None of this is new, and I’m certainly not alone in struggling, but I feel like it needs to be repeated. So much of the country (world?) has moved on. They’ve declared the pandemic over. Masks are gone, people are going to concerts and eating at restaurants and working in the office. Everything is supposed to magically go back to “normal.”
Except.
It’s not true if you’ve got small children. We’re still waiting on vaccines, and it seems like no one cares. And at any given moment, all our plans can be thrown out the window when daycare shuts down. You might expect your life to be thrown upside down if someone in your family catches Covid, but if you attend daycare, it happens anytime anyone in the building tests positive.
And then we get to do two full time jobs at the same time - stay at home parent taking care of our children all day, and doing my actual job. It’s no wonder I’m so far behind in everything - my to do list at work is never ending and everything is past due. At home I have piles of things I’ve been meaning to go through, parts of this house haven’t been cleaned in over six months, the car needs to be taken in, the laundry is always piled up, I have to do lists of to do lists. We just can’t catch a break.
My boss made a comment that we’ll need to catch up on all of our work at some point, and I told him I don’t see that happening. He mentioned he might have to work a Saturday to get more work done. I told him that’s nice, but I don’t have an extra minute in my day, and if I did, my family comes first.
The Supreme Court seems set on taking away every right I have over my own body, there’s a country wide formula shortage (in case I needed another reason to worry about the baby’s eating), there’s still a global pandemic that has now killed over a million people in the US, countries are being invaded and their citizens tortured while people complain about paying an extra dollar for gas. All day long I feel like screaming, but I’m supposed to care about business forecasts?
It’s impossible to make plans, because you never know when things are going to shut down again. You get anxious when a note comes in from daycare. Everything just seems never ending. I would love for my life to be normal again too. I would love a date to plan towards for when things will get better.
So anyway… I’ll be attending meetings for the next few days with a baby on my lap, trying to fit in the same amount of work in half the time while also remembering to eat or drink water and that’s going to be the best case scenario.
I’m not sure if this is good news or not, but on day 2 or 3 of no daycare for the smallest Spearson, she woke up with a fever and was pretty much miserable all day. So even if daycare had been open, she wouldn’t have been able to attend anyway! Our day was filled with lots of crying and less eating than usual, but she did take some great naps which helped us get through the day.
At one point I was attending a meeting (that some may describe as boring) and had F on my lap. I had been worried she was going to be loud and disruptive, but was pleasantly surprised that she was quiet and I was able to get through the meeting without incident. Towards the end, though, someone pointed out that it looked like it might be nap time, as F’s eyes kept closing. And this baby has not passed out in anyone’s arms in MONTHS. So while my coworkers may have claimed it was due to the boring meeting topic, I think her poor body was just sick and tired.