns caring for Sylvester so they can both get their work done. When she finishes the first batch of masks, she’ll start taking new orders.

Find Vermont Tribe on Instagram at @vermont.tribe.art or at etsy.com/shop/vermonttribe.

YOGA POSE OF THE MONTH: FLOWER POSE Try this fun balancing pose this spring!

BENEFITS: •

Strengthens core muscles and arms

•

Opens hips and chest

•

Improves balance and concentration

3. Lift your feet into the air.

4. Try this challenge: Hold on to your ankles and lift your feet into the air!

HAVE FUN! •

Act out The Tiny Seed

by Eric Carle or other plant-related books.

•

Head to the garden to plant flowers and try this pose outside!

•

Try to “smell your flower” by bringing your toes to your nose.

STEPS: 1. Sit down with the soles of your feet together.

2. Bring your hands to the floor behind you for support and engage your core muscles.

Pose description courtesy of Susan Cline Lucey of Evolution Prenatal & Family Yoga Center in Burlington and Essex.

Find online classes for kids and adults at evolutionprentalandfamily.com.

Cutline

Flower pose

COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS

A Hinesburg Community Comes Together for ‘Appreciation, Unity and Remembrance’

COURTESY OF JAM

IE CUDNEY

Photographing families The Friesen family on their front porches has become a popular way to document life during COVID-19.

Jamie Cudney, a pediatric nurse at the University of Vermont Medical Center, was interested in the idea as a way of “capturing this moment in time for my neighborhood,” she said.

On Friday, April 3, she and her neighbors started a nightly ritual called “Front Porch Noise” after a neighbor, Frank Twarog, sent out this group text: “Please join us for some front porch noise making at 7 p.m. to show appreciation The Twarog family for our healthcare neighbors, friends and families who are on the front line — and who need to know how thankful we are, even in the quiet of our homes!”

Every night since, said Cudney, “our neighbors are out in unity as we are physically isolated from each other.”

The ritual took on greater meaning when Twarog lost his mom to COVID-19 on the morning of April 13 at her home in Massachusetts.

His dad was unable to be there with his wife of 57 years — he was in the hospital fighting the virus himself. Said Cudney: “Now our nightly tradition represents appreciation, unity and remembrance.”

For Cudney, there’s only one rule for the front porch photos that she’s begun taking of her neighbors: Come as you are. “I wanted to capture our neighborhood ritual in a candid way — sweats, flannel, jeans, yoga pants and slippers,” she said. They’re meant to be “a true reflection of a moment of time with each family at 7 p.m.”

—ALISON NOVAK

NUTRITION TIPS

Stay Home, Stay Healthy

W

ho among us hasn’t eaten one too many homemade chocolate chip cookies or grazed mindlessly on salty snacks while staying at home? Being quarantined means our eating habits have changed, not always for the better. Gina Rancourt is a registered dietician with Whole Health Nutrition in Colchester. She often works with families looking to create wellbalanced meal plans for their picky eaters, or children with dietary restrictions. We asked Rancourt to share her tips for how to keep both kids and adults eating nutritiously while sheltering in place.

1. Schedule meal and snack times. This doesn’t have to be rigid, but give your kids an idea of when their next meal or snack will be.

2. Be sure to include the “big three” for snacks: protein (keeps them satisfied and helps them grow), carbohydrate (keeps them energized) and fiber (keeps them full for longer).

• Protein: cheese, hard-boiled eggs, turkey jerky, yogurt, nuts and seeds • Carbohydrate: fresh, frozen or dried fruit, or whole-grain crackers • Fiber: fruits and veggies 3. Make snacks fun and interactive.

• Present foods in a new way: Cut up food in different shapes, serve fruits/veggies of all Because we are limited when it comes to colors on a platter, use chopsticks instead of food variety and shopping frequency, this can be tricky, but it can also encourage kids forks, make snack kabobs, or have an indoor or outdoor picnic.

— and adults — to think outside the box.

• Add a dip or two: Serve veggies with Fresh, frozen and canned all count toward your child’s nutrition. hummus, bean dip or Greek yogurt dip. This 5. Think quick. Having prepared snacks and gives kids choices and a task: to dip their veggies so they don’t only have to focus on a few packaged options on hand, kept in a eating them. place that’s easy for kids to access, can be 4. Get kids involved in choices and prep for helpful when parents are busy working from snacks and meals. home.

• Have your kids come up with a new snack • Pre-cut fruits like apples, oranges and kiwi idea. Since we should avoid bringing kids to slices the grocery store, have them pick something • Pre-cut veggies like bell pepper strips and cucumber out online.

• Homemade trail mix with nuts, dried fruit • Give younger kids two choices for a snack — for example, “Would you rather have peanut and dark chocolate pieces butter or cheese with your crackers and • Homemade smoothies • Unsweetened applesauce or pear sauce apple slices?” Older kids can choose from • Hummus or other premade bean dip more options.

• Chocolate hummus or chocolate peanut • Younger kids can wash and dry produce; older kids can help put dips in bowls, cut up butter produce and plate the entire snack.

• Cereals like Barbara’s Puffins Cinnamon, Multi Grain Cheerios and Kix • Try new foods to keep things interesting.

QUARANTINE BAKING? Make it educational and more nutritious by following the tips below: • Math: Get kids using measuring cups and spoons.

• Chemistry: Explore why salt, baking soda, baking powder, yeast, sugar, eggs, etc. are important in baking.

• Biology: Where do the ingredients come from? How are they grown?

• Nutrition: What effects does food have on the body? Why do our bodies need food?

Challenge your kids, and yourself, to maximize the nutritional benefit in favorites like muffins, cookies and pancakes by adding nuts, seeds and oats; using alternative flours like almond flour or oat flour; adding shredded fruits and vegetables; adding pureed fruits and vegetables like apples, bananas, butternut squash, spinach, carrots and cauliflower; and using one-quarter to one-half the amount of sugar called for in recipes, or using maple syrup instead.  Find Rancourt’s recipes for a Power Up Smoothie and PB Yogurt Dip at kidsvt.com. Need more tips and guidance? Contact a dietitian at Whole Health Nutrition (wholehealthnutritionvt.com) in Colchester or email rd@wholehealthnutritionvt.com for more information. Dietitians provide both nutrition education and cooking tips for kids or the whole family — and most insurance plans cover these services.

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B Y A L I S O N N OVAK & B R ET T AN N STAN C IU

COMMUNITY

Wishes: Not Canceled

“Wish kid” Mika Millard of Middlesex

Times may be uncertain, but MAKE-A-WISH VERMONT hasn’t stopped working to fulfill the wishes of local children with critical illnesses. The process for the 58 current “wish kids” just looks a little different these days. Typically, volunteer wish granters — the organization has around 60 of them — do at-home visits after a child or teen has been approved for a wish, to find out exactly what they want. Currently, those interactions are taking place via phone call or videoconference, with some volunteers sending the kids they’re working with small gifts to keep them excited about their wish. Many travel-related wishes were granted this winter, said development and communications manager Grace Per Lee, so just a few trips have been postponed. And other wishes — like bedroom makeovers, puppies and backyard pools — can be realized even while families are quarantining at home. In February, 14-year-old Mika Millard of Middlesex, who has cystic fibrosis, was granted a wish to design a video game with the help of local game design studio Rad Magpie. Thanks to regular meetings via Zoom, that project is actually ahead of schedule, said Per Lee. The conceptual phase is almost complete, and design elements are being nailed down now. They’ll be heading into production soon and expect to have a finished video game this summer. —AN Learn more at vermont.wish.org.

MOMS & BABIES

MUSIC

COVID-19 has slowed commerce in all corners of the state. But at the VERMONT DONOR MILK CENTER in Essex Junction — a nonprofit organization opened in January — the demand for pasteurized donor breast milk is still high. Co-executive director Amy Wenger says that since mid-March, there’s been an uptick in new moms seeking both the donor milk and lactation consulting services her organization offers. The center, located inside Evolution Prenatal & Family Yoga Center, has sold an average of 275 bottles of milk per month since it opened. Between March 1 and April 15, 373 bottles were sold. “There have been a lot of moms with low milk supply, more than I’ve seen before,” said Wenger. She believes that this phenomenon is related to stress, which has been shown to affect a woman’s ability to produce milk for her baby. Newborns may need supplemental milk for other reasons, including low blood sugar, inability to latch or maternal health complications.

The Donor Milk Center is open seven days a week, by appointment. In order to receive donor milk, women must have a prescription from their pediatrician.

Insurance does not currently cover donor milk; the center sells it on a sliding fee scale based on a family’s situation and needs. Protocols for milk pickup have changed to ensure the safety of clients: All paperwork and payment are done over the phone or online, and staff members bring milk to people’s cars and occasionally make home deliveries. All lactation consulting is being done via telemedicine.

Wenger said she’s also received more calls from lactating women who want to donate milk, because they’re now working from home and no longer have to pump milk for their own babies or use their stockpile of frozen milk. In order to donate milk, women must complete a phone screening and arrange a blood test through Mothers’ Milk Bank Northeast, the Massachusetts-based milk bank that pasteurizes milk donated to the Vermont Donor Milk Center.

Though this is a difficult time for many families, center co-executive director Rachel Foxx sees an upside of moms and dads spending more time at home with their newborns. “A little pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,” said Foxx, is that “we’re going to have some really connected parents who really understand how their babies operate.” —AN

When she was in sixth grade, Barnet resident SIRI JOLLIFFE — then a competitive gymnast — broke her back when she fell from equipment during practice. The injury ended her gymnastics career, so Jolliffe, now 14, poured her heart into music. While recovering from surgery, she began writing “Stronger,” a song about her healing process. The song is now streaming on iTunes and Spotify. Another one of Jolliffe’s original tunes, “I Remember,” was a semifinalist in the teen division of the 2019 International Songwriting Competition — a contest based in Nashville, Tenn., for amateur and experienced songwriters. Now an eighth grader at Barnet School, this singer, songwriter and guitarist plays with the Kingdom All Stars, a nonprofit band showcasing teen talent in the Northeast Kingdom. This spring, finding herself isolated from her fellow band members, Jolliffe decided to create a documentary series on YouTube titled “My Music Life During COVID-19.” Filmed outdoors near her home, each of the four episodes released so far features a soundtrack of Jolliffe’s original songs and acoustic guitar playing, with a picturesque background of dirt roads, running streams and a cow pasture. With more episodes in the works, Jolliffe is planning to record her first album of songs, based on her experience living through COVID-19. —BAS

Milk Supply

Find more information at vtdonormilk.com.

