If there's one word that comes to mind when I think of the past year, it's chaos. What started out as excitement (from seemingly everyone) for the start of a new decade, quickly went down the drain. From a global pandemic, to huge spotlights being cast on inequality in North America and the disputes that have come out of that, to continued warnings about climate change, the past twelve months have felt more like a page out of a sci-fi drama rather than reality. There are times that I wake up and I think to myself, is this really the state of the world or have I just been dreaming all this time? At what point will wearing a mask whenever I go out to run an errand or go to the grocery store feel "normal". Should it ever feel normal at all?

As though the chaos happening outside the four walls of our house wasn't enough, we've also been dealing with the chaos of an 18-month old at home while husband and I both work full-time. An 18-month old that is on the opposite end of consistent when it comes to life basics like eating and sleeping. Every night we still roll the dice on whether he'll sleep through the night or not, and every day with every meal it's a toss-up on what he'll eat and what he'll spit out. I've heard many moms comiserate that their kid is either one or the other (crappy sleeper or crappy eater), but somehow we drew the super short straw and ended up with both.

The chaos that has seemingly enveloped my life has led to a level of internal mourning in my mind and heart. I still mourn pre-baby life sometimes, when I had the freedom to do things that I wanted to do when I wanted to do them, the freedom to travel (which is a no-go even without a baby these days), and most of all the freedom to sleep... oh how I miss sleep. But there are very specific matters that I've been mourning as a result of this pandemic which feels like it's robbed us of so many things. Here's a few that's been weighing on my brain:

1. Lost time with family and friends. I know there's always FaceTime, and Zoom, and backyard/front lawn visits, but it's just not the same. I miss hugging my parents and being embraced in return. I miss linking arms with my girl friends as we catch up on the week. I miss eating out with family for birthdays or holidays.

2. Lost baby days. Any parent will tell you that the baby days are fleeting. They're hella tiring and plenty exhausting, but fly by so fast in hindsight. Our little kiddo has changed so much in the past year and our families and friends have missed out on 10 months of baby snuggles, relationship building, and play time. They're limited to watching videos we send of our babe's newest antics, and are met with anxious stranger danger looks when they do see him in person.

3. Relationships on pause. Being back at work full-time with a baby at home has left very little time to catch up with people cuz most of my time is spent oscillating between working and parenting. We've missed out on some pretty big milestones in the lives of our friends (e.g. birth of their babies, engagements, etc.) and are relegated to Whatsapp chats to share in their joys. Then there's the lack of relational growth for our kid with his village, cuz all he sees are faces on a screen every now and again.

4. Mat leave ending. Not so much having to go back to work, but moreso not being able to do that things that I had hoped to do in the last 4 months of my mat leave. I had wanted to take him swimming, go see a bunch of stuff, take advantage of husband being off on paternal leave at the same time for 5 weeks, maybe even venturing out to the west coast for another trip. All of those things were kiboshed when our world shut down in March.

5. Returning to work. I was pretty excited to go back to work, cuz I actually do enjoy my job. Working from home has been amazing and gives us the flexibility that we need to take care of our kid so that we don't have to put him in daycare in the middle of a pandemic, but it has led to some very long days and nights... the latest record for completion of a project was 3:30am, then up at 6:30am to do the parenting thing again. Oftentimes it's felt like we've been burning the candle at both ends and some days even in the middle, and it's still a wonder that we haven't completely disintegrated from the stress and pressure and exhaustion.

Though these laments run deep, I'm also aware of all the things that I have to be thankful for, that would not have happened had it not been for this life-robbing pandemic:

1. Family, friends, neighbours. Our families have brought us food and treats when we've been slammed with work. Our friends have checked in on us regularly, even bringing us Pedialyte when we were quarantined with a feverish baby. Our neighbours (who just so happen to be friends from a past life) have doted on us with food, baked goods, fruits, fire pit nights, and socially distanced outings to the orchard for apple picking and the zoo. We've always known we were loved, but we've felt it even more deeply this year.

2. Work flexibility. Both hubs and I have pretty flexible and understanding employers which has allowed us to do the full-time parenting and full-time work thing. Though it means taking "baby shifts" throughout the day, having to constantly shift mental gears, and long nights to meet deadlines, we know things would be tenfold more difficult if we didn't have the flexibility we have with our jobs.

3. Financial flexibility. We decided after two months of me being back at work that trying to cook meals was just too much given everything else that was on our plates. So for the better part of the past 4 months we've been ordering in or getting takeout in some way, shape, or form. We've been lucky enough to have the financial flexibility to do this as it's much more expensive than cooking for ourselves. On the plus side, we get to support our local restaurants, so that helps us feel better (or so we tell ourselves).

4. The extra months with baby. Yes, it's been exhausting. Yes, it's been stressful and has definitely put a lot of pressure on our marriage as we try to navigate full-time work and full-time parenting without support/help from our parents cuz we don't want to risk their health. But it's also been absolutely amazing watching our baby learn so many new things in the past 6 months. He went from crawling to walking and now nearly running. He went from sitting on the floor to climbing everything and even being tall enough to open doors on his own. He went from no words at 12 and 15 months to an explosion of words and surprising us with more and more almost every day. He's starting to use utensils and is so very proud of himself. He makes connections that blow our minds and he even knows how to joke around and tease and troll (especially his "dada"). If we weren't in the middle of a pandemic he'd be in daycare for most of the day and we wouldn't get to see nearly as much as we have in the past half year.

5. Inexplicable peace. I so clearly remember wrapping up another weeknight at 2am, crawling into bed only to hear baby boy start crying. It was my turn to be on the night shift so I begrudgingly dragged myself out of bed, stayed with him until 3:30am, and crawled back into bed at 3:45am. I knew that he'd probably be up sometime between 6am and 7am which translated to 2 maybe 3 hours of sleep and then a full day of work and momming. Back in his newborn days this thought would send me into a spiral of anxiety, but for whatever reason the predominant thought in my mind was "God will provide". Even if I only had 2h of sleep to run on, somehow He would get me through the day.

I'm sure there are many more that I could write about, but these are the ones that immediately come to mind. Ultimately, the biggest lessons I've had to learn in the past year are that of flexibility and adaptation. I hate change (have a whole post about it). But this year has been all about change and adapting to ever-changing scenarios almost monthly, as the collective world tries to figure out how to survive the craziness that has been 2020. As the year comes to a close I don't expect anything to be different when I wake up on January 1, 2021. While I do hope for a less tumultuous year in 2021, I'm also still very thankful for all that we have been blessed with in 2020 that would not have happened in absence of all the crazy.