By Melanie Rickus 
A few weeks into the stay-at-home order, I came across a tweet that said, “If there’s a baby boom in nine months, it’ll consist entirely of firstborn children.”
I laughed out loud and shared it with all of my mom friends and said, “Ain’t that the truth!” I was just a few weeks into being a full-time WFH mom to two girls ages two and one with a husband who is an essential worker, so as you can imagine, my mental state was struggling.
It’s funny because this exact situation (minus the whole pandemic thing) was the moment I had dreamed about since having my first daughter.
I was finally home full time with my two girls, and I had a Pinterest board that was prepped and ready for my stay-at-home days. According to my plans, our days were going to be filled with planned activities, potty training, and lunch in cupcake tins and obviously everything would go as imagined.
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Except I forgot about a few things. The first thing I forgot about is this little thing I like to call, work. I have a full-time job and just because I am home with my girls, doesn’t mean I am a stay-at-home mom. Rather, I am a working mom trying to work with two toddlers and hoping to get just ONE thing done each day. I am the mom with the computer out asking my children to “hold on one more minute, mommy has to answer an email.” I am the mom who has used *GASP* screentime *GASP* way more than ever imagined because I had calls to take, meetings to attend, and work to do. Obviously, I was killing it at this whole SAHM thing.
I sent that tweet about the firstborn baby boom over and over again, laughing at the thought of even considering having another child because I could barely handle the two I had while I was home all day.
But then something changed.
The amazing and happy moments started to far outweigh the bad. I was watching my baby quickly turn into a toddler, trying to mimic her sister’s every move. I now had a 1-year-old, and I found myself missing the sweet baby smells and snuggles.
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I quickly pushed those thoughts away because as that tweet summarized, no one would be crazy enough to want another kid after being stuck in the house with the ones they already had . . . or would they?
Was I going crazy? Is this what they talk about in the movies when someone is in the desert for so long they see a mirage of water on their journey. Was a third child just a mirage for this mom with the abandoned Pinterest board? I know I am not sleeping enough . . . did I pour too large of a glass of wine last night? Did I forget about the boot camp my children put me through earlier that day? I am so confused.
But as the weeks of quarantine continue and as my event calendar looks clearer by the day, I realize maybe this isn’t a mirage. Maybe this is exactly the plan I had in mind.
And maybe being home with these girls is showing me I can do this whole mom thing, and I can do it well.
The Pinterest board ideas may end up in total failure with a huge mess left behind. The activities I planned for hours may have only lasted four minutes on a good day. Lunch may often look a little too beige (think peanut butter crackers, string cheese, and applesauce). But these girls are SO happy. They are loving every day. They are going to bed with the fullest of hearts and the biggest of smiles and so do I (when I can finally fall asleep). They are enjoying these moments and telling me by smothering me with kisses and screaming mommy and ma-ma-ma a thousand times a day.
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And when you think about your days with that mindset, who wouldn’t want to add to their crew? Maybe it is crazy timing, or maybe this stay at home is exactly what I needed to realize I have a lot more love to give.
So, here I am. Months into staying at home with my kids and having massive baby fever. So Winston Chang, writer of the aforementioned tweet, maybe not ALL babies from the quarantine baby boom will be firstborn children. Only time will tell for this household.
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