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KIDSVT.COM MAY 2020

Girl With a Guitar

Siri Jolliffe

Find more about Siri Jolliffe at kingdomallstars.com.

Find episodes of “My Music Life During COVID-19” on YouTube.

MOM TAKES NOTES BY E L I S A J Ä RN E F E LT

I

became a mother three years ago, in early May. On my first Mother’s Day, my daughter was just a few days old, but I had already begun to realize the odd balancing act that motherhood is for me.

That balancing act means that I trust the strength of my own child, even as I am achingly aware of her fragility. I trust my ability to take care of her, even as I simultaneously doubt those abilities. I allow myself to be afraid, without losing sight that, for this person, I am one of the foundations that she relies on. My mind is attuned to think about everything from the perspective of another person and, in the midst of that, I try not to lose sight of myself.

On this Mother’s Day, on the seventh week of the “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order in Vermont, the weight of worry for the future feels heavy to carry. I realize that even though both my daughter and the world are quickly changing, my balancing act remains. In this moment, I do not ask myself to do anything more than that; I tell myself that I am enough.

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GROWING UP GREEN B Y M ER EDIT H B AY -TYA CK

A Schedule You Can See Ways to organize and mark the time while staying home

M

y family has two working adults and two children, ages 3 and 5. Like many of you, we are now under the same roof 24-7. In order to create kind but strong boundaries around snack and screen time, we created a visual schedule that lives in our kitchen to help keep us organized when so much seems up in the air.

I was inspired to create the schedule after thinking about how much my oldest liked the one in her pre-K classroom. There were a few things I knew I wanted to achieve. First was to include drawings or icons, in addition to words, since we have pre-readers at home. I also wanted to make it interactive and flexible. The adults definitely have a lot of say over the schedule, but we encourage our kids to get involved, too. They like having ownership over the order and type of activities.

This idea is fully customizable based on your artistic interest and ability, access to a printer, and the ages and needs of the members of your household.

and glued them onto the square cards alongside their word labels.

Organize the Schedule For the first few weeks, we put the squares in a long tower on the side of our fridge using magnets, starting with breakfast at the top and bedtime at the bottom.

Then we worked as a family to figure out the order of activities in between. We made an arrow magnet that pointed to whatever we were currently doing. Our schedule doesn’t have times listed, but we try to keep snack and mealtime the same every day. If you have older kids, you might consider adding times or using clock pictures to teach how to tell time.

Now we’re using a similar but revised system, with broader blocks of time. We’ve also made space for more details, such as specific games or activities we had in mind and what parent will be “open” or “closed” during that time block, depending on meetings or other work deadlines. Thanks to Facebook Marketplace, we were able to get a huge whiteboard from a neighbor, contactfree. The larger blocks are easier for us to navigate, plus we can more easily integrate the adults’ work schedules for the day.

Bonus Ideas

PHOTOS: MEREDITH BAY-TYACK

Squares with pictures and words representing different daily activities

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Figure Out Your Family’s Rhythm This step is smoother when you start with what you know. Grab that low-hanging fruit! Meals and snacks are nonnegotiable. Bedtime is a no-brainer.

Then we added the main activities our kids do at home, including free play, arts and crafts, games and puzzles, time outside in the yard, and biking or hiking.

Screen time is included, too. We separated screen time into four categories: television shows, movies, technology time and video chat. We may not do all of these things every day, but it was important to me that we had different icons and labels for each of them.

We also added preschool time, quiet time, gardening, writing letters to pen pals, and listening to podcasts and audiobooks.

I made a template using a square Magna-Tile, a thin cardboard cereal box and art supplies. I traced and cut a bunch of squares and let my kids color and paint them to their hearts’ content. I love to draw, but in the interest of time, I created a page of icons that matched the activities in an online design program. We printed, cut

We have a mystery schedule card that we refer to as “The Jar.” We came up with a list of ideas — 70 and counting — for things to do. It includes a wide variety of topics, including reading books, setting up an obstacle course, learning words in a different language and even “learning about cats,” which was submitted by my 3-year-old feline enthusiast. We numbered the ideas, then cut out numbers to put in a jar. If we ever feel out of ideas or the dreaded B-word (bored), we pull a number and move forward with whatever it says.

Another way we mark time is by scheduling fun activities like picnics, hikes and sleepovers. We use a ring garland calendar to visually showcase how many days are left until the special event. Staple or tape rings of paper, looping one inside the other. Each ring represents one day. Kids can rip off a ring every day until there’s only one ring left and the special tradition has arrived. It helps our young kids understand how many days and nights are left before the event and gives them something to look forward to. It has helped the adults mark time, as well.

Tips: • Know what your categories mean, and add parameters. Write them on the back of the schedule cards if you need to. With so much going on, it helps to eliminate questions about what “technology” means.

On the back of that card, we wrote “Doodles with Mo, Mister Chris Facebook Live, Cincinnati Zoo, etc.”

• There are certain rituals and routines that haven’t made it onto the official schedule, but we try to honor them. On weekend nights, we have a candlelit dinner.

• If you have a goal, put it on the schedule. Quiet time, meditation and journaling were ideas I aspired to but hadn’t made the commitment. Once I made a card for them, we made the time for them.

MEALTIME BY A ST RI D H E D B OR L A GUE

Comfort Cake A recipe passed down from mother to daughter

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always had pancakes, and sometimes mom would whip up her delicious coffee cake. It might be studded with raspberries from the patches by our garden or contain sliced apples, peaches or pears.

Sometimes the crumb topping was full of oats or crunchy Grape-Nuts. But the base of the recipe was always the same, and I don’t know that I have ever made anything easier or better.

Nowadays, I am not seeing my mother much. She is sheltering at home in South Hero, working remotely. I have been making quick grocery and wine deliveries to her every couple of weeks, and we stand — at least six feet apart — and chat for a while. For now, there are no hugs. She is not able to walk over from her office to meet me for lunch at the picnic table behind my work. There are no school concerts or performances for her to attend. Easter breakfast was a video chat. I haven’t been inside my beloved childhood home since early March.

For most of us, Mother’s Day is bound to be very different this year. So maybe, since my mom and I aren’t able to go out for a pedicure like we sometimes do, I will honor her by making her perfect coffee cake, thanking her for the inspiration for how to be a “proper” mother and hugging my children tight.

PHOTOS: ANDY BRUMBAUGH

hen I was seven months pregnant with my now-17-year-old daughter, my nesting instinct kicked in with full force. No, I did not get the inspiration to purge closets and clean things from top to bottom. Instead, I became obsessed with making the perfect coffee cake, convinced I would not be a “proper” mother if I didn’t have one in my repertoire. I experimented with coffee cake variations at least once a week and even resorted to stocking my pantry with mason jars full of all the dry ingredients that went into the cake, ready to go with the addition of just butter and milk (or orange juice, applesauce … so many variations). I brought all of my creations to work with me, much to the delight of my coworkers. My husband happily ate my experiments, but there is only so much coffee cake a couple awaiting their first child can reasonably consume. And, funnily enough, my craving was not so much about eating the coffee cake as it was about making it.

It turns out I didn’t need to try out all those variations to find the perfect coffee cake. I’d forgotten my mom’s recipe, immortalized in our self-published family cookbook, Home Is Where the Kitchen Is. When we were growing up, my mother emphasized the importance of a good breakfast. On weekends, we

MOM’S COFFEE CAKE (Makes one 8” square or round cake) INGREDIENTS For the cake batter: •

1 cup sugar

•

1/2 cup butter, softened

•

2 cups all-purpose flour

•

2 teaspoons baking powder

•

1/2 teaspoon salt

•

1 teaspoon cinnamon

•

1 cup orange juice

For the crumb topping: ASTRID HEDBOR LAGUE

•

1 cup plain breadcrumbs (Mom always used a couple of pieces of stale bread)

•

1/4 cup brown sugar

•

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

•

2 tablespoons butter, softened

DIRECTIONS 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease an 8” round or square pan and set aside. Cream together sugar and butter in a stand mixer (or by hand, mixing well).

2. Whisk together the dry ingredients, and then incorporate into the creamed butter and sugar until it forms a nice, crumbly texture.

Add in the orange juice and beat until smooth. Pour

the mixture into the pan and spread evenly.

3. Add the ingredients for the crumb topping into the mixing bowl that you made the batter in, without cleaning it beforehand. (The little bit of batter that may be left over makes for a better crumb.)

Blend together until it forms a nice crumble, then spread it evenly on top of the batter.

4. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, checking for doneness by putting a knife or a skewer into the cake. When it comes out clean, it is done. Remove from the oven and cool before serving — if your family can wait, that is.

Variations are endless.

Try substituting milk for the orange juice; add some citrus zest for an extra pop of flavor; add nuts, oats or cereal to the crumbs; or stir fresh or frozen fruit into the batter.

Astrid’s mother, Eloise, at home in South Hero KIDSVT.COM MAY 2020

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ART OF BY T RISH VA N V L I E T

Mixed-Media Collage W

hen my kids were younger, they loved “free art” time, during which I gave them a variety of supplies and let them have at it.

The process — finger painting, gluing, cutting and ripping — was always well worth the effort. But the product? It was often a muddy, brown mess. Here’s a project that gives kids freedom to experiment but also provides structure through a monochromatic palette of materials. The best part? You’ll likely find most of the items you need in your home!

Maggie and Aidan creating collages

SY OF TRISH VAN

PHOTOS: COURTE

MATERIALS

The Essentials

Drawing Tools • • • • •

Oil/chalk pastels Sidewalk chalk Crayons Fine-tip markers Silver and gold permanent markers • Charcoal sticks

Mark-Making Supplies (for creating different shapes and textures on your canvas) • • • • • • • 14

Paintbrushes Bottle caps Corks Wheels Forks Cotton balls A paper tube wrapped with rubber bands KIDSVT.COM MAY 2020

• • • •

for rolled texture printing Eyedropper for dripping paint Bubble wrap Kitchen sponges DIY brushes made from items like sticks, leaves and grasses

Additional Supplies • • • • • •

String, ribbon or twine Buttons Glitter Fabric Magazines Wrapping paper, tissue paper, craft paper • Masking tape or painter’s tape

DIRECTIONS 1. Organize a scavenger hunt: Look around the house for colorcoordinated supplies and interesting items for mark-making.

