Welcome back to the Motherhood in Quarantine Series! This is the seventh post in a series all about being a mother in quarantine!
Click here for post 1 by Kayla Tucker from San Diego, California!
Click here for post 2 by Jenna Hammer from Baltimore, Maryland!
Click here for post 3 by Lindsay Johnson from Riverside, California!
Click here for post 4 by Bethany Wagreich from Cinninati Ohio!
Click here for post 5 by Morgan Coulter from Millville, New Jersey!
Click here for post 6 by Paige from Fort Worth, Texas!
Hey all! My name is Megan Hardy and I am the mom and wine glass behind Momma’s Sippy Cup! I was lucky enough to turn 29 during quarantine. I have an almost 2 year old toddler tornado, 2 pups and a wonderful husband who I have been with for 7 years. I am a working mom who is lucky enough to work remotely (even before COVID).
I am just going to lay our cards out there and say quarantine was the roller coaster I never signed up to ride. I went through a full spectrum of emotions over the time (thankfully have reached the point of acceptance).
We moved 2 weeks before the stay at home orders began. My family had packed up our whole house, moved from Georgia to North Carolina for my husband to start a new job. We found a little “temporary” apartment we planned on spending little time in while we house hunted. (I am sure you can see where I am going with this!)
LIVING SITUATION
Then came quarantine! Welcome to 800 Sq. feet of apartment living with 2 dogs, 2 adults trying to work from home and a toddler. It was cramped to say the least, we were learning as we went and it wasn’t going well at first. We were very on top of each other, trying to speak over each other, trying to work over cartoons. Space was something we had taken for granted up until this point. Without an outdoor space we got extremely creative. We spent the mornings before work taking big walks, we got bubble machines and danced on the patio, we did a lot of picnic meals & searched for secret beaches. During all of this I realized how even the simplest of things could be fun & that finding an activity didn’t need to be as complicated as I had always made it out to be! Seeing my daughter sit at the door and ask to go outside was always so thrilling as she was so happy to just take the sunshine in!
WORKING FROM HOME
I worked from home (I am an account executive for a tech company) completely prior to quarantine and I didn’t think much would change with the quarantine. However, with the space issue (see above), and with a lot of toddler neediness it definitely changed some. My husbands job was calls from 9-5 as he was still in training so at first my job took a little side road, which only caused me more stress. I realized that that didn’t make sense for us long term. So yeah we watched a little more TV while mom was on calls, we did double time work during nap time and joined a LOT of moms video calls.
OVERALL
Overall I dealt with a lot of emotions from anger to sadness to acceptance. Once I reached the phase of acceptance I realized I will probably look back and cherish this time. My husband and I have probably spent more time together in the last few months than we have in 7 years. We learned how to communicate better, how to be a team in parenting, I watched my husband build a stronger relationship with our daughter. My daughter and I worked on her language together, we got to understand each other more, we went from tantrums to understanding. We picked up new hobbies and spent more time outdoors. We reprioritized things in life. Now, I am not saying let’s stick to this forever, but it wasn’t half bad!
Meg! You are a rockstar! I’m so grateful that I rarely worked from home because it would have been a crap shoot. You handled all those changes with so much grace! Proud to call you my friend