There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to successfully survive a horror movie

I am not a person to panic in reasonable situations. Read that again. I am not a person to panic in reasonable situations. 🥴 Oh no no no…I like to panic when it makes no sense at all to anyone. It’s my specialty. The world has been panicking with the Coronavirus pandemic. I have not been scared or worried this entire time. I actually kept telling Ben that we don’t need to go to the grocery store. I even played a dangerous game of “let’s get down to two rolls of toilet paper before we try to find more in a pandemic.” What can I say? I’m fun!

No, but seriously. Everyone around me has been panicking and stressing out over how all of this is going to pan out. There’s just no telling how real this situation is, how dangerous the virus can be to everyone, and how long this will last. Why spend your time worrying about that, when you still have to make it through today?

Last night, we setup my home office in the living room so Waylin has access to toys, space to roam, and lots of screen time! 😁

This is what I was expecting my first day to be like:

HER: Tantrums. Snacks. More tantrums.

ME: STRESS POURING OUT OF MY EYEBALLS TRYING TO GET EVERYTHING DONE.

…an absolute horror film. And maybe it will go that way a couple times during this “shelter in place” order, but here’s how it really went:

🗣️: How’s your first day working from home going, Stevie?

👧: smirks…

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.

She is the best. And I mean that with all sincerity.

I think my goal for survival is to just look at this day to day. You have to breakdown your day into little chunks of time and most importantly, you cannot expect 8+ hours of solid work output from yourself as you would when you are sitting in an office…child-less. Your expectations have to be different (not necessarily lowered) during these times or you will stress yourself to death.

I don’t think a lot of people really know what I do for a living or know how incredibly stressful my job is even when we’re NOT in a global pandemic. Even Ben is getting to see a little bit of what I do every day and he said he had no idea my job was that hard or involved. HAH! My husband of almost 4 years said that!

I’m not just sitting at home getting to play with my daughter. I am working around the clock as an employee and a mom (and a wife/housekeeper). It is incredibly exhausting, but that is why you have to give yourself grace. You cannot have the same expectations for yourself. You will lose every time.

It is my hope that Waylin and I can get into the swing of things with a loose routine. I’m not a routine mom that has every activity planned to the hour. I wing it and hope there’s a cold beer in the fridge at night. :) Maybe two…🍻

Let’s see where these teleworking adventures take us!