2. Create a background: Paint the canvas or cardboard. Use mark-making tools like paintbrushes, bubble wrap, sponges,

medicine droppers and the wheels of a matchbox car to apply paint to the background. This can be done over time, layering different shades of color. Once dry, seal the entire surface by painting over it with a layer of Mod Podge.

VLIET

• Canvas or rectangular piece of cardboard • Mod Podge (for a DIY version, shake together 1 cup of school glue and 1/3 cup of water in a container with a lid until fully combined) • Acrylic or tempera paint • School glue and/or hot glue • Photographs

3. Build a border: Decorate the perimeter of your canvas with collected items.

Encourage tearing or cutting paper or fabric into different shapes. Once the border is firmly in place, apply a layer of Mod Podge on top of it.

“Shades of Blue” by Sophie, 11

4. Add a photograph: Choose a special personal photograph as the focal point. Place on canvas and adhere with a thin layer of Mod Podge.

5. Affix details: Hot glue trinkets and treasures; place layers of tissue paper; affix beads and buttons.

There are no limits here, just plenty of imagination.

6. Display!

“Car Doing an Endo” by Aidan, 7

GOOD NATURE B Y H E AT H E R F I TZ GE RA L D Heather with husband Ben and son Jesse in Burlington’s Arms Forest

Find the Creature Handmade scavenger hunts to get families outside

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Jillian’s Derway Island map

COURTESY OF DOV STUCKER

cary and unfair as the pandemic may feel, the thing that has surprised me most is the sweetness that’s arisen in response to it.

People seem to have a lot of generosity and creativity pent up inside, just waiting to be unleashed. Here are two recent offerings I’ve encountered that provide families with a socially distant way to get outdoors, while still feeling like they’re part of a community.

The first one is a whimsical homemade scavenger hunt created by my friend Dov Stucker and his children, 10-year-old Jillian and 6-year-old Sasha.

There are nine maps, all drawn by Jillian, that lead to tiny plastic creatures they have hidden in the woods.

Before school closed, Jillian’s fourth-grade class was learning how to read maps, and this project extends that learning. “She and I definitely work together to decide how hard to make each hunt and how to balance visual and word clues,” said Stucker. “But the conception of each and the execution of the artwork is all her.”

You can find these hunts at: sites. google.com/bsdvt.org/findthecreaturescavengerhunts. There are directions, hints and an email address where you can send your selfies once you find the creatures.

“For me, it hits all the notes,” said Stucker. “It connects me and my family to the natural world, it has a spirit of play, it encourages other families to get out and explore, and it helps nurture community.

Since we can’t really gather to go on adventures with friends, it’s been super meaningful for Jillian and Sasha to see that their buddies have enjoyed the same places and had similar experiences.”

My family has already found a few monsters within the city limits of Burlington, one in the Arms Forest and one having a “bad hair day” in a tree. We’ve also searched for a creature on Derway Island, at the end of North Avenue. Though the current creatures are all in Chittenden County, this is

something you could create for yourself and your friends wherever you are.

Here’s a taste from my family’s trip to Derway Island. With our trusty printedout map in hand, “kind of to scale but not really,” we started out by the “Water Treatment Plant. Smells Baaad.” (Though we were encouraged that “It gets better.

Keep walking!” — and it soon did.) We passed “lots of beaver snacks” — very fresh ones! — and paused to look out across the Winooski River at “Maybe Colchester???”

At the pink flag and the rusty oil tank (“Don’t touch”), we looked for the specified creature. At that point, we were advised, “If you want a bonus, keep walking to see an old rusty car!!!” We definitely wanted a bonus and were duly rewarded.

The hunt gave us a goal and inspired our tween. He’s now talking about making up his own hunt for the “Salmon Hole Shark.”

Along the way, my son wondered about various things: • We saw a lodge built right into the bank, and he asked, “Can beavers live in the banks of rivers instead of building lodges in ponds?” The short answer is yes; they build dams and lodges so they can stay in the water (they’re clumsy on land) and have access to slender trees to eat. But, if they can find these conditions without building anything, they will happily take the path of least resistance.

• We saw some flooded trees, and he wondered, “How can trees live when sometimes they are flooded and sometimes they are not?” Derway Island is full of floodplain forest, so the trees that grow there can withstand some seasonal flooding.

My understanding is that the trees that thrive in floodplain forests have adaptations other species don’t have, allowing oxygen to get to their roots even while they’re flooded.

• Most pressingly, he wanted to know, “Why is it called Derway Island, since it’s a peninsula?” I asked Alicia Daniel, field naturalist for the City of Burlington, about this. She noted that it has not been an island since at least 1857, but she added, “I do wonder, knowing that the road has been improved out to Mayes Landing, whether it was inaccessible seasonally because of flooding and so was referred to as an island.”

On this outing we also saw a beaver swimming in the river, climbed a slanted cottonwood, splashed through a wetland, and identified numerous birdsongs and calls with the help of my newfound love, a free nature app called Song Sleuth.

If you want to create your own hunt, Jillian offers this advice: “It’s really important to get to know the place where you’re making it, take a lot of notes and notice things that would make good landmarks.”

Sasha says the hardest part is keeping the secret once you’ve made it up.

The Stuckers plan to add a new section to their website to post hunts that people send them.

The other sweet offering I’ve come across is Vermont Land Trust’s Backyard Bingo, hand-drawn by ecologist Allaire Diamond. (Find it on page 30 of this issue!) This bingo board sends you out to search for varied items, including “poop,” a “deciduous leaf from last year” and “something you lost.” It manages to be both simple enough for a toddler and interesting enough to capture the attention of a parent suffering from cabin fever. Once you’ve achieved bingo, you can share your photos via email or by posting on social media with the hashtag #StayGroundedVT. As always, whenever it’s above freezing, check for ticks, which are, as I heard someone say the other day, “no good at social distancing.” And if you find yourself in Burlington near the Salmon Hole, keep an eye out for a tiny shark.

Heather Fitzgerald teaches field ecology and environmental science at the Community College of Vermont and the University of Vermont.

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When Hugs Can’t Happen Creative ways to connect with grandparents

Coraline watches Mimi put on a show with action figures

Stephanie and I need help, badly. Thankfully, an extra hand is extended every morning from my parents’ home in New Hampshire.

“I want to talk to Mimi!” my 3-year-old daughter, Coraline, said as I placed peanut butter toast in front of her. “Mimi” is what Coraline calls my mother. I grabbed our family iPad and happily set it up in front of my daughter as she took the first bite of breakfast.

Moments later, my mother’s face appeared on the screen via FaceTime.

“Hi Mimi!” Coraline and her 1-year-old sister, Penelope, said excitedly.

“Good morning, girls!” my mother replied, with an eager smile.

“Where are the Ghostbusters?” asked Coraline. It was out of context, definitely a weird question to start the conversation. But it actually made perfect sense. Over the last few weeks, my mother has found all of my childhood Ghostbusters action figures and has been acting out a show with them every morning. She’s constructed sets out of my old Legos and blocks, and even built an amusement park out of Tinkertoys and Lincoln Logs. It’s half-scripted, half-improvisational and fully interactive. My daughters love it.

I do, too. Every morning for 20 or 30 minutes, Stephanie and I are freed up to tackle chores, childfree, while the other parent works or goes for a run.

It may not seem like a whole lot of time, but it’s the biggest chunk we are getting these days.

More importantly, it’s a meaningful way for my children to connect with their Mimi. In a time when visits and hugs aren’t possible, my mother has found new ways to keep the connection with her grandchildren strong.

“I miss my overnight trips to Burlington to spend time with the girls,” my mom said when I asked about the challenges she’s experiencing. “I miss the physical contact; the hugs and kisses, playtime with lots of giggles, walks in the neighborhood, trips to the playground, bath time, and snuggling at story time.”

But, she added, the daily FaceTime chats “give me my daily boost that a cup of coffee can’t rival.”

These uncertain times require creative ideas to keep our kids connected with beloved grandparents they can’t see right now. Here are some other ways to foster interaction: Story Time: Use FaceTime or Skype to read a story to your grandkids. If you have multiple grandchildren in different locations, use Zoom so that everyone can join in on the fun. Setting a schedule may be helpful.

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Penelope FaceTiming with her grandma

COURTESY OF KEEGAN ALBAUGH

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hile waiting for the toast to pop up so I could feed my children breakfast the other day, I stared at the pile of dishes in the sink. I felt like I had just washed them the night before, and yet here I was, looking at another stack.

In the weeks since Gov. Phil Scott issued a “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order, each room in our house has developed its own pile: laundry in the bedroom; toys and books in the living room; towels in the bathroom; and empty cardboard boxes in the garage. No matter how hard my partner, Stephanie, and I try, we just can’t get on top of it. We are both attempting to work full time from home while parenting two kids under the age of 4. The house is consistently a mess.

Joint Project: Engage in a parallel activity, like baking or painting, while video-chatting. If both homes have the same ingredients, you can both make chocolate chip cookies at the same time while talking out the steps.

I Spy: Hide a bunch of toys and dolls throughout your home. While video-chatting, walk around the home and see if kids can find the objects you have hidden.

Write Letters: Trying to find more ways to connect without screens? Send some mail! Write letters, draw pictures, start stories that kids can finish, etc. Kids love getting mail.

Lawn Visits: Live locally? See if your children and grandchildren can visit your home. You can remain inside with an open window while they play outside, allowing you all to chat while still following socialdistancing guidelines.

Not being able to watch your children hug their grandparents can be quite painful, especially when none of us really knows how long these restrictions are going to last. But there is an opportunity here to find new, meaningful and innovative ways of fostering these relationships.

Stephanie’s mother — “Nana” to our kids — told me the other day that she actually feels more connected than ever to Coraline and Penelope. “I can’t wait to hold them again, but I also don’t want these new experiences to come to an end,” she said. “My arms may be empty, but my heart is full.” 

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Virtual Nature Walks

Willow pine cone gall

North Branch Nature Center offers online resources to guide your excursions Highbush cranberry

T

his spring, staffers at North Branch Nature Center have made it a mission to help families remain healthy and engaged in the natural world — despite the challenges posed by COVID-19. To that end, the Montpelier-based center has embarked on a new project: creating a series of virtual nature walks, intended to offer families guidance on what to look for on less-traveled paths.

In April, Sean Beckett, director of natural history programming, spent a few hours pedaling his bike around Berlin Pond, snapping photos and taking notes, to create the first virtual nature walk. Located just off Crosstown Road, the five-mile Berlin Pond loop is easily accessible, with a wide dirt road well suited for physical distancing. Since most visitors walk only the first mile, Beckett chose to focus on that stretch.

