Make the Most of It

As we send our April issue to print this month,, precautions to prevent exposure to COVID-19 are ramping up across Connecticut. School systems are suspending classes indefinitely. Sporting events and entire leagues have been cancelled or postponed. People are filling up their pantries and it is next to impossible to find a retailer that has toilet paper in stock. We had a listing created for wonderful family events scheduled to take this weekend, but now it seems like most of us won’t be leaving our homes much for the next few weeks. Many of the events that we have in our magazine this coming month will, most likely, be cancelled or postponed, so please check with the venue directly for updates. Hopefully, the actions we are taking will minimize the impact and duration of interruption to our regular routines and, most important, keep us and our loved ones healthy. In my household, we’re washing our hands at a historic rate. We’re following the guidelines of the CDC and staying home for at least the next couple of weeks, and I encourage everyone to do the same. Thankfully, I erred on the side of caution and stocked up on food and, yes, toilet paper before things got too frantic. During my last trip to the grocery store for some final essential items, which included White Castle cheeseburgers from the freezer case, I had an incredibly heartwarming experience. Everyone had accepted the reality of our situation by this point, and the store was out of a large number of items. I passed the bread aisle and saw there were only a few loaves left. What made me smile was that the few remaining loaves were arranged with such care and took advantage of the rarely available space on the shelves. I snapped this picture because I was so impressed by the effort that someone spent in making them look nice.

I proceeded to the cashier to check out and the staff was talking to each other about their tasks and one of the staff, Kathy, said that she had already finished the bread aisle. I told Kathy that I loved what she had done and almost bought a loaf, even though I didn’t need one because it looked so nice. She said thank you, with a smile on her face, while her coworkers told her that my comments were proof that people noticed the care she put into her work. With all the stress of recent days, it was nice to see someone making the best of the situation. The grocery store has to be a crazy place to work these days, and in all of that, Kathy turned the picked-through bread aisle into a thing of baked beauty. I encourage everyone to do the same and make the best of this situation and make the most of your time together as a family. We’ll be posting ideas for indoor family fun and activities on our blog at ctparent.com, so please visit often. I look forward to sharing all of the exciting things happening in your community when things get back to normal, hopefully very soon. Stay safe and healthy, Dan