When I planned making a blog post after a few months of motherhood, I didn't expect it to be quite like this one. I envisioned a quick check-in where I would reflect back on how things have been going, and how much (or how little) art and writing I've been able to do compared to what I thought I'd be able to squeeze in, now that baby duty is taking up so much of my time. I counted on sleepless nights and long days, crying jags and learning curves, as I learned what my daughter needed from me - and when. But I didn't anticipate a global pandemic casting a shadow over these first several months, and how that might factor into my art and writing plans.
Michigan was under stay-at-home orders from mid-March until the end of May - 2.5 months altogether. Or, to put another way, half of my daughter's life to date (she turns 5 months old today). In many ways, our lives were not upended by this nearly as much as other people's lives were. We were already basically social distancing while our baby was young - limiting visitors to those who had received flu shots, and avoiding taking her out into any crowded public spaces. Furthermore, I was already planning to be home with her full time (ramping up to working from home part-time around the 3 month mark), and my husband was finishing the last bit of his master's degree by driving the one-hour commute to campus twice a week for classes. We had already restructured our lives to being home with the baby as much as possible - so when the pandemic altered our work and schooling, it was only "in our favor," letting us be available to our baby even more. My working from home was pushed back (with no events happening, there's little to design flyers and emails for, so I haven't been needed); and instead of going to Ann Arbor, my husband's classes moved online, letting him be home with us all 7 days a week. It's never a good time for tens of thousands of deaths - but from our standpoint, being granted even more time at home with our baby has actually been really nice.
Still, if you thought both of us being home all the time meant I had even more time to do all that art and writing I'd planned on doing, you'd be wrong. I did manage to complete two 8"x10" colored pencil drawings since our daughter was born - but these were both done in January/February, before the pandemic hit our state, and before the stay-at-home orders began. I've done very little art (and no writing) since.
It's not that I don't have time for it - after all, I managed to squeeze in some time in January/February. It's just that it hasn't been a priority for me lately. For one thing, as our daughter got a little older, and staying awake longer, it's been so fun and rewarding to spend that awake time with her every day, playing and taking pictures and videos of her. Even when my husband is available to watch her and I could take a break, I often choose not to, just because I don't want to leave her side. I'd probably feel this way regardless, but I'm guessing that the pandemic has exacerbated this feeling. When we can't leave the house, and no one but my husband and I can see her every day, it seems more important to witness and document all of those moments, and to share daily photos and videos with the grandparents, who haven't been able to visit during all this.
Another aspect is that I feel obligated to make the most of our time at home with her, since she's "missing out" on other experiences outside the home. It's true we wouldn't have been doing much with her yet anyway, but I had wanted to start taking her to storytimes at the library, or just to different stores to let her look around and experience new things. Now, if I want her to see something new, I have to try to find a corner of the house we haven't spent much time in yet. Expanding her horizons is not as "easy" as packing up the diaper bag and heading out somewhere (though that is never easy either, I'm sure!). We're lucky that she's still so small, and that so many things are new to her. I feel so bad for parents stuck at home with toddlers or kids, whose worlds had already opened up a little past their own houses, only to have this situation shrink their worlds smaller again. Our daughter doesn't yet know what she's missing out on.
Still, she isn't playing or feeding ALL the time - she's a baby, and she also naps. And that was when I'd planned to do any art or writing I wanted to do - while the baby was sleeping. But she isn't the best at napping during the day, and I suspect that's because she hasn't had to be. Instead of trying to make her conform to our schedules, we didn't really have a schedule anymore - and so were able to let her dictate her own routine however she wanted. Plus, we're both always home to hold her or pick her up if she cries, or rock her to sleep so she doesn't have to self-soothe. For a long time, she wouldn't nap in her crib at all - only in our arms (though she's starting to finally get a little better at that). Part of me wonders also if she'd be a better napper if her world was more "exciting" during the day. If we could pack her up and take her out somewhere, to show her a totally new place she hasn't seen before, would that extra bit of stimulation tire her out more, and help her sleep better?
She still often naps for only 30-45 minutes at a time, which means she ends up taking 4 short naps like that throughout the day. In the last month or so, I've been trying to rectify that - trying to encourage her to sleep longer, so she can also go longer between naps, so that we're only down to 3 naps a day. It's hard to get anything done when I only have a 30-minute window. It's not impossible, but it's harder. And when I don't have the motivation to prioritize squeezing in 30 minutes of work on a colored pencil drawing... it doesn't get done. I was able to do it early on, in January/February. But now it's harder. For the first part of the stay-at-home order, I was on my phone a LOT, reading news articles and keeping track of how many new cases and deaths there were - in the world, in the U.S., in Michigan, in our area. It burned me out a little - it left little time to work on any of my creative pursuits, and with little motivation to do so. I've also been doing more planning - planning dinners several days in advance, looking up new recipes to try to be creative with what ingredients we already have on hand in the pantry (and yes - hopping on the quarantine baking train), and those things also take up time I might otherwise spend on art or writing.
All of this is to say... I am very "behind" on the plans I'd made for creating art this year. All of the posts you've seen these past few months, and many of the ones I have scheduled for later in the year, are all things I made in 2019 (though the next two posts will be of the colored pencil drawings I did in January/February). I kind of figured I was overestimating how much time I'd have, and that I'd fall behind on my plans for 2020 artwork - but I didn't think it would be because of a pandemic. I hope to start making more art again in June, and getting back to my plans. Once our baby starts napping a little better (more consistently, for longer time spans, and actually IN her crib), that will help; so too will the grandparents being able to visit again, and the weather (finally!) getting nice enough to go out to parks, etc. I think that the more time we're able to spend with other people, or out of the house, the less pressure I'll feel to be present with her for ALL of the time spent at home with just us and her - I'll allow myself to sneak away and steal 30 minutes here or there for some art projects, knowing that I already did a lot to stimulate her at other times of day.
Or, you know, I'm just kidding myself again, and when I reevaluate in another few months, I'll find that I'm still super behind on all my artwork plans. :)
