Now we know how a bear feels coming out of hibernation. We’ve been in some sort of lockdown for over a year now and all of a sudden, it’s spring, literally and figuratively. We’re leaving our caves and shaking our heads trying to figure out what the new normal is, what we’ve learned from the pandemic and what we can do to make things better in the seasons ahead.

Jeanette Prather’s piece in this issue, The New Normal, takes a look at what the post-pandemic Santa Cruz will look like and has stories from moms about what they liked and learned from sheltering in place with their families. It shows a whole other perspective on the past year. Was there a good side to the pandemic?

Gretchen Heimsoth’s Healthy Eating column takes a look at what hibernation does to your gut and has a host of foods you should be eating to get some spring in the spring. She breaks it down and shows that eating right doesn’t have to be that difficult.

Are you thinking about getting your kids to study music? You should be. For us, it’s as important as math and science and develops similar skills. Musician and rock DJ Chris Jackson has some suggestions for inspiring music lessons in his column Give Kids the Choice.

Of course, this is a month to celebrate mothers and who better to hang ten with than our own Surfing Mamas, women who love the waves and will share their joy with you, including one who was the first woman to surf at Mavericks.

First, we gave kids cell phones, and now are you ready to give them credit cards? Could that be a good thing? Writer and artist Christy Shults thinks the cards can help kids learn the value of money and budgets. No, really! Check out her story.

Does a teacher want to scare kids or play with them? That’s one of the questions Lisa Catterall ponders in her Behind the Teacher’s Desk column. It’s a big one to consider, remembering the old days when teachers used rulers for enforcement and more modern times when the fun is an alternative. What best serves the students and the teachers?

And we have a great new feature, a cartoon called Adventures in Mom-ing by Patty Benson which we guarantee will bring a smile to your face and deserves to be posted on your fridge.

There’s a lot more inside this issue, including a guide to the local hidden beaches and how they got their names; how to organize your family car; a profile of a master chef and a tribute to a special local mother, who started a growing running club while running after four kids.

We think you’ll enjoy it as we look behind the curtains at some great Santa Cruz people and parents, artists, and kids. It’s what has kept Growing Up going during the lockdown. That and the kindness of the community.

We really want to thank the people who stuck with us and kept us afloat. Parenting magazines across the country shut down or closed during the pandemic, but we’ve kept going in print, online, in social media, and in our weekly newsletter.
For that, we are so grateful to the wonderful and generous people who donated to our Go Fund Me campaign (https://bit.ly/3eEI8av)and kept the presses rolling. We even had advertisers whose businesses were locked down, but who continued to advertise just to keep us going.

There aren’t enough words to express our gratitude. We so appreciate you keeping Growing Up growing and we pledge to be a hyper-local community asset helping you find the best and most important things you need to keep your family healthy, happy and wise.

Thanks for reading.

Brad Kava, Jennifer Ford, and Steve Dinnen