Erin Lunde

What two weeks of intensive mothering (distance learning) with my second grader, my kindergartner and my two-year-old has taught me:

Waking at 5:00 AM to spend some time in a room occupied by no other human is a luxury that I planned very carefully for myself and was doing very well with for a few weeks leading up to the announcement that I was going to have to go back to facilitating distance learning. Somehow, the day after we learned of our new schooling arrangement, my alone time in the morning was replaced with waking at 5:00 AM to spend hours with two to four other humans in our bed. I attribute this sudden change to my kids’ plunging head- and butt-first into any and every crevice of air that was mine alone as an effort to accelerate the acclimation process. Did I have a panic attack that first morning? What do you think? Didn’t you?

Single serving Skittles packages left over from the garbage bag-sized Halloween candy stash that we forgot to give away are fantastic bribes for the kindergartner, until I remember that my second grader, who is also a student in this one-room schoolhouse, cannot tolerate the scent of fruit-flavored candy. “Is somebody eating Twizzlers!” he shouts from the upstairs bathroom. No, no one is eating Twizzlers. Twizzlers are a summertime treat that my husband and I have to gorge from inside the pantry while the kids are outside. But we don’t think of summer now, as it’s so cold in Minneapolis in the middle of January that my device shows a temperature of “-0” because at some point why bother being specific or even numerically accurate. Summer is right now an orangutan at a zoo, flipping around in a tree under netting and behind glass barriers. You can see it in your memory, but there is no way you can touch it, and even if you try, it will flip you off or throw its shit at you.

My two-year-old, who has a profound speech delay, can now say “Watch” pretty clearly. And “poop.” But the first one I blame on distance learning.

The noise-canceling feature in my earbuds is life-saving.

Jack from “The Shining” comes to mind not only because he loses his goddamn mind but because there were a few times where I would’ve broken down a door, in my case just to have my own space for a minute. I may have been cool with being shut inside a freezer too, except it’s a freezer.

In order to protect my knees, I have to keep a little bend in them in case the two-year-old decides to run into me while doing his hourly wind sprints.

My coping mechanisms include inhaling Pop Tarts and the Reece’s Peanut Butter Hearts that my mom sent the kids for Valentine’s Day, all while squatting in the kitchen so no one can see me do it.

I hope to God that everyone was on mute each and every time I tried to get my precious babies on their Google Meets at the top of whatever hour because inevitably nothing was working and there was swearing. Inevitably.

Somehow my kindergartner was way ahead of the assignments and would do work to catch up from previous bouts of distance learning (such as the four times they were in quarantine before this), and my second grader is three assignments behind in P.E. because he keeps misplacing the jump rope that he has to use to demonstrate his very-much-still-developing jump roping skills.

We are still at it. There is talk of teacher strikes and petitions for more masks and all sorts of uncertainty in the next few days. My husband is working wacky hours as he is in a new role with his work since the top of the year, but he still works very much from home and is exceptionally helpful when he is available. But holy hell, it’s been a long few days. Few years, really. We have trouble getting outside on a regular basis as the high temperatures are sometimes below zero and the process of clothing everyone for 20 minutes when they’ll be outdoors for 10 is overwhelming.

We try. We fail. We keep going. This isn’t easy for anyone. Except the two-year-old. He has it pretty good, other than he’s bored. I’ll write something about the spectrum of guilt I feel in all of this, but not now.

I hope you and yours are safe and well.

Two years ago I am 39 1/2 weeks pregnant and my daughter becomes a four-year-old doula by mistake.

On this date in 2019, I wake up around 3:00 in the morning on a Friday. I use the bathroom. No one else is supposed to be awake at this point in the morning, but my daughter is going through a phase where she isn’t into sleeping. This turns out to work in my favor, because when she comes in to our room to find us, she becomes delightfully helpful when she finds that my water has broken and I am not exactly able to move. I am not in pain, so I am just kind of waiting for someone to find me, and look at that, my little girl shows up. I tell her what is happening, and she pats my belly and talks to the baby. She is excited, I can tell; she is freaking out, I know; but she is somehow able to read the room — she is calm and happy instead of jumping around and screaming.

Like I say, I’m not in pain yet.

She stays with me and talks to me for another twenty minutes or so before I tell her to go get Daddy. At this point, she is screaming. “Daddy!” It is early — around 4:00 or 4:15. She retrieves my husband, but because I am quiet and my daughter-doula reclaims her calm, he somehow goes back to sleep.

I am finally able to remove myself from the bathroom. I turn on the lights and my husband decides the time has come to make banana bread.

I know. But in his defense, he did the same thing for our other two babies. However, I was in labor with my first baby for something like 37 hours (for real) and I labored with my daughter for 12 or so. He is certain he has time.

