Parenting is by no means easy.  So being a parent in the midst of a global pandemic is categorically not easy either.  So why are we expected as parents to have it all magically figured out?

In this bonus episode on my Brokenhearted Podcast, I’m here to tell it like it actually is.  It’s hard!  There’s so many unknowns! But I believe we’ll make it if we take care of ourselves first.

Let me know how you’re getting on.  DM me on Instagram: @altheabranton

You can subscribe to Brokenhearted on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify.

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE HERE.

Althea Branton is the host & producer of the podcast “Brokenhearted“.

A bit of a disclaimer..before I write about this…there is no judgement here..none, none at all, this post is just what is going on in my life and how I am feeling about it..

It started as a way to unwind…after a no good, awful, horrible, very bad day..

The kind that leaves you with a few more gray hairs than when you started..

(I am hoping when then this is all done I will have a nice white Rogue streak going down off my forehead. I mean something cool needs to come out of all this stress!)

Then it became an online thing with friends..friends that we don’t get to see in person right now, people that are part of our everyday routine that have been cut off because of this horrible crap storm we are in. 

Then it became just something to do..like the more snacking, it became justified by “why not, I am not driving or going anywhere, at all, for days on end.”

Then it stopped being at the end of the day ,it began at 5pm, 3pm and one awful day it started at 2pm..

Stay hydrated they say, drink more, they say and I have been, but it hasn’t always been water…and it hasn’t always been in moderation or just for fun.. 

It became what I call “The not so happy..Happy Hour”

It is mostly a bit of a joke..but underneath I realized that I have been drinking just a little too much and just a bit too hard. 

And I know exactly why I’m doing it..

This underlying fear, this just at the edge of having a big freak out panic attack, the hand washing after touching ANYTHING, the figuring out how to keep my kids safe and not have them mentally scarred for life.

This virus would flat out kill my youngest, she is tiny, she catches everything, she has asthma and I am scared shitless  ALL DAY! EVERYDAY!

There is so much BOREDOM!!

I am a non-essential massage therapist (doesn’t that title just kick me in the self esteem) I have not worked for over a month..dealing with stress is my job and I can’t do it, I can’t help others. It is breaking my heart.

So I poured a glass of something, and then another one, and then a few more…

Then I started to wonder how far it was going to go..the not so happy, Happy Hour…

A friend of mine asked me how doing mediation was going.. and I joked back “with a fifth of vodka it is going great!”

I decided then to dial back…a lot…like a whole lot…I make sure not to drink in front of my kids and not to make little comments like “you are all driving me to DRINK!” Even on the days when that is exactly what they are doing and they are doing it a lot.

I LOVE being a mom, we all say we want to spend more time with our kids and we mean it..but not like this. We parents did not want to be home with our kids like this, not with the threat of something huge and dangerous looming outside. The nagging feeling of not being able to provide coming from inside our heads..

Tonight is a weekly meet up with a bunch of friends…and yes I will have one cocktail.

Then I will stop for the rest of the weekend.

My goal is not to make a repeat of the “not so happy, Happy Hour”

Stay safe..and sometimes even sober..

I have wanted to write so often in the past few months.  First to tell my daughters birth story (which as I write this still hasn’t been written yet) and then to talk about all the stuff, all the shit that has happened in the world since she was born in early February.  So much heavy stuff.

Right now my 12 week old daughter is lying on the loveseat next to me, kicking my side with her little feet and looking out the window at the American Flag waving in the breeze.  She periodically uses her lunges to try out new sounds, and she tends to make really loud sounds rather than quiet babbles.  She is probably trying to get her dad’s attention.  This is the start of the second week of him working from home after having 6 weeks of paternity leave that just happened to coincide with quarantine. She is not used to him being home but unavailable for burping and cuddling.  She is not impressed with this state of affairs at all.

So much of this Spring has not gone as was originally planned.  And I didn’t have big massive plans either, because hello, I knew I was going to have a newborn.  And as much as every mom gets a sense of their child while they are still inside, even the fifth time around I couldn’t predict what kind of newborn personality we were going to get.  Especially since newborn personality is not the same as your toddler but often they are similar to the 5 year old you get later on.  But I digress.

We had planned to be able to get together with friends, just some cozy family visits with one or another family at a time.  I had thought I might be able to go on coffee girlfriend dates with our little one to get a break from all my other kids.  We snuck one in the first weekend in March before everything started, but that was it, and I had my hubby with me for that one as well.  

I miss shopping.  I don’t like grocery shopping, I really feel like it’s an annoying waste of time most of the time, but since quarantine, I miss how easy it used to be.  I haven’t been in a store in a long time because the small one needs me so my hubby has been making the shopping trips.  Small one and I have been going on the car ride (it is literally the only alone time hubby and I get because the kids are always here now and we need to sleep at night) but I don’t actually go in.  And even if I did I would have to wear a mask and deal with one way aisles in the store and not being able to go back in case I forgot something.  I miss the anonymity of shopping before and being able to get in and get out quickly.  Of not having to decide if something is essential or not, especially when it comes to runs to the hardware store.

Of course there are silver linings.  All of our meetings are now online and my weekly out late night for kids activities no longer happens.  I love the free plays and musicals currently offered online, as they give a nice schedule and something to look forward to on the weekends.  But I am tired of trying to catch up on all the other “educational” things we could be doing.  I mean this was going to be a tiring time to begin with.  I knew that.  I just thought I would be able to physically lean on my friends.  

And share my newborn with my close friends.  I take regular photos and videos which you can find on my instagram page as much for us as for my friends so they can get snippets of what our life is like with this precious one.  Because even when they get to see her through a car window or socially distanced or on a zoom meeting, it is not the same as getting to squish her or smell her newborn head.  

I am grateful that she is not my first born.  That I do not have as much need for mother meetings and LLL meetings and just being connected with other moms with small people.  That was so important and helpful for my other fourth trimesters.  But it’s not possible this time around and she has been a pretty healthy little girl who sleeps most nights so I am not constantly sleep deprived.  

But I don’t get much of anything done.  I function on the one or two things that need to get done each day.  Sometimes those are helping my older girls get through their Girl Scout homework (my 13 year old is doing her Silver Award project while having to do social distancing, which puts a new level of complexity on the project), or cook dinner.  I get excited when I can steal a few minutes to read a book, or listen to an audio book.  A lot of my audiobook time is now spent listening to TWiV (This Week in Virology) keeping up to date on the actual science of what is going on and how to protect my family.  Some days I get to knit or work on my latest quilting project.  Or make a new soap dish with our 3D printer.

But mainly I am holding my youngest and parenting my other kids and just trying to make it through the day.  I will never be able to untangle how much of my life is having a newborn at 40 and how much is also being quarantined in 2020.  

Read more HONEST parenting stories in my Mommy Rebellion Book!