The phone rings after 8:00pm on Sunday September 20th. It’s the automated message telling me my child is not eligible for bussing this year. Had we not made the life-altering decision to have our oldest attend virtual kindergarten this would have been another major wrench thrown into the plans of parents who under this pandemic are suffocating. I am struck by and sometimes even paralyzed by the privilege I have to keep my kids home and therefore feel no right to complain about the unimaginable burden we are taking on.

I posted this on March 17, 2020, before we went into lockdown, when I could already see people not taking it seriously. I should also qualify, that when quarantine started, I was living with my partner’s wonderful grandparents, whose age made them extremely high-risk. COVID was life and death for me from Day One – and even though we have since moved, I have never been able to shed the rigidity of my quarantine. In some ways, I think it forced us to follow the guidelines when we may have otherwise tried to push the limits as so many have.

As someone who has delayed my child’s vaccines, had groceries delivered, Lysoled everything that came from outside and limited my movements from my home to only essential purposes for months, I am stunned by the regularity that has remained for so many of those around me. In no way has our approach to COVID accounted for the safety of our senior citizens.

Our ‘leaders’ rushed us through the phases towards this cluster f*** we find ourselves in now with cases on the steady incline everyday this month. September loomed in the far recesses of every decision maker’s mind while parents put all their faith into the ‘experts’ who would hopefully come up with a plan to rescue us from this stay-at-home/work-parent-hell.

As far as I know, and I would like to consider myself informed, we are not in a much better position to combat COVID than we were in March when we decided to shutdown our schools. (We weren’t ready to cancel March Break, but I imagine that when we Zoom Christmas 2020, all those Spring Break trips might seem a bit inappropriate for a pandemic.) But just as March break was the ‘comfortable’ time to stop school, the powers at be have decided arbitrarily that September is the right time to resume, according to the natural school year and against the very clear scientific evidence at our disposal.

Gratefully, although I am a teacher, my job is not in the classroom so I have been able to devote every waking moment not spent keeping my kids alive, still earning a living. Many, many of my friends are teachers, some of whom have kids of their own who are facing impossible choices and taking unacceptable risks as the latest in the long line of abused ‘front line workers.’ Some friends have not even gotten their class assignments and can therefore not even spend this time preparing for the 2-3 grade collapsed class they will likely get. Other friends were unfortunately assigned to virtual learning but are still expected to show up to the school and teach in their empty classrooms. That is just insulting.

Summer teased us with her beautiful long days, sewn together by few and fleeting rain showers, giving us that taste of normal we spent half of winter wondering if we would ever feel again. Seemingly overnight, fall has rolled in, and all those late night summer distanced gatherings in the backyard are a lot less comfortable. I feel like I am preparing for storm season, falling back into my early quarantine habits like boarding up windows and battening down hatches. And I am so mad because I do not think it has to be this way and to everyone who needs to hear this, you could have done more.

Almost everyone I know feels that another lock-dock is imminent and yet we are so powerless watching as strip-clubs and bars keep pumping out positive results in the daily headlines. Every effort should have been made to make society safe so that we could send our kids back into it protected. Schools need to reopen for everyone’s sake – you will never catch me denying that. But teachers are not babysitters, and schools are not daycares that allow parents to work. The rush to open them with pathetic plans that almost guarantee sick kids is appalling. You could have done more.

To all the leaders responsible for steering us through this storm – no one expects you to know the solution – these are unprecedented times. That being said, you had the time and an abundance of resources from teachers and other members of the school community to come up with a plan that had a chance to succeed. You could have done more.

Getting my feelings out in writing helped ease me into this quarantine life. It brought my feelings into the forefront and gave me an outlet for all of the confusing emotions and thoughts that have taken centerstage in my mind. It almost felt like a life raft that helped me float above the swirling currents of news and fear and worry. At some point along the way though my raft sprung a leak and all my thoughts and feelings got swallowed up in this giant black hole of uncertainty. Suddenly the process of writing didn’t alleviate my worries, it just took them from the abstract and made them real things reflected back at me like a mirror depicting someone who looks like someone I used to know.

