When my baby was little, I wrote about the 100 days of war. Those first 100 days of becoming a new mom, finding my equilibrium, my new normal. My sanity.

The first 100 days of war

It was a lot back then. I was in the middle of a deep, untreated stint with post-partum depression. I was tired. Oh god, so tired. And I was anxious. Like I said. It was a lot.

When my baby was born, my husband told our friends that it was like getting hit in the face with a comically large fish. You’ve seen it happen on TV. You have an idea of what it would feel like. But once you are the one that gets hit by the comically large fish, everything changes. It’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. The wet slap of a fish, or the 2 am cry of a newborn, is something that needs to be experienced to be truly understood.

After those first 100 days of war, I felt I’d found a routine. A détente, if you will. As I put it back then, “we are no longer aggressors. No longer on opposite sides trying to find a common ground. We’re allies. Partners. Dare I say, buddies? I know her, and she knows me and we’ve formed a great and lasting alliance together.”

That’s not to say every moment of parenting has been pure joy and sunshine. It’s not been. There have been moments of pure terror. Moments of wanting to tear my hair out. Moments of sheer exhaustion. But we’d found our way. We found our normal. Our equilibrium.

Then the pandemic hit. Bam! Another fish to the face

When I was younger, I thought I’d be a teacher. One of those really cool ones from the movies. I’d teach English. Poetry mostly. I’d have a corner in my room with cushions set up where kids could read. I’d tell them all about the poetry of Shakespeare, Keats, Yates. I’d ready the Brontë sisters. Austen. You know, the classics, like 14 year-olds are naturally drawn too. My mother was a teacher and knew me. Knows me. She told me not to be a teacher. She said it wasn’t my calling. Oh, what she saw then that I didn’t see until years later.

March 15, 2020 our world lurched, skipped, and turned upside down. It was a Sunday and we had just been told that, boom, effective immediately all schools were going to be closed for the remainder of the year. *gulp*

I was given 24 hours by my employer to find arrangements.

I was scared.

We stocked up on food, scared stores would close.

We worried about family down in the US – how would they get home?

We worried about our health – what would we do if we got this thing?

One thing I never worried about was how I’d parent. After all, I had an equilibrium.

Boy was I wrong.

The balancing act

Suddenly, the pandemic meant balancing homeschooling, a job that was suddenly busier than I’d ever experienced, a lack of external support, and for added flavour, more anxiety than my medication could keep up with.

Homeschooling started out strong. We set up a desk. We had colour-organized markers. Paper. Pencils. Everything the young kindergartener could need.

It lasted 2 weeks.

Before I knew it, we were missing assignments. Not turning in homework. Letting the kid spend her day on a tablet. Watching movies. Eating popcorn for breakfast. Basically, we’d given up. Great teacher I was.

I felt like crap.

When my daughter was born, I worried I wasn’t engaging with her enough.

I wasn’t stimulating her enough.

I wasn’t teaching her enough. I felt I had to be present at every moment, enriching her life and making sure she was set up for later success. I never just let her be – to stare up at her toys, or to just watch the goings on in the room from the safety and comfort of a bouncy chair.

Oh no. I was engaged, damn it! I was going to be the most engaged parent there ever was.

Parenting felt new all over again

A few weeks into the pandemic, I taught my daughter how to use the spare battery to charge her tablet.

I taught her how to microwave her own left-over noodles.

I taught her how to be alone.

Bored and unstimulated.

I felt awful.

I felt like a failure.

I felt like I was ruining her childhood and that I definitely needed more money saved up for her future therapy.

I worried. I stressed. I made coloured daily activity charts to keep us on track. I ignored those and once again when things got tough I turned to our ever trusty tablet. Counting the hours until bedtime so I could get a break. Some peace.

I was sure I was doing everything wrong.

For the first time in years parenting felt like a hair shirt, itchy and ill-fitting. It felt… new.

Finding a new equilibrium

But, while I was teaching my daughter, I taught myself too.

I taught myself to let go. To ignore my child for a while. To expect her to play on her own. To make her own fun.

I taught myself to embrace the tablet. To take small victories as big wins. To create our new normal. To find a new equilibrium.

100 days of war they call it when a baby is first born. But no one talks about the dozens, hundreds of other “wars” you fight every day as a parent, constantly finding a balance with this growing, changing, infuriating, loving, hilarious, disgusting, creature that you are raising.

I remember the feeling of victory when we made it the first 100 days. She was alive! And thriving! I was a good mom.

I’m not going to say that it only took 100 days of pandemic to find that same victory.

Hell, I’m not sure I’ve found it yet, almost a year in.

She still has too much screen time.

I still keep a tablet charger close at hand most days.

I still countdown the hours to bedtime.

But in 100… or 300 days we’re learning. We’re finding a new equilibrium.

Or, maybe we’re learning that equilibrium is a shifting state. Ever flowing. Never certain. And definitely never ending.

And for now, that’s enough.