End of Quarantine

Today was officially my last day of working from home.  After 9 weeks of working in the middle of my living room, I will be reporting back to the office starting on Tuesday next week. This is only possible as Declan is going back to preschool starting on Tuesday and I have to say it is all very bittersweet.
At times it's been extremely hard to work from home.  Some days I couldn't concentrate and just wanted to do something fun with my son.  Other days, I put my headphones in and went to town with little to no distraction as was able to get twice as much work done as I would have in the office and other days, was a combination of work craziness and home craziness.  I wouldn't change anything about the last 9 weeks...well, maybe besides my level of patience and cutting myself a break when I felt like I was failing at everything.
But, the silver lining is that I got to spend more time with my son and watch him grow up so much! Each day he's learning and absorbing more and more and I'm just so happy I got to be a part of it every day.  I loved having him come up to me while I've been working and hugging me and saying "mama work" or making animal noises at me.  I loved hearing about the tractors and lawnmowers he saw while out on his daily walk and checking in on him while he napped.  I've loved getting the extra time with him on my furlough days and while we haven't had any extravagant plans, we've been able take walks or play in the rocks or stop by Nana and Papa's to check on the construction progress at their new house.

One thing I'm really proud to have done during this quarantine is a project at my mom and Michael's new house.  My mom wanted ship lap in her bathroom and I thought it would be fun to help make it happen.  I bought the ship lap supplies from Home Depot (Michael picked it up curbside) and helped Michael install it one afternoon when I was off of work.  I learned how to use a nail gun and how to install ship lap properly.

I'm a bit nervous to go back to work in the office. It reminds me of how I felt when my Maternity Leave was over and I had to drop Declan off at school for the first time. This time will be a bit different though as there still are health and safety precautions the school will be taking to ensure the kids stay safe so I'll be unable to come in and spend extra time with him when I drop him off.  I'm sure it will be harder on me than on him but I can't help but worry a bit.  I plan on getting as many extra cuddles as he will allow over this long weekend.

19 months old and no where to go

We're 7 weeks or so into our quarantine and my how different things are.  With the weather getting nicer, we're all getting the itch to go out and do things but we've been pretty strict and have stayed put.

Declan and I did make one trip to the doctor for his 18 month checkup a few weeks ago and while it was a bit scary with everyone in masks and gowns, I was glad we were able to keep up with his schedule and see the doctor.
He's on schedule growth-wise at 25lbs and 32 inches tall and is going to be smarter than his mama in no time.  Even though this has been hard working from home and having him here and on the go, I am very glad to have the extra time with him.  He absorbs everything going on around him and is so smart at such a young age. I truly feel like he's blossomed during these weeks at home.  He's talking up a storm now and some of his favorite words are:
Mama
Dada
Papa
Nana
Hot
Purple
Yellow
Blue
Hi
Bye Bye
Night Night
All Gone
More
Ball
Truck
Uh-oh
Clock
Shark
Bubbles
Tractor
Outside
No
Yeah
Thank You
Cracker
Ipad (we've had to resort to using the iPad for learning, reading and keeping Declan occupied but we've limited this usage)
Poop (we're somewhat happy about this as we hope it leads to potty training!)
And everyday he seems to add more words to his vocabulary.

He can sign "Please", "More", "All Done" and "Thank You" too.

His smile and laugh are infectious and he's become a love bug lately by giving us hugs and kisses.  He also knows when he's doing something wrong and will come over and hug your leg and say "hi" in the sweetest little voice.

In the month of April, my company enforced a 5 day furlough for all employees and they've extended the furlough for May.  These extra days have helped us and allowed me to be more present with Declan during this crazy time.  Sure, my patience is tested on a daily basis....who's wouldn't be with a toddler, but I'm lucky to be working from home and able to see Declan's growth through all of the uncertainty.

Decorating Cookies with Mom

Cheese!

Learning Trucking Sales with Dad

Mom's Accounting Assistant -- he looks thrilled, right?!?

Pandemic update

Things continue to change by the minute here and we went from a halfway normal life to nothing being normal is a span of a few days. Monday I went to work and again warned my team about social distancing and being aware of the seriousness of what is happening worldwide.  We postponed meetings and started a lot more texting, emailing and phone calls rather than in person contact.  By mid-morning on Monday, my boss informed me that we would be sending people home with computers to more effectively social distance ourselves from each other.  By 4:30 Monday afternoon, I was packing up my desktop computer and monitors and necessary files in order to work from home for an undetermined period of time.

D had already been working from home for week and had commandeered our office in the basement so I set up shop in our living room using a utility table we bought to use for gatherings at home.  Declan usually has a small play area in the living room that had to be relocated to the basement for the time being. Here's my current "work from home" setup.

Tuesday morning I started work similar to the same way I work when I'm in the office.  Throughout the day, I was notified that more of my staff and my boss had also been ordered to work from home and they would all start the transition over the next few days.  Of course, we still need people in the office so only half of my team would be working offsite.
I really have been productive working from home. It is way different considering I'm so used to interacting with my employees, other departments and management in person but I'm finding ways to make this work.  I know for sure I'm home for at least one more week but we'll see what our Executive Management team decides beyond that.

Even with D and I working at home, we tried to keep Declan's schedule the same as it has been. He loves school and we want him to be able to interact with his friends and teachers, so we kept him enrolled.  We found out Thursday afternoon that school would be closing for an indefinite amount of time starting this Monday. I love my son dearly but being a toddler now that I have to keep eyes on him 99.9% of the time and he doesn't know to sit in one place for longer than 1 minute, so we've had to figure what we're going to do to keep him busy at home until the pandemic subsides. I'm so lucky we've got my mom as she's offered to watch him for us.  My mom has also been quarantined at home so we feel safe having her come out and watch him until everything gets back to somewhat normal.

Our lives have truly changed over the past few weeks.  I never thought I'd be one to use home delivery for much of anything and now we've found ourselves using Instacart to buy our groceries and using the occasional drive through for a quick meal out.  Last night D and I had date night in and played Uno once we got Declan to bed.  Unfortunately for me, I lost 5 out of 6 games even after Dustin said he didn't even remember how to play when we started. *eyeroll*

The one positive side of all of this is that we've been able to lessen the "go go go" and finally can take a minute to enjoy the calmer side of life.  I don't know what to expect when we're finally out of self-quarantine mode but my hope is that we can still enjoy some down time now and again.

Hope everyone is staying safe and remember to wash your hands!