What I’ve Learned in Four Weeks at Home

We are still in transition. I am still getting used to not having to leave to go to work. Here’s what I’ve learned in four weeks at home together:

1. I don’t have to dread mornings. My oldest daughter used to have a meltdown almost every day. I would start a countdown as I brushed teeth and wrestled on shoes:  10, 9, 8, 7….get out the door! I knew if I could just hold on they would go to daycare and I could go sit in my beautiful grown up office and listen to the radio. Evenings were the same, a holding on countdown to bedtime. There are fewer meltdowns now, because we are less hurried, but when they do happen things are different. Because we’re all in it together now baby! There’s no running away from each other. They happen, we talk about it, and then we go on. They don’t define the day and they don’t define her.  

2. Even though we are together all day, I feel like my life is more spacious. I am more generous with my time. Right now, as I am writing this post, my youngest is pressed up against my knee playing with a dollhouse. The oldest is on her belly in front of the dog kennel sketching. We are together, all doing our own type of work. I’ve stopped trying to find uninterrupted moments. I sit in the living room or in the kitchen, and I let myself be interrupted. I listen to the questions and the singing and the wall bumping. I work out of the middle.

3. I love being outside every day. Going out for at least 15 minutes a day has been on my to-do list for years, but there would be literal weeks where the only time I was outside was when I was walking from a building to my car. A black and blue butterfly and a crimson headed woodpecker and a family of insane squirrels live in my yard. They are my outdoor friends. I pulled up all my vegetables and planted wildflowers.

4. I want my girls to draw and sing and dance. I want them to plant flowers and wait for them to grow. I want them to love books and to learn to sit quietly. They do all of these things, because I do them. It is a heavy responsibility and a gift to be who I want them to be. It is weight and it is freedom. It is a call to self-care. I want them to have free, life-loving spirits. I want that too.

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