Category: Parenting

  • Coronavirus: Day 11 At Home

    It has been so much harder getting a routine started at home with all of us on top of each other. My wife has been doing the heavy lifting with the kid; making sure our daughter gets her online school lessons in, and has creative time, and as well as baking projects. I have still been trying to find my balance with the new job; when I can work, and when I need to help out at home. Half of my day is spent on a video conference call, so making sure I am not in the way, and vice versa, has been challenging. But, we are making it work, and having a little fun as well.

    For us the adults in this house, we are both battling fears and anxieties of the outside world. What if we get sick? What if we have to go to the hospital? What if they lock down the City? What if we have to leave the City? Where would we go?

    I know this is clearly coming from our experience with the California wildfires, and that feeling of being totally underprepared for what happened to us. It’s like we want to get ahead of the virus, but being at home makes us feel helpless.

    We have to take turns boosting the other. Monday, I had a really bad day. Yesterday, my wife was having a bad one. We are trying to find ways to support each other through this, while also, not trying to freak the kid out.

    I guess this is our new normal.

  • Coronavirus: Still At Home

    It has been a tough four days getting used to being home all the time. We don’t have a big apartment, and we are making the best that we can with our day. We do have a schedule that we are trying to stick to, and also trying to make time for both of us to work, watch the kid, and also, we are trying to find some personal alone time to decompress. Walks are helping, but we are all feeling the strain of this new normal.

    I have to limit my access to the news, as it does bring me down, and make me feel rather hopeless. I was in a good mood this morning, then I had a computer issue that affected my ability to work, and that started me down a spiral of thought that we are in an un-survivable situation; That nothing will work or help.

    And then I took a deep breath, and played “store” with my daughter, and I felt a little better. I talked it over with my wife, who is also being brave but is filled with anxiety as well, and both of us admitting that we are nervous did take the pressure off. We are in this together.

    The best I can equate this to, is like the Great Depression. When the people’s lives, across just about every spectrum, were affected in such a titanic manner. My grandparents got through that, and even were able to joke about it. So, I know it can be done.

  • Coronavirus in NYC: Kids, Self-Quarantine, and Work

    We had planned on having to shelter at home as early as Friday, and we started making preparations. We shopped for a week and half’s worth of food. Knowing that the odds were that NYC schools would be closed on Monday, we went to our storage unit, which has been holding all of our things from the California move, and pulled out some of our books, DVDs, and all of the kid’s stuff. We don’t want to be the people who watch tv non-stop for a month.

    And we thought we had it all under control.

    But Monday did catch us off guard, a little. Such as, we talked about a plan, but we didn’t write it down. The City didn’t suspend alt-side parking, so the wife, kid, and dog had to go move the car and find a new parking space, which took time. (I don’t know why parking wasn’t suspended, but that really is a New Yorker complaint.) I was out doing laundry, and I did all of our laundry to be safe, and that also took longer than I thought. By lunchtime, we were running behind schedule.

    By early afternoon, I had my first day of work, and I am very thankful that I was able to do my four hours of training through video conferencing. I know that I am very lucky to be hired during a pandemic, and I am even more lucky that I am working for a company that is letting me start this job by remoting in. But that did mean that I was working at the desk, and couldn’t help with the kid, so my wife was solo parenting for half the day.

    After we put our daughter to bed, we sat down and planned out today. We made sure we both worked in time for the other to be alone for a bit, (writing for me, yoga for her) but most importantly, we planned out activities for our daughter; to keep learning, being creative, and having some limited outdoor time. I know that we will get through this, all of us, but we have to figure out a way to just get through the day.

  • Free Sick Day

    The kid was home sick today, and I was with her, remote working from the kitchen counter. I did the normal parent thing; let her watch tv while she lay on the couch, ate cracker and juice, made chicken soup. It was a free day for her, and I did have moments of remembering that feeling of the “sick free day.”

    When I was a kid, I was home with my mother most of the time, but at some point I know that I was left alone. I think that age was 10. I remember my parents calling and checking on me. I remember making toast, and cup o’ soup on my own. I remember game shows, and soap operas, and that feeling that the day was half over by the time the noon local news came on. I also remember as the day started draw to dusk, knowing my parents would be home soon, and that was the feeling that the day was over. I wanted the sick day to last forever, but it never did. Yet, I was happy to have my parents home to talk to.

    For the kid, it was Netflix, and binge watching cartoons. We talked, I blew her nose, and I wondered what about sick days will she remember? Relatively, I think it will be the same for her as it was for me. The feeling of having a free day, and then it slowly slips away. Except she is missing out on the world of game shows, like Card Sharks and Press your Luck.

  • I Need a Minute

    I am looking forward to the three-day weekend. Not just for the normal reasons, but also to have three days to get life back to normal.

    We have been running from place to place the day after Halloween. The 31st was the last day we had where we didn’t have to run errands or make some sort of arrangements. That was the day we could just focus on the kid, and make sure she had a good day. We couldn’t have pulled it off without our friends in LA, and they truly made it a memorable experience for the kid.

    Then we had to run to Texas for a planned family trip, and though it is great to see our families, it was still running, running, and more running.

    On Monday, we flew into LA where I got our car and cat and drove back home, while the wife and kid took a flight home. Their job was to get the apartment back in shape, as we had a fridge full of rotted food, a half carved pumpkin left on the kitchen counter.

    I spent 6 hours driving up the Central Valley working my way back to the Bay Area. The cat cried nonstop for two hours, which in turn caused me to turn Led Zeppelin up even louder. That honestly was the last time I got to relax, sort of. Driving and singing along to music that I really haven’t listened to in a long time.

    On Tuesday, we all went back to work and school, like nothing had happened.