I never imagined that I’d be confined to my home with a 5 year old, 3 year old and a 2.5 year old. It’s been eventful I will tell you that. We are beyond fortunate. We have a pool in our backyard and it’s been pretty much our saving grace, but let’s get down to the nitty gritty though of what it’s really been like.
Anywhere between 5-6:30 in the morning my husband will wake up and head upstairs to his office. Around 7:15-7:30 my middle child Connor will come in and jump in bed. Usually about 10-20 mins later my oldest Raegan will come in and express to me no less than 6 times how tired she is. I grab the nearest pair of Ugg slippers, also forgo the bra, change from sleeping shorts to joggers and join the kids in the living room. Then my shift as short order cook starts. Cereal is always my first suggestion to them, but most of the time the response is waffles, pancakes, sausages or Chick-Fi-La. I have tried my hardest during this time to convince my non-egg eating kids to eat eggs, but I’ve been widely unsuccessful. After scraping something together I usually hear calls of, “Ma! Ma! Ma” from my youngest’s room. Ella usually greets me with a stinky morning surprise (although I guess I shouldn’t call it that anymore since it is highly predictable) and a smile. The kids usually watch a little something on TV for a bit so I can mainline some caffeine and try to determine how we’re going to make it to bed time. It’s only then I hear noises from the pantry and realize Ella has helped herself to a variety of snacks because she was asleep during the first round of breakfast and hasn’t eaten. Ella has also found a juice cup from yesterday and she’s now hydrating herself.
After the show is over it begins… “what are we going to do today?” and I literally have zero answer. To the kids though my answer is always something along the lines of, “do lots of fun stuff and make it the best day ever.” It only took them 3 days to realize I was full of shit. Many nights I would scroll Pinterest and think I had an arsenal of weapons against boredom for them for the next day, but zero execution happened when the game was on the line. However, I was really good at ordering them endless “surprises” off of Amazon that was sure to teach them how to appreciate gifts and the true value of things. Nailed that one. By this time we’ve almost made it to lunch. There was one of two options usually for lunch make something that will probably receive heavier criticism than whether or not pineapple belongs on pizza or go on a car adventure to a drive thru. There were pluses and minus to both instances. The less driving we did during quarantine the more of a hassle it seemed to load up the three kids in the car, but it was nice to get out a bit and waste some time on an “adventure”. Staying home meant having to deal with prep and clean up, but at least we were able to not do the get in the car struggle. After making one of those decisions my husband would usually come downstairs and the kids would act as if JC himself had graced us with his presence. “Dad, Dad, Dad, I love you, I want to give you a hug, When are you going to be done?” and then he’d quickly grab a Cliff Bar, a drink and run back upstairs. Meltdowns would start and I’d be stuck in the kitchen with my floppy boobs trying to distract them all from the Daddy disappointment. 5 hours until dinner…
What to do now? It was at the start of quarantine that my 2.5 year old decided it would be a great time to quit naps. Seriously? There could be no worse timing than that. So without a nap she would whine through the afternoon. At this point I’d have to pull something out of my ass. Activity suggestions such us- hey kids want to make cars out of cardboard boxes? How about a big fort? Help me clean the toilets? Look out the window for squirrels? Should we get the dried up Play-Doh out? Want to color? Sometimes these suggestions received overwhelming excited responses and sometimes it was the opposite. Or worse, sometimes it was just an excited response from one kid and a hard no from the other. Now I had to convince one child to approve the activity they just vetoed or convince the excited child that the activity they wanted to do was not going to happen. Finally we all decide on something to do to get us through the next 11 minutes before we’re all bored again and back to square one. At this point I’m highly suggesting ipads so that I might have 3 mins to shower and brush my teeth. Post splash water on myself the countdown starts until my husband is done. I try not to send the, “when are you going to be finished?” text. I try not to send kids up to his office to “see what Daddy is doing”. I try not to loudly scream at the top of my lungs, “BRENDAN, GET DOWN HERE”. When he finally comes downstairs I inform him I have zero plans for dinner and he informs me he has zero desire to cook. We then spend about 30-47 minutes trying to decide on one of the 6 restaurant delivery options DoorDash has in our area. We then wait for dinner…
If it was nice enough and the water was warm enough we’d take the kids in the pool while waiting for our food to arrive. Food arrives and it’s a quick rush to get 3 soaking wet tired kids, dressed and ready for dinner. Eating dinner with three kids 5 and under is very similar to attending Catholic mass, sit, stand, sit, stand, kneel, sit. “Mom, can I get a drink?” “Can I have some ketchup?” “Can I have another margarita?” “I spilled!” and so on and so on. I wish I was one of those Moms who says, “Oh well I never get the chance to eat that’s why I’m so petite and cute”. Me on the other hand? I take my 38 seconds I have to nourish myself and shove whatever it is I can in my mouth. Dinner done and now we convince them all to sit down to watch a movie. They all decide we should watch the new Trolls again and we’re so happy they agree on something we will gladly shovel over another $20 to Dreamworks to keep our kids quiet. My husband and I sit on opposite ends of the couch smushed by kids and we stare at our phones. We put the kids to bed and we come back to the couch, sit on opposite sides, stare at our phones until we’re tired enough to go to bed ourselves. Wake up, repeat for months and months and months.