This 270-acre pond is Montpelier’s city water supply and one of the few remaining undeveloped water bodies in Vermont.

Loons nest along these waters, and visitors sometimes spy ospreys and bald eagles — endangered species in Vermont.

The virtual walk, which can be accessed through the North Branch Nature Center website, features eight photographs of interesting plants and animals visitors may spot along the way. Each photo is paired with a short, informative write-up.

One image shows a willow pine cone gall — a small growth on a twig that looks like a cross between a pine cone and a miniature rose. Beckett explained that galls are created by an infection caused by a tiny midge, a type of fly. The midge lays its egg in the willow branch. After the egg hatches and the larva develops, the willow produces a layered covering around the larva to protect it. Eventually, the midge emerges into the world through tiny bore holes.

Different galls appear on plants and trees all over Vermont.

Beckett’s naturalist eye also spotted

E!

FREE

ILABL LES AVA SHUTT

red highbush cranberries, a fluorescent orange-and-brown early moth called the infant, and hooded merganser ducks with striking tufted head feathers.

These flora and fauna can be found in other natural spots around Vermont, as well. The point of the virtual nature walk, said Beckett, is to make Vermonters more aware of their outdoor surroundings.

The second walk in the series was created by North Branch teacher-naturalist Ken Benton. It takes viewers on an outing to the Barre City Cow Pasture, a mile-anda-half loop through former farm fields and across a forest stream. The virtual walk identifies natural elements such as coltsfoot, one of the first spring flowers in Vermont. Signs of local history are also visible on this walk. Benton notes stone walls winding through the woods. Rusted barbed wire is visible in places, an indication that these former pasture lands were used for cattle and not sheep. Farmers avoided

mixing wire fence with sheep, as the barbs caught on these woolly creatures.

A third virtual walk featuring North Branch River Park was posted in late April.

More walks are in the works for May, with plans to highlight lightly traveled areas where early-season butterflies, frog ponds and a vernal pool can be found.

Thanks to a donor, the center’s website is now completely accessible to the public without the usual requested donation. The site includes many educational, nature-based activities. One option is the Vermont Spring Backyard BioBlitz, which runs through May 20.

Naturalists of all experience levels and ages are invited to submit their observations of any wild organism — no pets or garden plants — through the free iNaturalist app. The app, a joint initiative of the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society, encourages participants to share information, connect with experts who can help identify organisms, and learn about nature from other people’s observations. It also generates data about the natural world to aid in conservation efforts.

When you head outside, the center asks participants to follow four ground rules on nature walks: • Follow recommended social-distancing guidelines and remain at least six feet from other visitors.

• Keep pets on leashes and at least six feet from others.

• Look, but don’t touch. Handling fragile plants or animals may harm them.

• If you live far away, consider visiting a location closer to your home. K Find more information at northbranchnaturecenter.org.

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GETTING BY BY A L I S ON N OVA K

Closed for Good A Barre business owner shutters h’er indoor play space

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n December 2018, Jackie Scribner of Cabot realized a dream she’d had for years. The grandmother of two opened Romp, a 3,000-square-foot indoor play space in Barre. It catered to families with children ages 10 and under, and offered multiple ways for young kids to burn energy — jumping in a bounce house, tumbling on mats and riding pedal go-carts around a circular track. The centerpiece of the facility was a large indoor play structure with a climbing tower, slides and a web tunnel. Scribner built it herself. She bought it used, and it didn’t come with blueprints, so she spent three months figuring out how all the pieces fit together.

Scribner previously owned Hestia Espresso Bar in Plainfield and loved the communal environment that she had created there. She replicated the coffeehouse feel at Romp with a café where parents could sip lattes and chat while their kids played.

“Barre doesn’t offer much in the way of good, safe indoor activities for kiddos, especially for the cold months,” explained Colleen Hurley of Barre City, who visited the space regularly with her three sons, ages 7, 6 and 18 months. Romp gave her kids a place to run, play and climb, she said, and she liked connecting with other parents there.

Now, just a little over a year since Romp opened, Scribner has decided to close it for good. In the first year of operation Scribner didn’t pay herself, and she used income from day passes and birthday parties to pay her bills and purchase more equipment. This winter, she was looking forward to being more established and hoped to start taking a salary. Then came COVID-19.

“I was paying attention to the news,” said Scribner, “and I was having a feeling that it was going to be really bad for business.”

Romp hosted its last birthday party in mid-March, the day before Gov. Phil Scott issued the “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order and barred gatherings of more than 10 people. Scribner scrambled to apply for the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program that the federal

government rolled out for small businesses, thinking it would provide $10,000 that would eventually be forgiven.

Then she learned that the loan would only provide $1,000 per employee; Scribner and one other staff member were the only people on Romp’s payroll. The $2,000 she received from the EIDL program covered just a small portion of her expenses. She put it toward nonrefundable insurance premiums, taxes and monthly bills. But it wasn’t nearly enough to keep the business afloat. She still has three years’ worth of payments to make up the loan she took to start the business; she hasn’t yet figured out how she’ll pay that off.

She contemplated trying to sell the business

I was paying attention to the news, and I was having a feeling that it was going to be really bad for business.

Romp indoor play structure

JACKIE SCRIBNER but ultimately decided to sell the equipment, piece by piece. Given the uncertainty of when things will open up again, and the fact that Romp never generated much of a profit, she couldn’t imagine someone jumping at the chance to purchase it. “I guess you could say I’m really bad at waiting,” said Scribner.

On Romp’s Facebook page, Scribner has posted a steady stream of items for sale: kids’ chairs for $5 apiece, a changing table for $60, gym mats for $65, a huge bouncy house for $1,750. The pedal go-carts “were gone in about 10 minutes,” said Scribner. She kept two of them for her grandchildren, now 4 and 5.

Katherine Zahirovic of Calais celebrated her daughter’s second birthday at Romp and visited monthly before it closed; she described the space as “warm and inviting.”

“I don’t know how to tell my kids that one of their favorite destinations is no longer going to be available,” she said. She also feels for Scribner: “I could tell she put her heart and soul into the place.”

Scribner, 54, isn’t sure what her future holds. “As I get older, my options are less, so I have no idea where I’m going to go from here,” she said.

One thing she’s sure of ? “The answer for me is not to view money as the currency by which I live my life,” she said. Now she’s trying to focus on “the wealth in my life already — my family, riding my motorcycle, my dogs and my garden.”

Scribner still hasn’t dismantled the play structure she spent months building. “When I’m away from it, I can look at it objectively, but when I go in there, it really just breaks my heart,” she said. “I can’t bring myself to take it apart.” K

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t first, I wondered whether the “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order would be like living inside our own personal snow globe, amid an extensive collection of neighboring globes. My 7-year-old, Remy, and 3-year-old, Bo, immediately embraced the change, donning an impressive rotation of masks, capes, crowns and costumes. They were more prepared for creating their own new realities A photojournalist than I was.

As two weeks ticked by, I found myself giving a moment of gratitude one afternoon to the fence enclosing our backyard. It gave me 30 minutes of freedom as I let the kids run wild outside. When I saw them next, they were covered in mud. Life was unraveling. It was a Tuesday, and all the normal rules had been shredded and thrown in the air like confetti. But instead of cleaning up the mess, all I felt like doing was admiring the chaos and letting things unravel further.

By week three, we were rediscovering our own house, digging deep into the closet corners. We unearthed things we hadn’t seen in years — my 1998 Rollerblades, a kite and an Irish cap that my husband, Ross, brought back into his daily wardrobe. Windy weather one afternoon meant Ross could give that kite flight again. He raced through the backyard, intermittently dive-bombing the children, until it finally soared.

By week four, Remy and Bo had started digging through the recycling, looking for treasure to beautify their tree fort. I watched them hand off piggy banks and miniature furniture to one another.

They spent days decorating the fort with pipe cleaners, ribbons and tea sets. Then they announced they would be permanently “moving out.”

That same week I started taking advice directly from the swamp next door. I thought about how it takes in toxins, churning them over like a giant strainer and purifying the water. It squeezes the best parts out of bad things — a perfect example of what to do when life gives you lemons.

On week five, we took a shortcut

home from our neighborhood walk through a tunnel of trees. We talked about how trees track time through growth rings that are permanently logged into their layers. The harder the tree’s winter, the tighter the growth ring. We decided to track our time together with a quarantine time capsule that we buried in the backyard to unearth in exactly one year.

As our world has slowed down, pandemic we’ve grown more aware of the other living things inside our invisible snow globe. Remy is sharpening her birdwatching skills. Every day, she tracks the new family that moved into the birdhouse from her tree fort, peering at them through binoculars.

She wants to bring more bird families to the backyard, so she and Ross constructed a new birdhouse out of wood scraps and recycling. The kids collected moss and leaves to put inside — a complimentary bird nest starter kit.

It looks like we’ll be in the garage this week, divvying up leftover scrap wood to make more birdhouses. Bo wants a few scraps to construct an outdoor ant house. Everything else we find is for the birds.

Stay-School Adventures chronicles her family’s time during the PHOTOS & TEXT BY CAT CUTILLO

Find more Stay-School Adventures on the Kids VT blog at kidsvt.com and at vimeo.com/channels/quarantine.

KIDSVT.COM MAY 2020

19

GOOD CITIZEN CORONAVIRUS

Challenge!

Looking for something educational — and fun — to do with your kids at home?

This new Challenge, open to all K-12 students, will focus on timely topics that will help us all get through the next few months:

History

How people got through difficulties in the past

News Literacy

How to tell good info from bad, especially online

Community

Helping others get through the pandemic

HOW IT WORKS

• We’ll be posting a few new activities each week at goodcitizenvt.com.

All of them can be completed at home! We’ll choose a variety of different types of tasks each week; there will be something for everyone, regardless of age.

• Do one activity or do them all! Everyone age 18 or under who submits an activity will be entered to win a weekly prize. We’ll raffle it off — and share the best work we receive — during a weekly video broadcast/virtual meeting.

• The prize drawings take place on Wednesdays at 2 p.m. Watch the Facebook Live broadcast via the Kids VT Facebook page.

This week’s winner will receive a $25 gift card to Phoenix Books!

