Friday, December 25, 2020

A day in the life of the pandemic

 I've really appreciated seeing what it's like for others during the pandemic so I thought I'd share more about what our day is like here. This is a typical day from this fall.

7:30 am - wake up, eat breakfast (we like to cook oatmeal), get dressed and put in a load of dishes and laundry

8:30 am - Big L starts school in our little office with a 10 min class meeting. After, we have a short 'family meeting' to get organized. Then the hubby "goes to" work (up in the bedroom) and I start homeschool with Little L. 

8:30-11 am - Big L attends school by dong schoolwork in the office and occasionally attending class or working with friends on zoom. She comes out a lot for technical or other kinds of help. The study hubby works and occasionally stops down to grab a snack. Little L and I homeschool and are on call to help Big L. We go through the calendar and work on activities from our homeschool program. Sometimes he plays long enough by himself for me to check my email or wash a pan.

11 am - I make lunch while Big L wraps up school and Little L repeatedly demands my attention or sometimes plays by himself

11:30 am - we (big L, little L and I) eat lunch

12 pm - "movement" time - we do an online yoga class, run around the yard or a "hike" on the treadmill. Sometimes we get out to an outside playdate with another family, this is very carefully planned out with only families that are extremely careful and trusted. Lately (as cases have gotten really bad) we've been mostly just getting out with one other family.

12:30 pm - The hubby takes over on the kids and he eats lunch while I go to work (up in the bedroom). The morning is very challenging and I am grateful for the break. I often roll right into meetings (virtually) starting at 12:30 and am in meetings straight until 5:30 or 6. I try to get through my email between (or during) the meetings.

12:30-1:30 - Big L takes a break and plays chess or draws while Little L and the hubby tear around the house.

1:30-3 pm - Big L goes back to school in the office, which is similar to the morning. The hubby and Little L continue to tear around the house. Sometimes, the hubby has a work meeting or works a little somehow.

3 pm - The hubby turns on the TV so he can work. Altogether he gets about 6 hours of work in and I get about 5. 

6 pm - we have dinner together (husband makes it), and run another load of dishes and laundry.

7 pm - We put Little L to bed. The hubby takes some down time while I read him books because he is on for the next stage.

7:30 pm - I am off duty again and the hubby takes care of lingering complaints from Little L and the bedtime battle with Big L while I exercise and get back to work. 

8:30 pm - Big L goes to bed. I work until 11:30, while the hubby exercises and/or works. Altogether we each get about 8 hrs of work in each weekday.

Sat/Sun this is the time we buy groceries, clean the house, work on house projects or baking, and organize ourselves for the week. I have to be quite organized because the week is so intense. We are also quite exhausted by the weekend. In fact, I hardly make it through Fridays. 

The schedule works but there is nothing extra. I have to be incredibly careful about filtering requests at work so as not to overburden myself. This is not easy because saying no to everything is not so good for my career so I am also very carefully prioritizing - it is a constant mental exercise and I am often rearranging meetings or changing deadlines so that I can make it all work. One thing that is essential is that we are not doing anything outside of the house on the weekends. This is how we get it all done so that we can make it through the week. If there is extra time we also manage some baking/sewing/house projects and they have been a really nice distraction from the extremely busy work week and the constant difficult news from the pandemic. 


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