Meredith’s Musings

by Meredith McKinnie

This morning I hugged my girls. The ringing alarm clock hasn’t woken me in weeks. Instead, I am lulled out of slumber by the ray of ironic sunshine that peers through my window, or the gurgles of my 8-month-old daughter in the bassinet, or my two-year-old‘s voice coming through the monitor saying, “Mommy, let me out.” Little Wilder hates being trapped, whether it’s in her crib or left in the bathtub, or even a prolonged embrace. Like her mother, she shies away from lingering physical affection. But these days, during these uncertain times, I make sure to hug my girls. I don’t have the words to explain why we’re all together and deviating from our normal routines. And thankfully, they’re so young they don’t even ask. But each morning, I bring Wilder into bed with her father and me, sandwich her between our bodies, prop Fable against her sister, and sit and hug my girls.

We make breakfast. Our go-to meal is eggs and toast. Husband bought the fancy butter, the real butter, as we are learning to take comfort in the small things in isolation. We’re finding our rhythm, my husband rotating bread in and out of the oven we use for toasting, and my dancing around his towering frame flipping eggs on the stove. We all sit around the breakfast table, admittedly an act we don’t do nearly enough. We all tend to chew in relative silence, as there is little to report because none of us have drifted outside of our tiny microcosm in weeks. I’m always first to take my dishes to the sink, as I have always eaten more quickly than I should. I wash each plate as it comes to me, slowly, methodically, making sure each indentation is adequately scrubbed. I used to rush this process, but now these daily chores are the only routine I can indulge in, and I crave routine. I prefer knowing what comes next, and this odd reality of synonymous freedom and confinement feels stifling. Hugging my girls makes it all feel less so.

Around noon we head outside. Anyone with small children knows the outdoors provide entertainment when a parent’s creativity is running thin. Wilder finds her father’s big yellow bucket and starts collecting acorns. She likes making piles for the squirrels to fetch while she watches later from the breakfast nook window. She will inevitably plop into a puddle we hadn’t noticed, and we no longer chastise her as we once would. We won’t be going anywhere that requires clean clothes. If there were ever a time to roll in the mud, being isolated due to a pandemic is the time. Later when we hose the pants and boots down, as the girls’ laughter from the bathtub radiates through the house, we will not scoff at those stains. Instead, those stains remind us we’re alive, that we’re still living. It may not be what we planned, and we may not have all the answers, but we have today. And so, I don’t rush them out of the tub. I run more water, load the tub with a second round of bubbles, and just let them be. If this situation is forcing me to do anything, it is simply to pause and be. With less to do, we have more time to reflect. So I reach into the water, never mind the wetness, and again I hug my girls.

Dinner happens around that same table. With little to do throughout the day, it feels like we were just there, wiping piles of crumbs into wet dishcloths and eliminating milk stains and coffee rings. The day feels both long and short. My husband and I started eating earlier in the evening. Before, with the nature of our jobs and schedules, we would often sit, just he and I, eating after the girls had gone to bed. Now we all eat at the same time, morning and night. Sometimes I will catch Wilder’s eye as she’s munching her beloved blueberries and I’ll wink. She is happy to be eating with everyone and not alone while her parents are otherwise occupied in the kitchen. After this is all over, I will replicate this dinner routine; it makes her so happy. I’m ashamed I never made sure we ate together before; it seems so obvious.

A little after 7, my husband will scoop Wilder up. She will inevitably fake protest and then giggle, and then insist dad lift her high, higher than mom ever can. She will let her father carry her around the room, giving night time hugs and kisses to Fable and our puppy Lulu, and then to me. I will take her in my arms, hold her extra tight, and say as I always do, “Mommy loves you.” She will snuggle my neck, and say, “I love you toooooooo.” And all will be right again.

Tomorrow morning, it will begin again. We will cuddle in bed, make eggs and toast, roll some in the mud and do an extra load of laundry for the luxury of playing in the dirt, sit as a family and consume the homemade food that was not made in a rush and then do an extra round of kisses and hugs before bed. And for the foreseeable future, if this is my every day, I couldn’t be more grateful simply to hug my girls.