the ups and downs of an average day

It’s usually hard for me to distinguish between a good day and a bad day. When people ask “how are you?” I don’t really know how to answer. My kneejerk reaction is to say good to just make sure the conversation ends there, but is that the truth or am I just being polite? I really think we are doing well. But saying that implies some sort of healing that I don’t think has happened to us yet. We are surviving well, yes. But I’m also solo parenting two kids under 5, starting my life over from scratch, while working from home and living in a tiny studio apartment above my mom’s boyfriend’s garage. Like… shit’s tough.

But today felt so completely average and normal that I noticed the shift. Today it felt like we were really just following a routine instead of struggling to set them. I hadn’t had that feeling yet. It was completely chaotic and busy like all my days are, but there was a sense of predictability and familiarity that allowed me to exhale a bit for the first time since my husband died almost 4 months ago.

6am. My alarm starts going off. Both kids are still asleep, which is rare since we moved. Axl used to sleep in until 8 or 9am, but right now we’re all sleeping in one space so once one of us is up, we all seem to be. I continue to hit snooze until I hear the baby wake up in his pack and play at the foot of the bed.

7am. Holy shit, the kids are both still asleep. I understand I’ll regret having to get out the door in a mere 45 minutes, but having that whole hour of being able to check the time, realize it was still quiet, and get to hit snooze for another 7 minutes? That was pure heaven. Worth it.

I get Ford up, change him, and then scoop and mix a bottle of formula with one hand while I balance him on my hip. My wrists constantly hurt from the awkward angles I’m always having to hold him at so I can do everything one-handed, but I can now do literally anything with him on one hip or strapped to me, and it does make me feel like quite a badass. I feed him across the room. Axl is still asleep in my bed, but not for long. He wakes up when Ford is halfway through his bottle and squeezes in the chair with Ford and me. “It’s me, your big brother!” he exclaims, then he asks if he can “join the party.” The baby absolutely beams at him as always. Ford loves no one, not even me, more than he loves his big brother. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

I put Ford in his pack and play with his toys (him being able to just about fully support himself sitting and roll around grabbing and gnawing on toys has been literally the best thing to have happened to me in the last 6 months of his life), and get Axl breakfast. While he eats, I throw on some sweatpants and get my hair out of my face. Good enough for morning drop-off, I suppose. I pack up his lunchbox and fill his water bottle. Help him get dressed and brush his hair and teeth. I change the baby, bundle him up for the early morning spring chill, and load us all into the car.

8am. On the drive to school, I think about how Jim says I need new tires. He asked when my last oil change was, and I didn’t know. Pete took care of all that kind of stuff. I did our finances, a lot of the daily grind of childcare stuff, but he took care of a lot that I never had to be involved with, which included anything that had to do with the car. As I listen to the soundtrack of Encanto for the 46th time this week at Axl’s insistence, I inwardly just panic about car stuff and the logistics of how I can drop off my car at the mechanic to get everything checked out.

At school, Axl does a pretty good job at drop-off. Most days he is indifferent about me leaving, but today is a Monday, and after 3 days straight home with me they can be a little bit rough transition-wise. Today his lip was quivering, but he still hugged me goodbye and donned his wizard hat and helped Ms. Christy take the chairs off the tables. I drive home listening to a podcast, thankful for the few car rides I get a week where I can listen to whatever I want.

Ford falls asleep in the car on the 15 minute drive home. Sometimes I sit in the car for a bit to let him sleep and make sure he gets a good enough nap. Today, I bring him straight upstairs and he shocks me by staying asleep. By some miracle, I make a cup of coffee, answer 10 emails, and get all my gift card orders prepped to be mailed before he wakes up.

10am. I make Ford a bottle, again one-handed because he woke up disoriented and sad and needed me to hold him. I change him and put him in his exersaucer. I notice I’m out of clean bottles and quickly load up my countertop mini dishwasher. My sink and counter are covered in dishes, ⅓ of which will only fit in the dishwasher at a time, so I handwash a few of the larger things. I sweep the floor, I clean up magnatiles, I water our flowers. 

