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  2020-12-13

  I found a Community.

  Being in quarantine with a toddler can be isolating, They don’t understand you like other adults do, their vocabulary is growing, but mainly you hear, “mama” all day. So I found a community. I found other moms in my position. I wrote posts and engaged in conversation. I asked them about their experiences during this pandemic. I heard stories of despair, of growth, or isolation. I remember them now and always will. COVID-19 has caused a lot of distress for mothers across the world; losing those few hours out of the house, interacting with other adults, being able to forget the toys strewn about the house and the magic marker on the walls. So we found a community. We talk about our children, our families, the things we miss, the changes we’ve had to make, the things we can’t wait to do and we found solace in the comfort of each other. Even if we’ve never meet in real life; during the pandemic, we found a community.
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  2020-12-15

  A COVID Holiday

  This holiday season barely feels like the holidays at all. With so many families struggling to stay afloat during these trying times, Christmas seemed to take a back seat this year. Not in a negative sense, but in the way that people just simply can’t afford gifts or afford to be joyful. It’s hard, not working and raising children. Christmas is the time of year where you buy your little ones gifts and celebrate all the happiness of the year. Not during COVID, mothers are struggling, fathers are struggling and children don’t understand how tight money is. So this Christmas, promise to make the day more rememberable; even if the gift are lacking. Fill the day with love, happiness and relax a little. The material items will break and be thrown away, the children will outgrow them, but they will never forget the love they felt on Christmas Day during COVID.
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  2020-12-02

  Living in a Hot Spot

  I live in a hot spot. I receive texts from my municipal and the Massachusetts government at least once a week. The cases rise daily and the death toll is worrisome. I’m raising my child in a hot spot. I can’t go back to work without the worry that I might bring home a virus that can kill my child. When you get pregnant, there is a lot of anxiety about bringing a life into this world, but no one could have imagined that come 2020, there would be a global pandemic, a virus that we don’t know all the symptoms and a death toll growing daily in our country. I live in a hot spot. I can’t go outside without my mandated mask, social distancing and limited number of people in stores. I cannot see my friends or my distance family. I can’t bring my son to the park or the library, they’re all closed down. I’m being safe. I’m doing my best, but I cannot change that i live in a hot spot.
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  2020-12-13

  To Mask or Not to Mask?

  The mask controversy takes on a new light when you are raising a toddler during a pandemic. My son is too young to wear a mask, he is too young to protect himself and I have to depend on others to wear their masks to protect him. From March until late August, my son only traveled from his home to my parents house, a three minute walk up the street. He did not have outside contact with anyone out of his immediate family. Until one day, I had to take him grocery shopping with me and a new world of worry became very obvious. I understand people wanting to practice their constitutional rights, but I don’t think it applies to wearing a mask. Wearing a mask doesn’t protect you, it protects those around you. For those of us, struggling to be parents and having to bring out under two year olds out, PLEASE WEAR A MASK. You can have your right to freedom of speech and everything else, but when it comes to protecting those little humans you walk by and don’t think much of, your germs can harm them. We don’t have a choice to mask our babies because of suffocation, but you, you can wear a mask and help us protect them.