VIEW ACTIVITIES AT

With support from:

Powered by:

GOODCITIZENVT.COM Evslin Family Foundation

20

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4/21/20 7:50 PM

ON THE FARM BY BRE TT A N N S TA N CI U

Welcome, Babies

Though farmyards may be closed to visitors, animals are still being born (and are as cute as ever)

SHELBURNE FARMS

PHOTOS COURTESY OF BILLINGS FARM

L

ast April, my teenagers and I took a spring day trip to the Billings Farm & Museum in Woodstock to admire the baby animals on the farm. Even as adolescents, the girls were enchanted with the fuzzy chicks and wobbly legged lambs. We stopped in the barn for a lesson about milking and petted the new calves.

We enjoyed a picnic lunch of turkey sandwiches on the lawn, then drove a few miles to Quechee State Park and strolled along the river. Before heading home, we savored ice cream sundaes at the Snack Bar at the Gorge, near the park’s visitor center.

Though our world is vastly different this spring, farm animals still birthed babies on farms all over the state.

Kids VT checked in with two farms that are closed to visitors right now — Billings and Shelburne Farms — to find out about their new arrivals.

Overlooking Lake Champlain, Shelburne Farms was founded in the late 1800s when William Seward and Lila Vanderbilt Webb consolidated 32 area farms.

In 1984, descendants of the family turned the property into a nonprofit educational organization with a wide array of programs for families, children and educators, and a focus on learning for a sustainable future.

The farm operates a dairy and market garden, and sells lamb, pork, eggs and Reba the calf at Shelburne Farms maple syrup. Although the farm store is currently closed, call ahead to order items for curbside pickup. The 10 miles of walking trails remain open.

Herdsman Renee LaCoss offered an update about the farm’s new lambs and calves.

LaCoss: We started lambing on February 24, and our last lamb was born on April 16. So, in less than two months, we had 75 ewes give birth to 141 lambs! It’s very common for ewes to give birth to twins and even triplets. We also had 50 calves born this spring.

Each year, we pick a theme for naming them. This year’s theme was “singers and musicians,” and I think my favorite calf (also my favorite singer) is Reba, named after the country singer Reba McEntire. We’re looking forward to sending all the sheep and cows out to pasture to graze for the late spring and summer. If you walk on the farm then, you can see them!

BILLINGS FARM & MUSEUM In 1871, Frederick Billings — a lawyer, railroad builder, and pioneer in scientific farm management and reforestation — started the Billings Farm as a model operation for local farmers, based on principles of efficiency, sustainability and responsible land use.

Today, the working farm, dairy and historic exhibits are used to educate and entertain the public, with annual events including a celebration of National Ice

Norman, the newest lamb born at Billings Farm & Museum

Newly hatched chicks at Billings Farm S COUR TESY OF SHELBURNE FARM

Cream Day in July and an autumn harvest festival in October.

Farm manager Chuck Deome shared his news, with input from his family. His wife, Amy, is the farm teamster; their son Matt is the assistant farm manager; and their son Brian and daughter Emily also work on the farm.

Deome: Since January 1, the barn has had 17 new heifer calves born, three bull calves, three ewe lambs and one ram lamb. On top of that, 19 chicks hatched at the farm, and more were delivered early last week. Amy takes care of the chicks by feeding and watering them and checking the heat lamp used to keep them warm.

It’s an exciting time of year to be on the farm, but it’s also a time to focus and be careful. When one of the

sheep is due to give birth, she is checked every three to four hours, day and night, to be sure she lambs safely.

Once her lambs are born, Brian takes care of them by bottle-feeding the lambs that are not nursing directly from their mother. For Brian, that means feeding the lambs every four hours throughout the day and night.

The cows in the maternity ward are on camera and are monitored 24-7 so someone can be there when they have their calves.

And, in addition to all of this excitement, Emily is still milking our herd of Jerseys twice a day. There’s never a dull moment on the farm!

Find more information about farm happenings at shelburnefarms.org and billingsfarm.org.

KIDSVT.COM MAY 2020

21

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Hunkering Down

with the Fam? The Kids VT team is rounding up resources for parents looking to entertain and educate their children at home. Find inspiration in the Wee-Mail newsletter.

Green Up Day 2019 in Plainfield

Ever Green

An organization dedicated to beautifying Vermont celebrates 50 years

O

n April 18, 1970, then-governor Deane Davis ordered all of Vermont’s interstate highways closed from 9 a.m. to noon. The reason?

So Vermonters could walk along them safely, picking up trash as part of the state’s first Green Up Day. The idea for one day designated for a community-run statewide cleanup was brought to Davis the preceding year by Burlington Free Press reporter Robert Babcock Jr., who noticed on his commute to Montpelier that when the winter snow melted, it exposed the garbage that had accumulated on the side of the road. Davis, then in his first year as governor, thought it was a fantastic idea and assigned a senior aide, Ted Riehle, to organize the event with Babcock. Riehle had been the driving force behind the 1968 law that banished billboards from Vermont roadsides.

Parker Riehle, Ted’s son, now sits on the board of Green Up Vermont, the nonprofit organization founded in 1979 to ensure that the event would have staying power. Prior to then, it had been run by the governor’s office. Parker was too young to remember the first Green Up Day, but he shared some of his father’s stories in an interview. For example, Ted was a pilot and flew his Cessna 185 with a megaphone mounted to the bottom of it, shouting words of encouragement to those cleaning up trash down below. Gov. Davis touched down in a helicopter right next to the Whale Tails sculpture in South Burlington, participated in a ribbon cutting for the event, then took off to survey the cleanup effort in other parts of the state.

Kate Alberghini, who became executive director of Green Up Vermont last October, said she hears from a lot of people who participated in the inaugural Green Up Day in 1970 “and are very proud of that fact.” Green Up Day was the first event of its kind in the United States, and it’s very much a part of our state’s culture.

“It’s more than just picking up trash,” she said. “It’s having a beautiful, healthy, clean environment to live in. Really, that’s the goal.”

Green Up Day 1970

Plans to celebrate a half century of “greening up” on Saturday, May 2, were in full swing when COVID-19 changed the landscape. At the end of March, the organization decided to postpone the event to the last Saturday of the month, May 30, with many of the special new initiatives still happening.

“No one really expected the 50th anniversary of Green Up Day would include working around a pandemic,” the organization announced in an email, “but we will accept our challenges and persevere to make this Green Up Day memorable.”

Kids greening up in Springfield last year

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Alberghini said Green Up Vermont is still planning to distribute 65,000 garbage bags to town clerks through the Vermont Agency of Transportation.

Towns are then responsible for getting bags to volunteers. This year, the bag is made of 70 percent postconsumer waste.

A new app was created for volunteers to learn where to pick up supplies, drop pins on the routes they have cleaned and track where they’ve left bags for pickup. There’s also a live leaderboard so volunteer teams can see how much trash they’ve collected.

And for towns taking part in the cleanup effort — last year, 247 of the 251 towns in Vermont participated — Green Up Day has put together Birthday Boxes, with a granite plaque and a maple tree sapling to plant in a common area.

For the first time, a team of scuba divers will collect litter from Lake Champlain by the Burlington waterfront. Their progress can be tracked on the Green Up app. The organization is also encouraging “plogging” — a Swedish term that means running while picking up litter (plocka upp means “pick up” in Swedish).

Above all else, Alberghini said, Green Up Vermont is encouraging participants to keep themselves safe this year by social distancing and wearing masks and gloves when they pick up trash. Towns that typically have barbecue lunches or doughnuts and coffee for volunteers to mark the day are taking a break from those celebrations this year.

Though the way that people green up will look a little different, said Alberghini, “Vermonters are resilient and respond in innovative ways to challenges that affect their core beliefs.” K Find more information about Green Up Day at greenupvermont.org.

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Virtual

CALENDAR MAY May means warmer weather and outdoor exploration. Many Vermont organizations are serving up enrichment activities that can be undertaken either outdoors or at home. Below, we round up the free offerings.

Literacy Links Fletcher Free Library in Burlington posts numerous children’s programs online, from story time on Mondays at 11 a.m. to virtual yoga on Wednesdays at 10:15 a.m. fletcherfree.org/kids.

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Billings Farm

Williston’s Dorothy Alling Memorial Library hosts virtual programming, including their Preschool Music Break with Peter on Mondays at 10:30 a.m. williston.lib.vt.us.

Science Stuff Draft Animal Week: Local teamsters at the Billings Farm & Museum engage an online audience with demonstrations, historic lore, and recipes for Shoofly pie and switchel. Monday, May 11 through Friday, May 15.

On Billings Farm’s Facebook page.

Brownell Library in Essex Junction engages preschoolers, tweens and teens online. Story time for little ones ages 5 and under every Wednesday at 10 a.m. Teens get together for a virtual writing club on Tuesdays at 3 p.m. brownelllibrary.org.

Libraries around the state are offering free online programming during this time. Check out Colchester’s Burnham Memorial Library, Essex Free Library and the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum.

Many story times are archived on library Facebook pages.

BCA Virtual Family Art Saturday

Virtual Sheep and Wool Week: The Billings Farm & Museum’s fleecy creatures and border collies are the stars of this online programming, featuring spinning and carding demos and craft ideas.

Monday, May 25 through Friday, May 29. On Billings Farm’s Facebook page.

Audubon Vermont: The Huntington nature center posts children’s activities and outdoor learning prompts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and 30- to 45-minute lessons every Tuesday and Thursday. vt.audubon.org.

Science & Stories Online: ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain in Burlington takes its nature-inspired tales for preschoolers online.

Wednesdays, 11 a.m. echovermont.org.

Engineer It! At Home: ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain in Burlington gets families thinking with weekly problems to solve, explanations of key science concepts and options to extend learning. Thursdays, 10 a.m. echovermont.org.

Take Action! Citizen Science Challenge: ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain in Burlington highlights a different plant or animal online and encourages young naturalists to get outside, make observations and discover wildlife in their own backyards. Fridays, 10 a.m. echovermont.org.

Montshire at Home offers at-home challenges from Norwich’s Montshire Museum of Science, with science-themed topics ranging from bubbles to seeds. montshire.org.

Saturday Storytime: Small ones start off the weekend with a virtual sciencethemed story time, shared by educator Karina Weiss from St. Johnsbury’s Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium.

Saturdays, 10 a.m. fairbanksmuseum.org.

Vermont Institute of Natural Science posts a new educational naturebased video weekly on their Facebook page, with topics ranging from dinosaurs to meadow creatures. vins.vt/ videos.

Projects The Venture Vermont Outdoor Challenge: Kids and their caregivers complete fun outdoor activities to earn a free pass to the Vermont State Parks for the remainder of the 2020 season and all of 2021.

Download a scorecard and details at vtstateparks.com/ venture-vermont.html.

