Daycare Closed

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Cherry on the Top

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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.

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Underwater

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I’m not sure I can fully express the burnout that we’re feeling. And I know it’s not just us - when I get together with other parents now, all we talk about is how hopeless we feel, how exhausted, how angry, how done we are. How we can’t possibly keep going another day, but we have no end in sight. We’re all struggling so much, but also dealing with a ton of guilt, because we feel like we can’t complain, because we chose to have these children. We even hoped and prayed for them.

I’m not sure any of us expected life to be like this though. A never ending pandemic where no one cares about keeping kids safe. Work that expects you to devote all your free time to working as if you don’t have kids, and barely pays you enough to combat inflation or pay for daycare. Daycare where we have to send our children so we can work, but they’re all so understaffed and burnt out themselves dealing with this pandemic, they have to keep shutting down.

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Never Ending

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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.

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The Pandemic Post

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I’ve thought about writing this post a million times, but since we were IN it, it felt like maybe I should wait. Until it was over. Now I’m beginning to wonder if it ever will be over. And the before time, it’s so far away now, that it’s hard to remember.

So here is a very messy, probably very long, in between post about this pandemic we’re living through. Because some day our kids might ask. Because it’s probably not a bad idea to write down some memories. To reflect on the craziness. I’m going to break it up into sections - it probably won’t make it any shorter, but maybe easier for me to write.

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Vacation Week

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So our lovely daycare decided to close for a week, with not a ton of notice, which meant there weren’t a lot of options for us. All vacation homes within a few hour drive were booked or too expensive or missing something essential. So instead of meeting my parents at the beach somewhere, we decided to just head to Vermont. Honestly the kids probably enjoy Vermont better than the beach anyway. There are tractors and land to run around on, and they can eat all my dad’s peas from his garden.

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Day 119

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At some point do I just stop counting? Is life so changed that it will never return to the “before" so there’s no point in counting how many days it’s been?

Or is it pointless because some things might get back to something that looks a little bit like normal, while others never will? Our daycare is actually open right now, so does that negate my count, since I started counting days since daycare closed? Or does the fact that we haven’t sent them back to daycare yet mean I keep counting?

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Missing Friends

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Sometimes this staying home thing is easy. There’s no commute, there’s no annoying people, and I have pretty much everything I need here. I can rent movies on my TV, ship almost anything to my door, and I have a lot of crazy boys to keep things entertaining and interesting here.

Some days are really hard, though. Like when my three year old says “Mama, will you come here and play with me? I need a friend. I have no friends.” Or when he tries repeatedly to get his brother to play with him, which sometimes works, and sometimes ends with two very frustrated toddlers.

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Entering Week 7

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So. Quarantine.

We’ve been here for a while. 43 days to be exact, and we’re not going anywhere soon. We know we have at least two more months of this, but ask the Actuary how confident she is that this will be over then. Part of my actual job is to study pandemics. We’ve been doing this since before it was cool. Ask me about what happened in the fall of the 1918 flu.

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Blah Blah Blah Day 21

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I have had the worst stomach ache of anxiety all week. Tied up in knots, can’t relax, in constant panic mode. There’s no reason for it, well besides the global crisis we’re all facing, but that’s not new. Nothing’s changed this week, I’ve actually mostly stopped watching/reading the news even. My body has just decided that we’re stressed out this week and should panic.

So with that being my mindset, despite the fact I feel like I should be much more comfortable right now, I’m going to give a very cute, baby-centric update. Because that’s more fun to talk about.

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Days 2-5

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I woke up yesterday and seriously thought it was Wednesday, when in fact it was Thursday. I thought about putting up a sign that says something like “Today is [Friday] and today we [work/don’t work].” But then I realized I’d probably forget to update it, and confuse myself even further. Everything is so disorienting, I really need to spend a few minutes each morning trying to remember what I’m supposed to be doing, and when.

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Day 1

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Day 1 of whatever we’re calling this. Home isolation? Quarantine and chill? Apocalypse watch? Whatever it is, I’m not a happy camper. Daycare’s closed and work still expects us to work full time from home. I could handle one of those things at a time, but together it’s… rough. I know I’m extremely lucky that I can work from home and that I’m still getting a paycheck right now. But if I had a unicorn to wish on, I’d wish that instead of bailing out big companies, the government sent us all home with pay for 3 weeks so I could focus on keeping the kiddos happy and safe, and not worry about anything else while we’re home.