So he’s down there pre-heating the oven and mixing batter and I call the midwife. She’s like, “Yeah, it could go one of two ways. Your third baby could take a few days or be very fast. Have you started contractions?” Just as I am speaking with her, my first contraction begins.

I get off the bed and hang up the phone. Hm. I wonder how this will go — oh. Here’s another contraction. Yep. Hm. I’d really like to put my pants on. Nope. Not going to move. Not for a minute.

Soon I’m nervous, and my to-do-before-we-leave-the-house list unfolds from my mental bulletin board like one of those accordion files you see on old-ass websites. Oh yes, I have several tasks to accomplish before I can leave this house and have a baby. The first task is to put on my pants.

Nevermind. Can’t move again.

Well. This is escalating quickly. This is business.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, the oven is successfully preheated.

My son, a kindergartner, by now is awake and shuffling around. My daughter continues to check in on me. I continue to wish I could bend over to put on my pants. At one point between contractions I pull on one leg and drag the other pant leg loose around on the floor as I haphazardly throw items into bags for the hospital stay. You know, those tasks that should have been done a couple weeks ago.

Somehow, I manage to get downstairs. I whisper to no one, “We need to go to the hospital.” My husband is measuring ingredients and digging around inside the cupboards for bread pans. My son wants breakfast. My daughter is not in earshot.

OK, another contraction is over. I have time to cut the tags off of my son’s new shoes that he wants to wear to school today. I can pull the rest of my pants on and bend over to the shoes. I have 60 seconds.

Task complete. New shoes situated next to his backpack by the door.

At the kitchen table, I buckle.

“We need to go to the hospital.” My husband mixes more quickly; maybe I’m serious.

“We need to go to the hospital. Call your mother.” I am concentrating very hard. I need to make it to the mudroom to put on shoes.

My husband gets on the phone with his mother, who lives blocks away and who is primed to handle the kids when we need to go to the hospital.

My kindergartner eats granola and yogurt. My daughter is excited and is starting to worry because I’m starting to turn into a person who is not a person but an animal and who doesn’t sound like Mama.

My husband pours the batter into a pan. “She says she’ll be here in a few minutes.” To which I respond with a contraction.

My husband starts to wonder if perhaps I’m going to have a baby.

His mother arrives around 5:30. I am gripping the kitchen table and trying not to vomit. She says to me, “Well, let me know if I can do anything,” and goes to the couch.

“We need to go to the hospital. Hospital. Hospital.” I have the guttural animal voice now.

My husband puts the bread in the oven and starts to get coats for him and me. I shuffle into the mudroom. That’s it. That’s as far as I can go. It’s over. Lay me down; I am having a baby right here. “Hospital! Hospital!” I have my socks in my hand but I am not putting them on. I can’t imagine putting on a coat. Somehow, my husband put my shoes on.

“Nope, we’re going to the hospital,” he declares.

Probably, my daughter gives up her job as doula at this point. Probably.

OK. I think I have 30 seconds. Let’s get this belly into the van.

My husband sort of ushers me down the steps from the house to the driveway. He opens the van door and somehow the van is already on — it is November; maybe he pre-heated the van for me just like he pre-heated the oven. I see the clock. It is just after 6:00. I heave a leg into the van and decide no, we are not going to the hospital. In fact, we are having the baby right now. In the doorway of the van.

“No, we’re going to the hospital,” says my husband, who is still a human.

A few minutes later we get me in the van and I recline the fuck out of that seat.

The hospital is 10 minutes away.

My husband blows through some stop lights and at one point he takes a parking lot instead of a street. We park in the Emergency Room parking lot and at this point I’m swear-screaming. My husband runs inside and comes back with an EMT or someone similar who parks a wheelchair next to the van. “I’m having the baby I’m having the baby I’m having the baby” I sort of spit at him. “In the van.” I tell my husband to roll the seat all the way down and the dude with the wheelchair is a different species than me and is very calm and authoritative and he simply tells me to get in the wheelchair. He and my husband assist as I roll out. My god. The pain.

The ceiling is flying and is bright and I am not sure how I’ll survive this. Elevator doors crack open and I hear all sorts of beeping and people and then my husband is told that we have to stop for a picture. He bickers. He swears. They insist; it’s for security.

Behold.

He’s running down the hall and I hear some nurses directing us into the triage room. Let’s just check and see if she’s really in labor, OK? Now can you tell me your last name and date of birth…

A midwife runs down the hall. She hears me. “No no no, she needs to come over to a delivery room. Right across the hall.”

The rest is lots of nothing I can remember. Baby babe is born about six minutes later.

Everybody at home loves the banana bread.