I started writing this post on January 21, 2021 and stopped. I probably got busy with the kids, or with work, or something and just never came back to it (obviously). That happens a lot with me and this blog since having kids (sorry about that!). When I logged in recently and saw that draft sitting there – Parenting in a Pandemic – I had to laugh. We had been in the pandemic for nearly a year and now it’s nearly a year past that. And never in my LIFE did I think we’d be still doing this masking, social distancing thing for 2 years.
Here’s my personal pandemic timeline:
- September 2019: Hooray, I’m pregnant with baby number 2!
- October 2019: My grandfather died 🙁
- December 2019: My oldest son (Connor – then almost 2 years old) and I got really sick with “a weird virus we’ve never seen before” (to quote the doctor at Children’s Hospital, where we had to take him because he was so ill)
- January 2020: My gallbladder decides after 6 years of giving me problems that it’s really done this time… my husband found me curled up in a ball on the floor of my office while my son was playing alone in the playroom (right next door) because I felt too sick to stand up and thought I might throw up but I didn’t want to go all the way to the bathroom because then I’d be too far away – off to the hospital we went
- February 2020: Had my gallbladder removed at 23 weeks pregnant because they couldn’t wait any longer
- March 2020: Connor fell and banged his eye on a lego. Blood everywhere. This was riiiight after lockdowns started (maybe a week or 2 later) here in Massachusetts/Rhode Island, so when we had to take him to the hospital they wouldn’t even let me – a pregnant woman – in the door. My husband took him in and I cried hysterically in the car while my baby got his eyelid stitched shut by a plastic surgeon
- April 2020: Admitted to the hospital with preeclampsia, again.
- May 2020: After 2 weeks of hanging out in the hospital had an emergency c-section at 2:30am and brought my super tiny baby into the world
- May 2020 – Now: Have basically been in the house, terrified to leave lest the kids get sick. My husband and I – and our entire extended families – are vaccinated, but since the kids aren’t, we have to still remain cautious. In this time, however, Connor has started pre-school and we’re so happy with how his school handles their Covid restrictions so that he can have some time with other kids.
What’s what glorious photo, you ask? Oh. Well. In September my husband got Covid after we attended my sister’s wedding and for 10 days I had to be solo with the kids, wearing a mask the entire time, while he was upstairs isolating away from us and periodically passing out from exhaustion (his only severe symptom). It was GRAND. Peep the unwashed hair, kid watching YouTube, and eyes with such dark circles I looked like I got into a fight. And this was only Day 2!
So yeah – my husband and I have basically been trapped in the house with 2 toddlers this entire time. As mentioned, Connor started pre-school, which has been great. And once vaccinations were widespread we hired a nanny 3 days per week because trying to parent while working this entire time has been excruciatingly difficult for us. My in-laws also come 1 day per week which is a godsend. I know some people might cringe at working from home and having their in-laws there, but I’m one of the lucky ones – I adore my in-laws. They are some of the best people I’ve ever met. It helps that they adore my kids and my kids adore them right back.
I think, at the time that I started writing this, I was going to write something about tips for parenting during a pandemic – maybe some work from home tips, I don’t know. Looking back at the time before the nanny I just don’t know how we did it. We were hanging on for dear life, just trying to keep our heads above water. Every day was a struggle – every. single. day. Nothing was easy. My husband and I were going stir crazy. My kids were ultra-clingy because we were the only 2 people they saw on a daily basis. Connor was probably confused because he went from having a huge family and people in and out all the time to seeing no one for weeks and weeks on end. I cried a lot. Connor spent WAAAAY too much time on the iPad (he still does, to be honest).
I guess my advice is… do what you have to do. At the end of the day, my kids are healthy and they’re happy. My husband and I are healthy and mostly happy although very stressed, haha. We wanted to be part of the solution by taking lockdowns and restrictions seriously, and we still feel that way. We are very pro-mask and pro-vaccine and we’ll continue to be. And hopefully, one day a few years from now both of my kids will be vaccinated and we’ll be able to look back at this time and be like “wow – that was something.” The boys will learn about The Pandemic in school and say “wow Mom, I was really there?” and I’ll say “Yeah, you really were.” Right now they’re young enough that they might not even remember all of this. It sucks right now. It’s hard. It’s stressful. It’s lonely. But – as they say with most things in motherhood – it’s “just a season of life.” It’ll hopefully be over one day and Covid shots will be as commonplace as Flu shots. It’ll just be something we do every year without thinking, without controversy – and the world will get back to “normal.”