I've tried staying awake to gaze into my little one's face as he drifts off to sleep in the crook of my arm, but I end up rocking myself to sleep, waking at some point with drool rolling down my face.
It's glam, y'all. This mama life is seriously glam.
Three weeks back into daycare amid a pandemic, I really don't know how we did it with the kids home with us and working, both my husband and I full-time. We did it because we had to, but when I think about my nearly 2-year-old son crawling through the baby's jungle gym during an important call with my entire team, wherein I had to keep a straight face (sort-of) while feeding a baby in my lap while my husband had a conference call in the other room, I can't catch my breath. I think back on that me and think how closely we came to everything crumbling.
Hell, who am I kidding? I crumbled. I cried between Zoom calls. For nearly three months, my husband and I walked around in a milky haze of graham crackers, half-folded laundry, Elmo, Mister Rogers and effing Pinkalicious. We did it until we just couldn't anymore.
The babies are back in daycare, and I imagine I'm being judged out there for that decision. How could you possibly send your babies -- YOUR BABIES -- back to daycare with the pandemic raging in Texas? Have you seen the hospitalization rate climb in your state? Seriously? That's Karen talking in my ear. When she's not calling the police on brown and Black people for doing nothing wrong, she's part-time talking to me about how I'm going to live for the rest of my life with the guilt of potentially sending my children to their deaths via group play and fruit cups.
I routinely tell Karen to put the phone down and just shut up. Because it was all unsustainable and there were zero options. Believe me, I ran them through every night as I cringed thinking of another day so helplessly torn between being a bad mother, a bad employee and an angry wife on the verge of a breakdown.
We've all made concessions. We're all hypocrites just trying to survive as the world seemingly dies around us. Our bubbles are floating in an ether called World Post-COVID 19, and we're all praying that our bubble is not going to burst.
However, being a hypocrite part-time is not full-time. We're wearing masks. We've been tested. We've lived through something that seemingly has no end. But there are many moments along the way. The today of many todays. A minute among the hours to fill.
I lost a friend to COVID-19. Young. A mother just like me. She had a little girl and a life and the world is somehow spinning on without her. I can't help thinking: Did she once fall asleep rocking a sweet, warm bundle cradled on her chest? Did she think how tenuous it all was? Did she wish for just one day more?
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