June

We recently celebrated several milestones. Our thirteen year anniversary. My husband's first father's day as a father, without his father. The baby sleeping through the night minus one wakeup most nights. Four teeth. Almost crawling.

Things have slowed significantly at my job. Covid affected the budget so they cut our salaries. There is less work also because of covid and the new tasks I was supposed to take on after returning from maternity leave are nearly non-existent. What little work we are doing is from home. Yet for some reason they want to have us phasing back to working in the office. Staggered at first "to prepare for a full reopening in the fall." I fought back on this because I said I felt unsafe to return to work during a spike in cases across the country. There wasn't even a mask policy in place until I brought it up. Conversations are up in the air but they don't seem to be making exceptions. I feel like I need to find another position. It makes me feel guilty to want a different job when 40 million people are unemployed but these are the times we're living in. I have an MBA and years of experience and even though I love parts of my job I've had countless times I felt the need to consider leaving. It always came down to needing the flexibility for fertility treatment. Maybe now is the right time to leave. Find a new place and have time to prove myself before needing flexibility for future treatment when we decide to pursue #2.

We haven't been to daycare since they last shut down on March 13. We've been back to get his stuff - lined up in the parking lot, popped the trunk, and one of his teachers put a bag in. I brought him along and they waved and cooed through the closed window. It was bittersweet. Even though he was only in daycare 10 weeks, I could tell the teachers loved him. They are not considering reopening until September. When I was asked by the director if we plan to come back my knee-jerk reaction was that I don't want to send him to daycare until there's a vaccine. I held back from saying that and said that it all depends on our jobs: whether we're still employed, working from home, how many hours. I know it's not any kind of definitive answer but I don't think anyone can give one these days.

Baby loves eating. He's long and super active so weight gain is slow but I think we're on track to the goal of tripling birth weight by first birthday. He gets around by rolling, flipping from back to tummy to back over and over. His personality is coming through and he seems to understand things more every day. He makes it clear when he doesn't want to eat anymore. He knows he's not supposed to lick the carpet but tests boundaries daily. We're gearing up to babyproof everything.

Married couples were never meant to spend this much uninterrupted time together. There are signs that we've been together in quarantine too long. Easily frustrated at each other at little things, making a big deal of something that wouldn't necessarily make the highlight reel under normal circumstances, getting in each other's space. The usual. We're working on keeping the peace and trying to be kind. This is far from over and we know we're lucky to not be quarantining in loneliness.

I needed to make a change for my mental and physical health so I put the nutella away and started walking around the neighborhood. I had gained 10 lbs over the last few months and feeling down and dumpy. I'm not sure how much I can diet strictly while breastfeeding but I can definitely cut the sweets and snacks. Already down 5 so that's making me feel better. My husband and I decided to try to lose 10% of our body weight so that's our current summer project. 

I found a lump on my breast. I thought it was breastfeeding related and tried to massage it out but it just resulted in a bruised boob. I gave it some time before I went to get an ultrasound. The radiologist said it doesn't look concerning but wants me to come back in a month. 

We wanted to get away, I really miss the beach and the water, but I'm too nervous to be around people. I'm worried about hotels and vacation rentals and what-if catastrophes. I recognize the stay-at-home order was supposed to be temporary but while the country is still out of control with regard to covid cases I'm just not comfortable taking unnecessary risks. Maybe my first trip out of quarantine will be to Trader Joe's.