Day 1: It Begins

Exhausted victory.

We survived the first week of corona-closure and working from home. It feels like a lifetime has passed as we transition to a new normal, and yet it's only been three days. There were ups and down, exhaustion and triumphs, but at least we made it through together. This post is a recap of the very beginning. Only three weeks left to go?

Day 1: March 18
Today marked my very first day living in a closed down state and first day as a working-from-home mom. I set my alarm for 7:45am instead of 6am (yay!) because of no commute and no need to dress up fancy (I'm not going to say I spent the day in pajamas but...I'm not going to deny it either). I ended up waking early anyway. Baby didn't sleep well the night before. Maybe it was teething, or maybe he sensed my anxiety about the big changes to come. I didn't sleep well the night before either, tossing and turning and having trouble nodding off as I worried about so many things outside our control. When would we get to see our parents again? Would there be rioting from the closures? How would this affect our economy? What would work be like tomorrow? I grabbed my phone, and the one positive email in my inbox was about all the sales going on at Shutterfly, a photography product company where you can upload your own personal photos and have them made into custom books, gifts, wall art and more. I distracted myself by ordering a 50% off desk caddy to help organize my new home office. I had my son's photos decorate the front, and I customized the words "Do it for him" on the front (a Simpsons reference, that my husband and I both deeply understood). At last I fell asleep.

The morning was actually better. Our little lockdown meant no Starbucks/Dunkin/Dutch Bros coffee run before work, and I still had to squeeze in some kind of breakfast for myself and my son, but it still felt less stressful than trying to manage a morning routine with a baby before a 40-minute commute. Since my husband is off work for now, he helped immensely, and I was able to log in to my online office portal with natural daylight streaming in through our backyard window at 8am.

Things moved pretty quickly after that. I did wonder if working 100% online would leave me struggling to find projects I could tackle in an online environment. But there was no need. Using Microsoft Teams as our communication tool, I checked every message and channel, put together signs and answered student questions. Read emails and drafted plans. Found images and made changes on our website. There was a lot of solidarity with my coworkers and I felt pretty good all morning, staying busy in my online element. There wasn't even time to check social media (which, given all the scary posts about the virus, was probably a good thing).

At noon, however, the day got a little harder. My lunch break was spent trying to quickly feed my son his lunch purees, and ending up with a huge mess of green veggies all over his face and body. It was adorable, but took time to clean. My husband wasn't too thrilled by it either. I had to nurse soon after that since hungry Baby didn't like the taste of his chicken mush, and so I ended up balancing my laptop on my nursing pillow, typing away at work with Disney piano music in the background and a sleeping baby on my lap. I was comfortable, feeling good about the work-life balance and grateful I was able to still feed my son while at work. But because of the rough night and lack of coffee, I was exhausted by 2:30, unable to stop the yawns. Finally, a couple of projects later, I made it to the end of the workday. Everything turned out okay. I could do this.

I spent the evening watching a TV show on Hulu that my mom recommended, and it was actually a lot of fun (Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist). We could only get through half of the second episode since we had to put Baby to bed, but that's life with any small child.

We all slept better that night, still anxious, but a little more rested. A little more assured that this was possible and we would be okay, for now at least. My son slept several more hours than the night before, and so did I.