I read something yesterday about someone being happy about this quarantine, life was getting overwhelming and out of hand and this made them slow down and take a break. I smiled when I read that. This world we live in, especially here in America, is too fast paced. There is too much expectation. Too much go go go with little time to sit back, relax, and enjoy life. Unfortunately, for most parents this is not our reality. I know we all have our struggles. We are living in unprecedented times. A global crisis like nothing most of us have ever lived through. I can’t imagine how it feels to be working in the medical field or be married to and have a family with someone working in that field. I’d like to give a heartfelt thank you to all of our frontline workers and their families. Life is so challenging for so many right now. This is just my take on life in quarantine with 3 kids, 5 and under.
Harry was born on February 21st. March 13th is when our president declared a national emergency. When I had Harry, I thought I had 12 weeks sprawled in front of me of time with family, time with friends, time bonding with my newborn. Typically after you have a new baby, your house is a revolving door of friends and family coming to visit to see the newest addition and offer help to you wherever you need it. Even if all you need is someone to sit with you. Or someone to help occupy your older kids while you bond or nap with the baby. Esmé should’ve been in school. So while I was home alone during the day, it was just with 2 kids. Lucy has always been pretty independent so I was looking forward to that special baby bonding time while lucy was off doing her own thing. I imagined spending so much time with my mom. She’s literally the best grandma and I was so looking forward to spending all this time with her and the kiddos who adore her.
Instead of this special “4th trimester” I had envisioned, I found myself in the middle of a global pandemic. Married to an essential worker. Thrown to the sharks of life with 3 kids. Drowning, without a lifeboat. Esmé, my social butterfly with big giant feelings and big giant energy is no longer in school. She no longer has her weekly swim lessons. She no longer has her visits and play dates with friends. She no longer has her teacher that she adores. I am now her teacher. Instead of my quiet bonding time nursing Harry while Lucy does her own thing, I’m now nursing Harry awkwardly sitting at the kitchen table, trying to get Esmé through her school work while she and Lucy bicker over who gets to sit closer to me while we work. Instead of so much time with my mom, I have a baby that’s 2 months old and has only seen and been held by his grandma once, days before this shelter in place was put into effect. She’s watching him grow through tiny little poor quality pictures on her old flip phone or from the occasional picture my dad prints from emails I send him that he can only see on a computer at work. I’m now putting out fires left and right as my 5 and 3 year old are fighting constantly over EVERYthing. At almost all times at least one of my children is crying. At all times someone is asking me for something to eat, something to drink. Even if they have food right in front of them. I’m answering 739 questions every morning before breakfast. I’m trying to squeeze any amount of cleaning or preparing food in the 10-20 minutes here and there throughout the day that Harry is sleeping or content outside of my arms. I’m trying to keep some sort of normalcy for my kids that are used to going to visit friends and family, that are used to walking to the park and playing on the playground, that are used to trips to the grocery store with me or little outings here and there.
I’m constantly feeling guilty that I’m not doing enough. That I’m not happy enough. Parents in general are constantly worrying about how we are messing our kids up, now we get to worry about how we are handling this pandemic. Are we providing them with the right tools to mentally and emotionally work through times like these? Are we doing irreversible damage while they are seeing us overcome with anxiety and depression over this isolation? I post a lot of pictures of our baking adventures. What you don’t see in the highlight reel of smiling faces is that sometimes those adventures end in all of us crying, some of us yelling, with my 5 year old telling me “today was the worst day, I miss my old life”. We bake because it’s become my coping mechanism and there’s a win win there of it being some quality time and memory making with the kids. Harry is usually in the swing crying while we do it but sometimes I just need to put him down. Baking has become almost obsessive. The second I have a few minutes of quiet, where my brain is allowed to wander, I have to get up and bake something. Or do something. Because if I don’t, I start to spiral and I start to fall apart. There is no time in my life right now with 3 kids so young, watching my every move, needing me constantly, to fall apart. My counselor says during these times to take it one day at a time. One moment at a time because it’s too much to take on otherwise. Too many what ifs. Too many unanswerable questions about the future. This parenting thing takes a village and we are all very abruptly without that village. I find myself forgoing what little bit of sleep life with a newborn and a 3 and 5 year old offers just so that I can have a little bit of time without being pulled in 7 different directions. Without 2 kids constantly talking/fighting/crying/asking questions all while a baby cries or has just fallen asleep, nursing. Sometimes those hours I should be sleeping are the only times I can get any of the housework done.
I really am so grateful for my life. I am so lucky in more ways than I can count. I inwardly and outwardly genuinely express my gratitude daily for all of my blessings. Every night before bed the girls and I list and write out 3 things to be thankful for during this time. But this is hard. Really hard. And I’m struggling.
Share