I feel like I’ve change so much as a person in the last 10 weeks that I’m even having a hard time keeping up. In a lot of ways I feel like a grown-up. We’ve been on our own taking care of our kids without any help for over 100 days and if you would asked me three months ago if I could even imagine that amount of uninterrupted parenting I would be on the floor rolling around in hysterics. I’ve had some of the lowest, most meaning-of-life-questioning moments during this quarantine and made it through all of them, maybe a little battered and bruised but still in one piece. I don’t like that my children have borne witness to my struggles but I hope seeing me as a human with flaws will allow them to accept their own shortcomings and those of others.

Daily twilight walks through the forest have become an important part of my self-care and have kept me grounded and immersed in the natural beauty of our world which lately seems to be one of the only constants in our life. I’ve watched trout lilies sprout and blossom, secret trilliums blooming for only a lucky few to see, stumbled across a nest full of baby bunnies, watched the stars with the bats and in the most enchanting of experiences, had a coyote walk right by me. All day I yearn to be back in the woods and stay as late as the sunlight will allow until the nocturnal creatures start emerge. This ritual has become as important to my day as air is to my lungs and yesterday’s walk will be one I never forget.

As I sat on a stump listening to my music a woman walked past and waved from a distance. She got maybe couple hundred yards and I could feel she was going to come and talk to me and typically I don’t love talking to strangers. She said she’s been having a really hard day and wondered if it wouldn’t bother me if she sat 6 feet away and just vented to me for a bit because she had no one to talk to. She was very troubled and more than once said she was seriously considering taking her own life. I didn’t know what to do but I knew I could talk to her so we talked and I made her laugh a few times but I really didn’t know what was gonna happen to her after this interaction ended. I wrestled in my mind with calling 911 and ultimately that’s what I did. I don’t know what ended up happening but I know she had no one at home waiting for her and that she needed to talk to someone so badly that I figured the professionals would probably be better than me.

I have found treasures in almost all of my forest walks and when I replay it in my mind I don’t know who needed to meet who more in that scenario. I know that it changed my perspective and I really hope that it was the start of something really good for her too.

I can’t quite find the words to describe it but it feels like there has been a shift in consciousness regarding the prognosis for our summer. Government institutions have started to toss around the idea of rolling back social distancing measures and some countries who saw their outbreaks peaking weeks and months ago have started to emerge from their isolation. While I find this all fascinating and extremely hopeful for those of us still in the midst, I am nowhere near ready to abandon these safety measures that have not only kept us safe but come to represent the only semblance of control we have over our immediate circumstances. As someone who has struggled with anxious thoughts and saw them increase in frequency and intensity when I stepped into motherhood, I can’t deny a certain level of comfort that I feel being removed from so many uncontrollable factors. But from the comfort of our bubble, I can feel everyone unshackling themselves from the grips of winter and yearning for any indication we are on the road back to ‘normal’. As much as I want to join in this revelry, from where I’m standing not much has changed. While the experts stress that the stabilizing number of new cases reflects our diligent efforts to remain isolated I worry about how many people see this as a signal to relax the safety measures that at this point are just keeping the enemy at bay. The war is still waging and if you are lucky enough to be able to stay home I hope you continue to do so.

The ideas for these blogs usually stem from some overwhelming thought or feeling that has taken front and centre in my mind and I usually run out of things to say at about this point where I’ve outlined some internal struggle that I think other people may relate to…but then I am struck with the thought that for anyone who may take the time to read this I’d like to leave them with some small seed of optimism. And this is usually followed by some reflection on what silver lining or nugget of goodness can be taken away from my thoughts of the day and transforms this exercise in public venting into a pretty powerful mindset altering moment for me – so to anyone who’s ever read my words, thank you for helping me remind myself where to look amidst all the darkness.

