It’s sort of ironic now, but ‘couple faces the apocalypse with a baby’ was always one of my favourite fiction tropes. I just never expected to be living it! Or well, it’s not quite the apocalypse of course. And we are all healthy here, luckily. I imagine that the lockdown has impacted us less than it has most people really. Jo works from home now, but she still works the same hours. And I am minding Freya all day, a baby does not have a pause button!
At times I fantasise about what this time could have been like for me if we didn’t have her yet – the writing I could have done! The time I would have had! But in truth I’m grateful of the distraction that having a baby provides, we are always busy and there is always more to be done.
Freya is thriving. At four and a half months she can roll over, grab objects and put them into her mouth, babble, blow spit bubbles, and sit with minimal assistance. She’s generally of a sunny disposition. We carry her in the wrap for hours a day, she is breastfed whenever she wants to be, she sleeps in bed on top of me, and we never let her just cry. All of that might seem outlandish to people of an older generation, but I can’t see us raising her any other way. She is happy, and so are we.
And I am now, happy. I have been honest on this blog about how overwhelming the first weeks of being a mother were for me, how strange and huge it all seemed, how exhausted and alienated I felt. Now, several months on, my body has mostly healed. My mind feels clearer. And I have had the mental and emotional space to truly connect with Freya in the way I always wanted to. There are still moments where it’s all a bit much, but the vast majority of the time I feel at ease and I love having her around.
I am missing a lot of things right now, this is NOT how I imagined my life as a new mum would be… Before the quarantine started I was enjoying the baby massage classes, the mama&baby yoga classes, and meeting up with other mums and friends daily, I was doing my very best to get out of the house with Freya often. But now everything has slowed down. I still take her out every day for a walk in the neighbourhood, but that’s it. I worry about the impact this will have on her social development, as she is not seeing anyone closely except us two. She probably will not remember other people by the time this is over. I have moments of feeling very isolated as well, but we are muddling through.
So in all… we live in strange times now, so much so that it often doesn’t seem real to me. But I am deeply grateful to get to be quarantined with my favourite two people in the world. It’s hard to be sad for too long when there’s a little Sunshine to cuddle ;)
I’m glad you’re safe, well, and happy! It’s kind of funny to think of how Freya will not remember this experience at all when she’s older. I’m sure she’ll hear many times about the great pandemic that changed the lives of everyone around the world, while she was totally unaware of it because she was just a baby.
Ha yes, I am already imagining questions from her ten years from now for her homework, ‘tell me mama, what happened during the corona crisis?’ Or us telling her ‘when you were that little, we weren’t even allowed to sit on benches outside, or the police would arrest us!’ Strange, strange times! But it could be so much worse, we are very lucky and we know it <3
❤❤❤
<3 to you!!!