Little Girl, while cuddling in our pre-dawn
bed cocoon, tells me that she needs to
go downstairs. When I ask why, she says,
I have a 9:30 meeting with my boss
that I forgot to schedule. While I’d love
to discuss how Sarah and my work-life
appears unbalanced and how we need to
carve time to separate the two as Sarah and I
(or is it now the three of us?) work from
home, what I really think about is that even
our three-year-old struggles with working
from home, juggling every Covid ball. And, now,
she’s picking up her wooden block and sending
an email. Is she emailing her work? Is she
emailing her mother and me? Is the imaginary
email going to reprimand us about the need to
separate work from play? Or will she write
in imaginary words that she understands, that
pandemics are hard for everyone, that soon
we’ll all be back to normal—preschool and offices
—that we just need to breathe. But I don’t
have a chance to read her email because now
she’s calling me on her wooden block cell
phone, trying to schedule our appointment.