What I take away from this particular thought is to really recognize the collective effort that we’ve made as a species towards a common goal. This is not to say that as a society we do not face numerous worldwide issues that everyone should care about but to focus on that now is not productive. What I think is important to highlight is that this is an example of an instance where the actions of one person makes a monumental difference because every single person who makes the decision to isolate and do absolutely everything they can to prevent the spread is an integral part of the solution. It’s a very strange juxtaposition to hold so much power and feel so helpless at the same time but we’ve proven that we can make the necessary sacrifices for the greater good which if I’m being perfectly honest is something I’ve doubted of humanity throughout the course of my life. As much as I worry about how I will allow myself and my children to reenter the world after this pandemic it helps to believe that because of everything we’ve gone through that world stands a chance of being a much better place then the one they were born into these last few years 🌎

This week definitely was a roller coaster with what seems to be never ending power struggles, arguments, debates, negotiations and meltdowns drowning out almost everything else. I thought I had a huge win two nights ago after downloading the trial of the Moshi app and enjoying the meditative pirate story that seem to have taken both the children peacefully off to dreamland. Much to my surprise a quick visit to re-tuck the youngest a couple hrs later reveals the bright blue light of a tablet emanating from my eldest’s bed. It was an extremely jarring experience and something that will require much processing because I thought I had time before my kids would be sneaking around and pretty much getting away with it. That feeling your parents tell you you’ll never understand until you have your own children started to creep up my back and it seemed like I had unlocked a new level of parenting, which came preloaded with new and exciting fears and worries you are surprised YOU hadn’t even imagined yet. I had left him listening to that app fully believing he was asleep and the risks posed by the unsupervised device in his bedroom had never occurred to me. Aside from all the thinking that came as a result of this incident it also brought to light the very real fact that until now, as his parents we do not represent the highest authority figure in our son’s life. He was very used to the structure and order of his routine day and I am so grateful that he was able to adjust so well and we were only hearing great things from his teacher. He understood the rules and what the consequences were for breaking them and did his best to stay out of trouble. His time outside of school was characterized by fun dinners at his grandparents’ houses, sleepovers with his aunts, weekly trips to the zoo and a pretty liberal allotment of screentime and treats. It’s unlikely I will ever forget the look of confusion on his face that I see daily as we battle back-and-forth both completely shocked by the behaviour of the other as I’m reaming him out for opening the door and letting our cat out or unbuckling his brother from his high chair and running up two flights of stairs and hiding from me. It took me a while to catch on that he doesn’t understand why all of a sudden this part of his life that used to be almost exclusively about fun now comes with so many rules that he seems to be constantly breaking. He can’t possibly see how the structure and order we are trying to foster is there for everyone’s benefit especially, when on the hard days even I wonder what I’m doing . I wish there was a virtual principal’s office because every day I worry that he’s gonna call my bluff and realize that there is nobody behind the curtain and there’s really not much I can do if he really puts his mind to something. Luckily, the bad days are most always followed by good days and the wonderful moments still shine the brightest. For now we are going to experiment with some behaviour charts and stickers but all of my training and experience has left me feeling no more prepared when it comes to my own offspring.

I think that to most parents, bedtime is a very significant concept. No matter what kind of power struggles arise, it represents the first time in a parents’ day they may be able to focus on anything other than their children. Some days I find myself watching the clock counting down the hours and other days seem to breeze by so easily that I don’t feel so desperate for that break. Lately, however, bedtime has come to represent the singular goal for the day and tucking my kids into bed has become akin to punching out at the end of a long shift. So when my four-year-old showed up at our bedroom door last night over two hours after bedtime and numerous attempts on both of our parts to get him to stay in his bed, the first thought I had was that I was off clock. For that instant, he wasn’t my baby who was obviously struggling in his own way with all the uncertainty in the world, he was a job that I was finished with for the day. I spend so much time planning what I can do to make my children’s lives interesting and exciting and worry so much about the impact this will all have on them and when the best opportunity to provide real, meaningful comfort presents itself, I can’t muster the strength or desire. Thankfully I tapped into some extras drops of ‘mom-fuel’ and trotted him back to his bed only to confront the very real possibility that I would end up sleeping in his small bed overcrowded with stuffies. I made a quick judgment call and weighed the pros and cons of sleeping with him in his bed or bringing him into mine where I might at least have a chance at some decent sleep. I scooped him up and to his extreme delight, snuggled him into my bed. I don’t know what the right thing to do would have been but being able to provide him that comfort felt really good 💕