Community Connections Virtual Family Art Saturday: Burlington City Arts posts online art activities to ignite imaginations at home. Saturday, May 23, 11 a.m. burlingtoncityarts.org.

At Home with Music for Sprouts: Mister Chris and Miss Emma serenade little ones with familiar tunes every weekday at 10 a.m.

Watch on musicforsprouts.com/athome.

Green Up Day: Community members spiff up the state for summer and celebrate the 50th anniversary of this special event, while following social distancing guidelines.

Saturday, May 30. greenupvermont.org.

Listening in Place: This Vermont Folklife Center program asks locals to submit recorded interviews and photos that depict what daily life is like during COVID-19. vermontfolklife center.org/listening.

Venture Vermont Outdoor Challenge

Like the University of Vermont Medical Center on Facebook and get weekly updates from Dr. First! See “First With Kids” videos at childrens.uvmhealth.org.

KIDSVT.COM MAY 2020

25

A

t 37 weeks pregnant, Teal Chalek of Shelburne is in what some call the “nesting” phase.

The term refers to the tendency women in their third trimester of pregnancy often have to stay close to home — cleaning, organizing and stocking up on essentials — in preparation for the baby’s arrival.

In Chalek’s case, however, the nesting is not just self-imposed; it’s state-mandated. In response to COVID-19, Gov. Phil Scott has issued a “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order, asking Vermonters to stay home, except for essential outings, until at least May 15.

For women preparing to give birth, the typical concerns that accompany pregnancy — Will my labor go smoothly?

Will my baby be healthy? — have been compounded by a whole new set of worries, ones entirely unique to this moment.

I know the baby will bring us a lot of light and joy during a pretty dark time.

TEAL CHALEK

FORCED ADAPTATION Due to the pandemic, Vermont hospitals have changed their labor and delivery protocols, forcing pregnant women to adapt or find alternative options.

Chalek said that every week she’s been checking the website of the University of Vermont Medical Center, the hospital where she will give birth, to keep current on the latest changes. (See sidebar for more on new hospital protocols.)

She knows that when she arrives at the hospital, both she and her husband will be screened for coronavirus symptoms and have their temperatures taken. One of her biggest fears, she said, is that her husband will get sick or fail the screening and won’t be able to accompany her during the birth of their first child.

Another adjustment for Chalek: She won’t be able to have any family or friends visit in the hospital or when she returns home. UVM Medical Center, along with other hospitals around the state, is allowing just one support person per laboring woman, and no postpartum visitors. Chalek was by her sister’s side when she gave birth last summer, and had hoped her sister would be there with her.

“Typically, our families would hop right in the car the second we got to the delivery room,” said Chalek.

In spite of these changes and more — canceling her baby shower, missing out on a tour of the hospital, worrying about virus exposure while opening packages of baby gear ordered online — Chalek is attempting to keep things in perspective. She’s managing her stress by taking online yoga classes, and she’s trying not to lose sight of the fact that having a child is still a huge reason to celebrate.

“I know the baby will bring us a lot of light and joy during a pretty 26

KIDSVT.COM MAY 2020

Birth Contemplation The uncertainty of welcoming a baby during a pandemic

BY ALISON NOVAK

MICHAEL TONN

dark time,” she said. “I keep trying to remind myself that things aren’t perfect, but everything will be OK in the end.”

Amelie Thurston, nurse educator at UVM Medical Center’s Birthing Center, wants to reassure women like Chalek that, though hospital policies have changed, “the Birthing Center feels very much like it always has.”

When COVID-19 first hit Vermont, Thurston said, there was concern about how overwhelmed hospitals would be during the virus’ peak. But now, there is a sense that Vermont is managing the pandemic well and flattening the curve.

“Anxiety has decreased,” she said, and there is greater calm among the Birthing Center staff.

HOSPITAL OR HOME? Still, some women who never before contemplated home birth are entertaining the idea. In the early days of the outbreak, Chalek started researching home birth, but she didn’t pursue it for several reasons. She wanted the option of getting an epidural for pain relief, and she felt she was too far along in her pregnancy to make a big change to her birth plan. She also wondered what would happen if she found a midwife she liked who then ended up getting sick.

Over her 25-year career in Vermont, Peggy Cohen of Burlington’s Full Spectrum Midwifery has delivered hundreds of babies, mostly at home.

In recent months, she’s had an uptick in calls from pregnant women — from the early stages to the last trimester — who were planning to have a hospital delivery but were now interested in home birth.

Some expressed worry about being exposed to the coronavirus at the hospital or having their partners turned away during the hospital screening, Cohen said. Others wanted their older children to be present at the delivery or soon after the birth.

To see whether a woman is a good candidate for home birth, Cohen first does an evaluation based on factors such as medical history and how smoothly the pregnancy has gone up to that point. If a woman qualifies, she can transfer her care to Cohen. And for several weeks after the birth, Cohen visits families to provide postpartum care.

“The beauty of the kind of service we share with people is, we do have a very low volume of clients compared to hospital-based practices, and we do more home visits,” she said.

On April 16, Cohen delivered Lucy Chapin’s son, Will, at home in Moretown. Chapin is a nurse-midwife at the UVM Medical Center. Precoronavirus, she was planning to give

birth at the hospital, using a fellow midwife in her practice.

But, said Chapin, the pandemic spurred her and her partner to think about their most “pressing priorities” for her son’s delivery. In addition to wanting a safe birth, they hoped their daughter could be present during the delivery. The 5-year-old had been preparing for her sibling’s arrival by accompanying Chapin on prenatal visits, watching birth videos and acting as a “mini midwife” by using the Doppler to find the baby’s heartbeat.

When visitor guidelines changed at the hospital and Chapin learned that her daughter would not be able to attend the birth, the family started thinking more seriously about home birth. Though she was already 35 weeks pregnant, Chapin had attended home births as a doula and in her midwife training, and she’d also had a low-risk pregnancy.

Chapin delivered baby Will in her bedroom — she described it as a “peaceful and powerful water birth” — with her partner and daughter attending, along with midwife Cohen and midwife apprentice Shari Corr.

Though her decision “was not born out of any fear of giving birth at the hospital,” Chapin said, citing the UVM Medical Center’s “organization and skillful response” to this crisis, she feels that the home birth was the right choice for her family. Of her daughter witnessing the birth, Chapin said, “I have a feeling she will be bonded to her brother through this experience forever.”

‘ON THE OTHER SIDE’ Elise Schadler of Burlington labored for 29 hours before giving birth to her second child — her daughter, Margot — on April 3 at the UVM Medical Center.

“I was really nervous about being in a hospital and if it would feel like a safe space, and it absolutely did,” she said. “I really appreciated how calm and peaceful and normal it felt up there. I think it went exactly how it would have gone if [COVID-19] wasn’t happening.”

Still, she said, “I’m overwhelmingly thankful that it’s over. I’m happy that we’re on the other side.”

When her son, Finn, was born two and a half years ago via C-section, Schadler stayed at the hospital for four days and had multiple visitors daily.

“That was such a defining feature of being up there with Finn,” she said.

This time, the hospital felt like a “ghost town.” Because she was confined to her room, both during labor and delivery and in the Mother-Baby Unit, she didn’t see a single person who wasn’t part of the hospital staff during her stay.

Schadler’s parents self-quarantined in Massachusetts before traveling to Vermont to care for Finn during Margot’s birth. They planned to stay a few weeks to help out, but Schadler worried about how her household would fare once they returned home.

Before the coronavirus, she had planned to keep Finn in childcare while she was home with newborn Margot.

And she’d been looking forward to the kind of community support she got when Finn was born, including a meal train. But with childcare centers closed and people stuck at home, she’s left to wonder what life will look like for the next few months.

“It’s the fear of, What are we going to do here with a toddler and a little girl and a husband who is going to have to go back to work?” said Schadler. “It’s going to be rough, but we’ll get through it.” K

What to Expect When You’re Expecting — During a Pandemic Around 2,000 families deliver babies at the University of Vermont Medical Center’s Birthing Center each year.

Here’s what you need to know if you are one of them with an approaching due date.

Prior to a woman coming into the hospital to give birth, explained Birthing Center nurse educator Amelie Thurston, she should call her practitioner, who will do a phone assessment to check for symptoms of COVID-19 or exposure to the virus. At the hospital entrance, there will be an additional screening, including a temperature check.

At the Birthing Center, all women being admitted — even those who are asymptomatic for COVID-19 — are now being given a nasopharyngeal test for the virus. It is sent to the hospital lab, and results are available in roughly three and a half hours, said Birthing Center nurse manager Sandra Sperry in a Facebook Live information session on April 23.

This universal testing model is being done to protect staff, moms, babies and the community, said Thurston. It’s based partly on information from areas of the country with a higher number of coronavirus cases; some asymptomatic women have developed complications very abruptly after giving birth, and then have tested positive for COVID-19.

If a laboring woman tests positive for COVID-19, additional protocols will be enacted, explained Sperry.

If possible, she will be moved to one of several negativepressure rooms in the Birthing Center to prevent airborne illness from escaping. Hospital staff entering the room will wear N95 masks, face shields, gowns and gloves at all times.

If a laboring woman’s test is positive, her support person will also receive a coronavirus test. If the support person tests negative, he or she will be designated the baby’s healthy caregiver. The hospital staff will also discuss with the birthing woman the risks of transmitting the virus to a newborn — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend the separation of a COVID-19-positive mother

and her baby after delivery — so that the parents, along with a pediatrician, can make an informed decision.

Regardless of the COVID-19 status of the laboring woman, all medical personnel are required to wear masks at all times, and Thurston said they are asking both laboring women and their support people to wear masks — brought from home, if possible. She acknowledged that wearing a mask during active labor is not always feasible.

If needed, consultations with anesthesiologists and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit staff are being done via Zoom to minimize people coming into the birthing rooms, said Sperry.

Pre-coronavirus, women were encouraged to move around the Birthing Center, and they often walked the hallways while laboring. Now, women must stay in their assigned room, though they’re still allowed to move freely inside it. If they would like something from the Birthing Center refrigerator, hospital staff will bring it to them.

In the Mother-Baby Unit, no visitors are permitted and postpartum women must remain in their rooms, unless they’ve had a C-section and ambulating outside the room is part of their care plan. The hospital cafeterias are still open, said Sperry, and food can be ordered by phone and delivered directly to patients’ rooms.

Because a woman’s support person is not allowed to leave the hospital and come back, except in the case of an emergency, families should make sure they have reliable childcare and pet care during their stay. Thurston also encourages women to have a backup support person in case their first choice is sick or doesn’t pass the hospital screening.