The rest of the day follows the same cycle. I work while the baby sleeps, and I bop around and try and create some order in our house while he’s awake. I feed him some mangoes and bananas. I answer more emails. I do another gift card order. I help some customers with technical problems. I apologize to others who had shitty experiences in our stores over the weekend. I write down to cancel a doctor’s appointment I have this week back in Haverhill that I forgot about, to book Ford’s 6 month check up, to register Axl for kindergarten. I add “car stuff” to the list and several things from work that need to get done this week. 

At 3:30, I pack up everything both my kids need to leave the house, and I pick up Axl from school. I take him over to visit my mom for a bit. She is packing up her house to come live in a house on the same property where we are, so her house is pretty empty. I occupy Axl with snacks from home and he plays with all the cat toys. The baby is happy to roll around the floor on a big sheet. We visit “Kiwi” for a bit and come back home just in time to put the baby to sleep.

I let Axl eat a pizza lunchable for dinner. He shocks me by actually eating it. I do some more work until it’s just before Axl’s bedtime and it’s time for “Special Mommy/Axl Time,” which is where we pick out a treat from our Easter candy stash and play video games together. Lately we’ve been switching between the new Lego Star Wars and Minecraft, which neither of us know how to play so we’re slowly learning. I get him in bed (he “surprises” me by sneaking into my bed for the 12th day in a row) and take a shower. While showering, I think I hear crying and assume it’s the baby. I jump out of the shower, soap and all, to whip open the bathroom door and see what’s up. It’s Axl, crying because his iPad wasn’t working. I fix it for him, naked and shivering in the shower stall, while he cries some more about how I’m going to get his iPad all wet. I turn the water back on and try to finish my shower. The whole charade happens again about 3 minutes later, but I do eventually get to shower in full.

I do some more work while trying to get Axl to fall asleep. One of the advantages to sharing one space is that I can work from the “living room” while also being able to say “get back in bed!” 96 times in an hour before he gets very far. He eventually just begs me to lay with him, so I do. He falls asleep. I floss and brush my teeth. Apply all my skin care products. Take my antidepressant and my sleeping pill. And tonight, I wanted to go get my laptop and write this all down.

On my way past Pete’s photo and urn, I paused to say goodnight. I decided to talk out loud to him, which I can’t often do since I’m rarely alone. Even now, both kids are feet away, but since they were asleep it felt like I could actually have a conversation with him. I talked to him and sobbed. No matter how good of a day we have, there is always at least a moment of gut-wrenching sobbing. Sometimes while I’m alone, sometimes with my kids, sometimes with one of my family members. But that’s the thing with grief, it’s always there. It’s always going to be there. I have to let those painful moments happen. I have to have the little breakdowns frequently so I don’t have one giant one I can’t come back from. I try and process my grief a little at a time every day, rather than avoid it and eventually have to swallow it down like some giant horse pill that will inevitably choke me. Better to take this shit-ass tasting medicine a spoonful at a time.

We laughed a lot today, but we also all cried. Things were good, but they were also hard. The baby refused his second nap, so I didn’t get the hour plus of quiet uninterrupted work time I was expecting. The boys both have boogers and coughs, so they’re each a little bit feistier than usual. Axl is boundary pushing more than I’ve ever seen him do, and gently parenting him when I want to just be screaming all the time is exhausting. My to-do list did not get completed. But I did get to see my mom. I’ve now driven to her house twice after nearly 4 months of being too afraid to drive through town (after 13 years without getting behind the wheel). I got to take a shower and “sleep in” on a Monday. So is that a great day or is it an awful day? Are we doing well or are we hobbling along? It’s always impossible for me to answer so I figure I’d just write about it and let everyone else decide. This is why it’s so hard for me to answer all the messages I receive asking me how we’ve been. It takes me hundreds of words to explain that, which is why I tend to just say “we’re good!” and move on with my day. 

But we are… good… given the circumstances. All 3 of us are really giving this new chapter our all I think. We are honoring Pete in the best ways we know how.