The trials of parenthood are the last thoughts on the minds of those two young kids in the picture above. When this picture was taken, there was no way you could ever convince me this is where we would end up so many years later. As our lives became more intertwined so too did our dreams and an unconditional commitment to support each other developed. We adapted through new jobs, new schools, numerous moves, and commutes with the unwavering belief that the life we were building together created the feeling of home, no matter our physical surroundings. Even this, what I would consider, solid foundation did not prepare me for how our meaning to each other changes when you have kids. Even though we were used to working hard and making sacrifices, there’s still a little room in your life to be selfish before you have kids. after having kids you not only have to become immediately OK with giving up so much of the freedom you had come to enjoy but you are also the only person who can facilitate any freedom for your partner. So many of the elements that made up the best parts of your relationship get bumped further and further down the list as more life and death needs take precedence. There’s no way that those kids in the picture could’ve possibly imagined that however many years later, the very things that brought them together would be allotted next to no time. Another thing I didn’t expect to happen was how separate our spheres of existence became once we had kids, with myself taking charge of the homefront while my co-captain braves the rat race every day. Often we were like ships passing in the night, even developing different sleeping patterns to balance the demands of the day. Exhaustion has a remarkable way of shutting you down no matter how badly you wish you could start a new show or even find the time to do a Sudoku together. The unnatural disruption of our individual orbits of late has called into play those evolutionary strategies that helped us make it to this point and (not without lots of work and recalibration) we are seeing new pieces falling into place. One thing that drew us together was how many differences we had ranging from skills, experiences and beliefs and now we have our combined talents at our disposal to tackle whatever the day throws at us. I have noticed that we are at our best when we let each other take the lead when we feel the other might know better – and 99% of the time we both end up learning something. There’s a lot more to say about how the partnership works under these new terms. So far it feels good to see the products of the work we do together. As much as having kids has turned our life into something we could never imagine, they also remind us of such a vivid time in our lives that we cherish and hope to recapture in the memories of our boys. ❤️

An unspoken feeling of dread consumed our house this morning as we groggily reassembled our home office space and tried to imagine ways to get through this day as painlessly as possible. Our very perceptive four-year-old says ‘is it a school and workday daddy?’ ‘Yep’ he replies as he punches the security key into his new work issued laptop. His next questions follow along a similar benign track acknowledging the rainy day, mentally preparing all the gear he will need to stay dry, expressing extreme excitement to be able to wear his new Spiderman rain boots. We transition downstairs to the safety of their bedroom/playroom and while my youngest starts lining up his mini paw patrol figures my eldest is rifling through drawers, trying to find his school uniform. My mind did a speed rewind back to his first question of the day, ‘is it a school/work day?’ And I realize that he’s just waiting for us to tell him that it’s time for things to go back to normal. At first it made me really sad to have to let him down. But the next thing I thought about is that every single day since his first day of daycare when he was 14 months old, until his second last day of junior kindergarten before the quarantine he would cry, strike that wail, every single drop off. Now I’m looking at the same boy but he’s not just ready for school, he’s excited. As much as I long for these public health measures to be relaxed and for my children to re-enter the public sphere, I am not ready to trust a world that previously was scary but now has become a thing of nightmares. It brings me a lot of comfort to see that perhaps these fears and anxieties that I’m sure will linger within me long after it’s safe to leave our homes again do not have such a strong hold on my babies. The world for him was overflowing with love from all the family we are lucky to live so close to, his teachers who I have always considered family and even friendly strangers who go out of their way to say hello. I hope that I can use his courage and wonder to remind me at the world has always been this way but to truly live means to face those fears in order to embrace all the amazing opportunities ⭐️