Thurston said there’s been an increase in women who are opting for early discharge from the hospital after giving birth, often around 24 hours postpartum. As long as it is safe and feasible, she said, the hospital is supporting those decisions. K KIDSVT.COM MAY 2020

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COURTESY OF AMARYAH PENDLEBURY

Amaryah Pendlebury (top right) with teacher Brooke (left), her daughter (center) and a child in her home-based childcare center, Brattleboro’s Natural Child School

CRITICAL NEED Snapshots of three programs providing care to children of essential workers

BY ALISON NOVAK

W

hen Gov. Phil Scott closed schools and childcare centers in March, families were abruptly faced with a new reality. For parents who are able to do their jobs remotely, that has meant trying to figure out how to actually get work done while simultaneously caring for their kids and helping them access online learning.

But for parents who are classified as essential workers — not just nurses and doctors, but also law enforcement officers, sanitation workers, grocery store clerks, those with critical manufacturing jobs and more — the picture looks different.

The state has worked with childcare providers to

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KIDSVT.COM MAY 2020

ensure that essential employees who must work outside the home and who require childcare can access it during this time. According to Luciana DiRuocco, public information officer for the Child Development Division of the Vermont Department for Children and Families, roughly 1,120 essential workers in Vermont have requested childcare for 1,792 children, ranging from infants to school-age kids. These numbers do not include essential workers whose children continue to be enrolled in their usual childcare centers.

The Child Development Division estimates that about 400 childcare programs are currently open to serve the children of essential workers — about

one-third the number operating prior to closure.

The numbers are approximate, explains DiRuocco, because programs are adjusting on a daily basis to serve Vermonters’ changing needs. In order to provide emergency childcare to essential workers, programs have had to adopt new health and safety protocols and demonstrate flexibility.

Childcare workers might not be the first people who come to mind when we think of those on the front lines, but they’re providing a critical service right now. Read on for snapshots of three programs that have stepped up to provide care for kids during the pandemic.

THE NATURAL CHILD SCHOOL, BRATTLEBORO

undergone background checks, which co-owner Tom Reeves said made them an attractive location to host a program.

Since Regal’s 32 employees were still getting paid while at home through the Paycheck Protection Program, administered by the U.S. Small Business Administration, Reeves asked whether any of them would be interested in returning to work for additional compensation — using the $125 supplemental weekly payment per child that centers providing care for children of essential workers are now receiving from the state. Five staff members volunteered to step into the new role.

Through social media, and with the help of Child Care Resource and Let’s Grow Kids, Regal spread the

COURTESY OF APPLE TREE LEARNING CENTER

For close to nine years, Amaryah Pendlebury has run a small childcare program out of her home in Brattleboro, with the help of two additional staff members. When schools and childcare centers were ordered to close, Let’s Grow Kids and the Child Development Division of DCF contacted childcare providers to learn how many children of essential workers they were already serving.

It turned out that five of Pendlebury’s six young kids fit into that category.

Pendlebury has continued to care for those children while their parents work — several are nurses at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, and one is a respiratory therapist at Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield, Mass. She’s also taken in two of their school-age siblings and an additional 1-year-old child of an essential worker whose regular childcare center closed.

Typically, her program provides care from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., but she has started opening at 6:45 a.m. to accommodate three parents whose hospital shifts start at 7. When one parent’s work shift changed to 3 to 11 p.m., Pendlebury arranged for a staff member to bring those children home and put them to bed.

“I think the biggest difference is just needToddler classroom at Apple ing to be flexible,” said Tree Learning Centers in Stowe Pendlebury. “Being a home daycare provider, these parents come in, and we become friends. They talk to me and share things they’re worried about.” Families are stressed, she continued, and many are living in situations they never imagined.

Pendlebury, a mom of two, said she’s not “overly worried” about getting sick herself. She sanitizes surfaces like door handles and light switches more often, sings the “ABC” song during frequent handwashing sessions, and changes her clothes when she finishes work.

But, she tells families, “I’m still going to be snuggling your child.” It’s unrealistic to wear a mask while providing care to small kids, she said, because so much of the day is spent talking to them, and they need to be able to see her mouth move.

Pendlebury and her staff do put on masks when they walk down the street, with kids in tow, to pick up lunches provided by the school district. They’re delivered by what the kids have begun to refer to as the Magic School Bus. “It’s definitely an adventure,” said Pendlebury. “It’s become our new normal.”

REGAL GYMNASTICS ACADEMY, ESSEX In normal times, Regal offers tumbling, gymnastics, and superhero and ninja classes for kids and teens, as well as a licensed preschool program. When schools and childcare centers closed, the state approached Regal to see whether the center would be willing to provide care for school-age kids.

Regal staff members already had certification in CPR and first aid, as required by USA Gymnastics, and had

Regal Gymnastics Academy’s Day Camp for Children of Essential Workers in Essex

word that it was offering care during this time. On April 20, it launched its Day Camp for Children of Essential Workers with five school-age children. A total of 12 families have signed up for upcoming days, said Reeves.

Kids entering Regal for childcare receive a temperature check and must sanitize their hands immediately. Because Regal’s building is a whopping 30,000 square feet, there’s ample room for exercise and play. Reeves said he’s identified several spaces where kids can set up laptops brought

from home if they have schoolwork to complete. Under Vermont Department of Health guidelines, no more than one staff member and nine children are allowed to be grouped together.

Pre-coronavirus, parents were encouraged to linger and observe their kids during gymnastics classes, camps and preschool. But “the guidelines for essential worker care [are] the exact opposite,” said Reeves.

Only one parent is allowed in the building to drop off or pick up their child, and the staff wears masks during these times.

Compared to the togetherness the program used to foster, said Reeves: “This is almost counterintuitive.”

APPLE TREE LEARNING CENTERS, STOWE In the course of a few weeks, Apple Tree Learning Centers in Stowe went from providing care for 121 children to 15. Prior to the pandemic, the center ran a program for infants through school-age children, as well as an afterschool program at Stowe Elementary School, with a total of 26 staff members.

When state DCF licensors approached the staff to ask whether they’d either be willing to provide childcare for essential workers or allow their space to be used by others for that purpose, they decided they’d prefer to do it themselves. “This is our space and our program,” said center director Nicole Walker. “We know the ins and outs.”

Now the children attending the center range from 7 months to second grade, and they’re overseen by four staff members who are receiving bonus pay. Only three children are new to the center. The babies and toddlers are in one group, and the preschoolers and elementary schoolers are in another.

Walker said she was initially unsure about how the new, multiage classes would work. But the preschool and elementary kids especially are “really connecting and really enjoy being together,” she said. “They’re begging their parents to come more days.”

The first few weeks were challenging for the babies, who suddenly had new caregivers they weren’t connected to, said Walker. But they’ve settled in. Because there are fewer kids to care for, the staff is able to provide individualized attention, she continued.

The older group has been doing baking and cooking projects based on kids’ interests — one day they made cookies; another, applesauce. And they’ve been getting outside on the adjacent Stowe Recreation Path regularly, with bikes and scooters kids bring from home.

Walker anticipates additional kids to care for in the coming weeks as Gov. Scott allows more people to return to work. Her center is prepared to meet the demand. Until it is no longer necessary, said Walker, “we have the full intention of remaining open and providing essential care.” K KIDSVT.COM MAY 2020

29

Spring Backyard Bingo

FROM THE:

Learn, explore, have fun, and stay safe!

Parents: Share your child’s discoveries on Instagram or Facebook #staygroundedvt

If you have access to an outdoor space, whether it’s your own backyard, a park, or any other land near your home, use our springtime Backyard Bingo to stay grounded and help kids discover the outdoors. You can even get a lot of the squares just looking out the window!

When you see one of the items on the board, check it off.

Get five squares in a row in any direction for Bingo.

Then try for another row, or even fill the board!

Want to get creative?

Bring a sketchbook or camera outside and draw or take photos of the things you find!

Thanks for playing and enjoy the outdoors!

SPONSORED BY:

“All Great Minds Don’t Think Alike”

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KIDSVT.COM MAY 2020

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4/28/20 7:18 PM

USE YOUR WORDS B Y J E N N I F E R OS GOOD

Not According to Plan A Fairfax mom adapts to at-home education for her daughter with special needs

One to Watch

Do you know a local kid (age 17 or under) who's recently done something amazing?

Won a spelling bee?

Written an opera? Raised a bunch of money for a great cause?

Tell us more! They could be featured as One to Watch in an upcoming issue of Kids VT. Visit Kidsvt.com to tell us about this local superhero.

PUZZLE PAGE ANSWERS

SEE PAGE 34 FOR PUZZLES

CODED RIDDLE:

After being home with Lily for a few days, it became evident to me that the daily remote learning curriculum was not going to meet her needs. As a kindergartner, she is only expected to do schoolwork for 45 minutes per day at home. But, since reading and writing are a struggle for her, that’s not adequate.

Lily needs constant repetition of her ABCs and 123s, and a variety of ways to access learning. That means games. Lots and lots of games. Reading books. Lots and lots of books. Luckily, we already had a lot of counting and alphabet games in our house and shelves upon shelves of children’s books. What we didn’t have, I ordered online. Each day is different, but Lily is learning plenty.

Starting the week of April 13, Vermont transitioned from a “maintenance of learning” phase to a “continuity of learning” phase, with school districts required to make a plan to ensure that students would progress academically. Our school stepped up to

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's....

Why did the mother needle get mad at the baby needle?

It was past its thread time.

COURTESY OF WEST CLAY CO.

the challenge. Lily was given a school iPad to use at home, through which she can access several math and language arts apps. Her teacher posts a video and a work list on the school’s online platform each morning. We pick and choose what to do; throw in a handful of games, books and worksheets of our own; and then post her work online for the teacher to see at the end of the day.

In mid-April, Lily started videoconferencing with her special educator and speech therapist. These meetings will take place twice per week until the end of the school year. In addition, Lily’s teacher does a phone conference with us weekly.

Is this how we wanted the rest of the school year to go? No, of course not. Lily gets fidgety during the videoconferences.

She gets out of the chair and runs off. At school, her paraeducator would get her back on track. Now it’s Mom’s job.

I’m learning a lot: Only give two choices at a time. Set up a favorite activity or reward for after completing a work task. Slow down. Repeat instructions. Be patient. And, above all, have fun. I’d forgotten how funny my girl is.

I love all her kisses and cuddles. And, yes, I even love her sassy attitude. This virus has reminded me how special time is with my kids.

