Whooo! It’s my birthday TOMORROW. Year 35 both did and didn’t go as planned. At this time last year, little Jonathan was very well baking and set to arrive in July. But as I’ve said many times on here, his birth and my maternity leave was so far from anything I could have imagined a year ago.

This year has taught us a lot of really hard lessons. I thought I’d share a few of the things I’ve learned about myself over the past year.

-1- I love working from home. Are there times that I miss physically seeing and chatting with my coworkers? Absolutely. Are there times when it is sooooo challenging working through work issues and not physically being present with my clients or staff? Absolutely. But I love working from home. I get far more work done in a shorter period of time because I don’t have the commute, the pressure to get super dressed up every day, the not having to plan and pack lunch and snacks, and I get far more done at home popping a load of laundry in in the morning, taking 10 minutes to chop up vegetables for our evening meal, etc.

This year, my job will allow me to work from home for likely at least half of the year before they send us back to be on site. And I’m going to relish in it. It’s made the transition back to work so much easier.

-2- I am pretty sure that being a stay-at-home parent is the hardest job in the world. Guys, I’ve really grappled with this one a lot over the past nine months. If you would have asked me a year ago if I’d ever stay home with the babies, I would have said that I would loooooove to do that. But then #COVID, and all of a sudden, they were home all the time. Over the past year, Harrison has been home with us for almost six months.

Now, I keep telling myself that nothing about this period at home with one and then two kids was normal. We had little to no family that could help us for a lot of the time. There were literally zero kid activities that were open or that we felt comfortable taking Harrison to do to burn off any excess energy. I mean, guys, it was the hardest time I can remember in our lives. All while trying to dodge this virus unsure as to how it would impact us or how we would fare against it. And I really questioned if I could ever be a stay at home parent because I was not the kind of mom I wanted to be so often this past year.

Now if I’m honest, I haven’t come to a conclusion on it. #COVIDtimes are not the same as normal times. But what I realized more than anything, is that I didn’t feel completely fulfilled in the way I thought I would staying home with them all day every day. I missed getting to work on big complicated problems and projects. Not to mention it is truly the most exhausting job in the whole world.

All of these circumstances were coupled with the realization of all of the good that comes from Harrison’s daycare for him. He loves his friends and teachers, he loves having the structure. He comes home having learned things that we could have never imagined. And bless it, they craft with him all the time. And I hate crafting…

I think being a parent during the pandemic is a whole level of parenting that none of us could have ever imagined. It’s a level of hard that nobody was prepared for and still really isn’t, if you want my opinion. But I’m also grappling with maybe my next five years doesn’t look the way I thought they would a year ago.

-3- I loved the slowness of this past year. I loved having less obligations and appointments. While I truly missed family at the holidays, I truly loved the slowness of our holidays. Cooking and baking our favorite holiday recipes passed down from our parents for the first time ourselves. I loved being able to be really slow and relish in the ordinary of our days. Hi, I’m Lauren, and I’m an introvert. And I love my little circle of people and not having to go out more than anything.

-4- When I don’t take time for myself in the morning, the entire day is thrown off. I work better when I give myself time to spend on myself before the rest of the house is up. Whether that be working out or writing. Organizing the house, or reading. It is the only time of day that I truly can focus on myself and not everyone else’s wants and needs. And the days that I sleep in and wake up when the kids wake up, it feels like chaos from the very beginning for me.

I had a lot of expectations going into my 35th year. Expectations about how our days would look, the things we would do. The only thing that came to fruition is a healthy little baby boy joining our family. For year 36, all I’m going to expect is more joy. Whatever that looks like, I’ll be pleased to take it.