The Gimbel Way of Life: Mama Daycare

After a super relaxing long weekend at Timber Cove Martin and I got back into cell range and received the dreaded email: daycare was closing immediately until April 3 at the earliest due to the coronavirus. To be fair, we had been talking about taking the kids out anyway in order to do our part of social distancing. The email just made it official and there was no turning back or backup plan.

The drive home was spent googling things like “daycare schedules”, “how to entertain a toddler” and “things to do with toddlers inside”. Multiple texts messages were also sent out to my mom friends as a mayday signal. And by Sunday night, we had locked down a daily schedule, I had 20+ organized activities for inside play and I had a large amazon order in the works for the missing essentials (painters tape, construction paper, stickers, etc).

One week in and here is how things are going:

Oskar has refused naps 4 of the 5 days but Alva is averaging over 90 minutes so that is good.

The schedule has been really helpful to break the day down into manageable chunks (for me) and make it more structured (for the kids)

By the end of the week we had doubled our screen time (Oskar is now up to 30 minutes a day)

FaceTime has been a godsend. We organized a six way play date on Wednesday and it was amazing. And when Oskar started to look a little lost and sad on Thursday, a quick phone call to a friend and family member helped bring him back.

Martin and I have been working split shifts with Martin’s office in the basement and mine in the downstairs apartment. I am averaging about four hours of real work a day and Martin is getting about three during work hours and an additional two to three after the kids go down. Unfortunately that also means that Martin and I don’t get a lot of alone time together.

Outside time has been the biggest challenge with us limiting our parameter to the alleyway and our deck. And with the weather hit or miss each day, we have had to get creative.

I realize everyday how under paid our teachers are and how much I miss going to the office for some social interactions.

I have never been more thankful for our home up at Timber Cove which has become our weekend house. Having the outdoor space and change of scenery has been a nice way to have a “weekend” when every other day feels the same.

On a personal note;

It took me less than four days to hit my breaking point with the new situation. I was on parent duty trying to get Oskar down and needed to tap out since my reserve of patience ran out. Martin was working and I had to send him a text message with a code red. He came up, no questions asked, within two minutes. I mentioned I had gone to the loony bin the next day over breakfast and Oskar now thinks the loony bin is a fun place to be.

I am trying to put on jeans every day to maintain some resemblance of normal life. But my diet has gone to crap and exercise has halted completely (from walking 3 miles a day and going to the gym three times a week to doing the stairs maybe twice daily). This shelter in place is definitely going to set me back a few months and I will need a solid weekend of detox (from wine, snacking, sweatpants) when this is all done.

One week in and things are okay. I think I can do this for a few more weeks but might lose my shit if this is our situation come May when we have to do a quarter end close and SEC filing all remote while juggling my second part time career of preschool teacher. Fingers crossed this social distancing thing works!!