Comically, cosmically exhausted

My wife’s been fighting off Covid-19 for over a week at this point; since she’s also 14 weeks pregnant, this has been pretty stressful. We even had an ER visit, but without admission. This has sucked hard for her, but ultimately I think we’ll be okay. In the meantime, she’s been effectively disabled, and we can’t let anyone in or out of the house. That leaves me to take care of her, and of our almost-nine-month-old, who is clearly responding to all this chaos & scarcely sleeping, and even when sleeping mostly only doing so on my chest as I rock her. I’m basically getting occasional, opportunistic catnaps.

Covid passed through my own system relatively gently last week; I’m counting all of us deeply lucky and grateful for that. Our kiddo may have had it also–she was coughing for a while, but that appears resolved and, sleep issues aside, she’s energetic and seemingly normal. And we’ve had great help from friends and family in acquiring groceries and delivery meals without having to think too hard.

This is, in and of itself, almost sustainable, except that I cannot work or even do the research around the relief programs that keep hitting the news. I have no idea if my income sources are still intact, and what I need to do for damage control. In some ways this is simple and relieving: I take care of my family and that takes 100% of my time and attention. (It’s shocking to me that I have a moment to write this–the baby’s asleep strapped to my chest in the process.) But at some point Financial Realities will intersect with Actual Realities.

Until then: lots of fluids and sleep for my wife, and lots of cuddles for my kid.

There’s a beauty to all of this.