Day 1 of Quarantine: This is super weird but it’s also super nice to get to stay home with the boys.

Week 4: What in the world have I even accomplished? I’ve caught a muffin on fire in the oven and dyed my hands pink. I feel like I should be doing more. I should totally be able to do all the things inside of these four walls. I’m the mom, this is what I signed up for. Oh, that’s right!..my kids lived through me having a big ol’ adult stress-ball melt down. I guess we could call that an accomplishment.

Week I don’t even know: I literally am not sure how we survived two full time working parents, two small children, and a dog that stole the small children’s food during every online meeting. And we can’t forget those ducks we bought Day 2 of hey maybe we should stay home.

Week I don’t even know + 1 day + sunshine: You know, we don’t have a big ol’ trophy for surviving but we sure did. Looking back I think we may have done more than what it felt like in the moment.

Brooks is potty trained. Brantley has decided after almost four years of solely being team Dad that Mom may be pretty fun, too. Dad is starting to win Brooks over to his side. We have kept 8 ducks alive. We painted the kitchen. Sam and his uncle fixed the driveway and cleaned up the overgrown trees in the creek. We planted a garden. I planted flowers that are probably going to need replaced by July. We’ve held little boy hands while stomping through mud. I’ve successfully attempted new recipes. We have all stayed up way too late watching movies and sitting around the fire. Brantley somehow learned the last few letters he needed to know before kindergarten. The boys have practiced their science skills with about 17 buckets full of worms, frogs, tadpoles, and lord knows what else on the porch. We’ve loved on our people through Zoom calls and FaceTime and socially distanced chairs in the yard. And possibly my most favorite of all- soaking up the extra time together to put our footprints all over this slice of Earth we still feel so lucky is ours.

These things probably wouldn’t make a super fancy list of how to beat quarantine. These things don’t get dropped off on the porch in a pretty box wrapped in the most perfect bow. If you’re like me you’ve had plenty of other boxes left on your porch, though. There’s not a sign in your yard or that trophy on your table saying you survived (maybe we should think about a ceremony with survival trophies and balloons and all the food?!) In fact, it’s easy to feel like maybe you didn’t do anything during this shutdown but yell at your family members. That maybe these 2+ months were a blur of days. I get it.

But, I would bet if you steal yourself a quiet minute alone you will find that you did more than you think. And if you’re thinking maybe you didn’t accomplish anything, simply surviving until the next day is the biggest feat of all. If you need some pep in your step, call me, I can definitely find something you’re excelling at now.❤️