If Lily were at school, she would be receiving physical and occupational therapy. Home isolation makes that impossible. Instead, our school has given me a list of PT and OT tasks to do at home with Lily, like cutting play dough and “writing” letters with a spray bottle. I’m doing my best, but I don’t have the training her therapists do. We all know she may not meet the goals stated in her IEP this year — like improving her strength, balance and coordination — so we’re trying to adjust our expectations. It wouldn’t be fair to hold the school accountable for goals that were made last year, when COVID-19 didn’t exist.

Every day Lily asks me when she can see her grandparents and her special friend again. “After the germs, Lily, after the germs,” I tell her.

Still, I have a feeling that even when the “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order is lifted, our routines will be different.

This experience has made us realize what matters most — friends and family, laughing and having fun. We’ll make more time for those things as we move forward.

JUMBLE:

very supportive during this time. We all knew that we would have to be flexible and work as a team to support Lily’s needs and learning. Since day one, Lily’s special educator and classroom teacher have called or emailed daily.

They ask how Lily is doing and what materials she needs. Worksheets, books and educational games are routinely dropped off at our house. My son’s fifthgrade teachers have responded quickly to emails and been very patient and flexible when we have run into issues with technology.

PIG, HAVE, PONY ,HOPE. Answer: Which U.S. state is round at both ends?

OHIO

B

efore COVID-19, my 6-year-old daughter Lily’s daily routine went something like this: Wake up at 7 a.m. Eat breakfast. Get dressed.

Go to school. Hang up a coat and backpack and say good morning to her kindergarten teacher and full-time paraeducator. Complete modified schoolwork for reading, writing and math with the paraeducator’s help. Go out to recess — run, play, slide, swing.

Attend gym, art or music class with classmates. Eat lunch in the cafeteria.

Attend speech, occupational or physical therapy. Repeat, Monday through Friday.

All of this was dictated by Lily’s Individualized Education Plan, or IEP, a document that maps out special education supports and services to help her progress in school.

Lily has Down syndrome and thrives on routine. She loved going to school each day. She gave hugs freely to her teacher, aide, therapists and classmates.

She walked down the hallways smiling and saying “Hello!” to everyone she met.

She enjoyed being the classroom helper and taking trips to the school library.

Then came Gov. Phil Scott’s announcement that Vermont schools would be dismissed starting March 18. A few weeks later, he extended the dismissal for the remainder of the 2019-20 school year. What do Lily’s days look like now?

She sleeps late each morning and “schools” at home with her 11-yearold brother. Her schedule alternates between work and play. Big brother sometimes plays board games with her and helps her navigate a math app on her iPad. Do we have a routine? Not really.

Lily typically has an attention span of only 15 or 20 minutes, and she has a bit of a stubborn streak. From the moment school was dismissed, I knew we would have to keep a positive attitude and just do the best we could. My husband is continuing to work as a fire alarm technician. Nobody wants their home or business burning down during the pandemic, so his job is deemed essential. He’s been spending his days off completing home projects. That leaves the bulk of the homeschooling to me.

Luckily, I am a paraeducator at my children’s school and was also dismissed on March 18.

Our school, BFA Fairfax, has been

KIDSVT.COM MAY 2020

35

Thank You.

To Vermont’s parents, grandparents, guardians, and everyone else who cares for our children, the 13,000 members of Vermont-NEA thank you.

From your children’s teachers, paraeducators, bus drivers, school nurses, cafeteria workers, custodians, guidance counselors, and other working people who dedicate their lives to educating our future, we want you to know how much we appreciate you. Your patience. Your understanding. Your dedication. Your hard work.

When the governor closed schools, we understood why. But that doesn’t diminish the very real sadness of the abrupt end to our physical time together. But you’ve shown remarkable resilience and grit as we tackle how to do the best we can for our children.

Along those lines, we’d like you to tell us how we’re – and you’re – doing.

Please take a few moments and take a quick survey at vtnea.org/parentsurvey.

Again, thank you. We’re all in this together for our state’s children.

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4/30/20 4:56 PM

JUST FOR KIDS Coloring Contest!

Three winners will each receive an annual family membership to the Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium. Send Kids VT your work of art by May 15. Be sure to include the info at right with your submission. Winners will be chosen in the following categories: (1) ages 5 and younger, (2) ages 6 to 8 and (3) ages 9 to 12. Winners will be named in the June issue of Kids VT. Scan or photograph completed coloring contests, and send them to art@kidsvt.com.

Birthday Club.................................32 Coloring Contest Winners......32 Good Citizen Examples.............33 Pet Corner.........................................33 Kid-Created Art..............................34 Puzzle Page.......................................34

Title _______________________________________ Contest sponsored by

Artist _____________________________________ Age ______________ Town __________________ Email _____________________________________ Phone _____________________________________

KIDSVT.COM MAY 2020

31

JUST FOR KIDS

Birthday Club Congratulations

COLORING CONTEST WINNERS

to these May Birthday Club winners!

Join the Club!

To enter, submit information using the online form at kidsvt.com/birthday-club.

Just give us your contact info, your children’s names and birth dates, and a photo, and they’re automatically enrolled.

KYE lives in Plainfield and turns 3 on May 8. He loves pretending to be a dinosaur and adores his big brother. Kye is very interested in excavators, tractors and hunting “like Daddy.”

He enjoys being outside as much as he can.

Whimsical pigs with umbrellas danced into our inbox this month. Five-year-old Charlotte from Barre prettied up her porcine with a pink tutu. Jared, 7, from Colchester decorated his little piggy’s umbrella with orange-and-yellow polka dots.

Eleven-year-old Sara sent us a smiling pig splashing through a giant rainbow. Enjoy the start of spring, and send us your excellent artwork via email again this month.

The winners of annual family memberships to the Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium are…

HONORABLE MENTIONS “RAINY DAY”

Mabel Rubin, 5, Burlington “PIGGY IN THE MUDDY RAIN”

“Piggy in the Rain” Amelia Seguin, 5

“RAINBOW RAIN”

COLCHESTER

Levi Peters, 9, Huntington

5& under

Iris Palisson, 7, Waterbury “RAINFALL”

Vera Sweeney, 6, Jericho “SPRINGTIME PIGGY”

Kye, Nico and Chase each win a special prize.

Evie Dickinson, 4, Georgia “PIGGY IN THE RAIN”

Sophie Felix, 5, Burlington “RAINY DAY”

Evelyn Huard, 8, Craftsbury “APRIL SHOWERS”

Jo Lander, 9, East Hardwick “RAINY DAY”

Julia Locarno, 12, East Barre

CHASE lives in Essex Junction and turns 8 on May 28. Most days, rain or shine, he can be found outside.

He loves playing soccer, biking and rollerblading.

Chase has the biggest heart and loves to be around his friends. He is always trying to make people laugh with his great sense of humor.

“IT’S RAINING, IT’S POURING”

Cora Blair, 10, Middlebury “RAINBOW RAIN PIG”

Arlo Kiviranna, 6, Waitsfield

“Rainbow Pig” Paris Schoolcraft, 8

DUXBURY

“A COOL PIGGY”

Leo Nichols, 4, Milton

TOP TITLES “CHARLIE’S MARVELOUS PICTURE!” NICO lives in Colchester and turns 8 on May 13. He is a funny, creative, smart and caring person.

He loves sports, playing Pokémon with his brother Theo, Minecraft, and making his little sister Adaly laugh!

Charlie Garner Lander, 5, East Hardwick “THIS LITTLE PIGGY WENT FOR A WET WALK”

Coco Pierson, 6, South Burlington

“PASSION FOR PIGS”

Lucy Esckilsen, 10, Burlington

“Stripes” Harper Hayes, 11 BOLTON

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6 to 8

KIDSVT.COM MAY 2020

9 to 12

Have you heard about our Good Citizen Coronavirus Challenge? Every week, we post three activities at goodcitizenvt.com related to history, news literacy and community. Check out some of the submissions we’ve received so far.

HOMEMADE COOKIES AND THANK-YOU NOTES,

submitted by Keller Greene of Fairfax

LEARNING ABOUT DIFFERENT CULTURES,

submitted by Kai Von Sitas of Fairfax

POEM TO DISPLAY, submitted

by Freya Abbey of Hartland

RAINBOW AND THANK-YOU MESSAGE,

submitted by Ethan Oszurek of St. Albans

MESSAGE OF HOPE, submitted by Bellamy Crehan of Burlington

PET CORNER On Facebook, we asked followers to share photos of the pets they’ve added to their families while they’ve been staying at home.

Jennifer Karpinski posted a snapshot of border collie Cisco.

“It was our youngest child’s fourth birthday last week and we were all supposed to be in Southern California for break, so we thought this will be the perfect pick me up for our children and will bring us all joy right now,” she said. “Also great to have all hands on deck to help.”

Francesca Arnoldy shared this picture of her family’s 6-monthold rescue kitty. “After months of malnourishment, a rescue that ended in ‘failure to thrive,’ a second rescue that was cut short because of COVID, and one last foster placement, she found her way to us and into our hearts.”

Jennifer Copp posted a photo of Sully, an Old English bulldog she recently added to her brood.

KIDSVT.COM MAY 2020

33

JUST FOR KIDS

Puzzles4Kids

BY HELENA HOVANEC

Kid-Created Art

The Davis Studio in South Burlington is offering daily art prompts on social media to encourage kids’ creativity during this time. Check out some of the recent submissions below.

Coded Riddle Change each letter to the one that comes immediately BEFORE it in the alphabet to find a riddle and its answer.

Here’s a copy of the alphabet to guide you:

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

“Picnic” prompt with 10-month-old Pippa and mom Elsa Cohen

Jumble

“BUTTERFLY” PROMPT

By William Cunningham

BY DAVID L. HOYT & JEFF KNUREK

The letters of these crazy words are all mixed up. To play the game, put them back into the right order so that they make real words you can find in your dictionary. Write the letters of each real word under each crazy word, but only one letter to a square.

“IN MY KITCHEN” PROMPT

By Evie Lorentz

“ROBOT” PROMPT

“FISH” PROMPT

You are now ready to solve this month’s Jumble for Kids. Study the picture for a hint.

Then play around with the letters in the circles. You’ll find you can put them in order so that they make your funny answer.

Print your answer here:

By Tristan Feralio

ANSWERS >> P. 35 34

KIDSVT.COM MAY 2020

By Hazel

To find daily art prompts, visit the Davis Studio’s Facebook and Instagram pages.