We live in a small space – I don’t call this the cozy cottage for nothing! – and being cooped up 24/7 with the same people and dog for almost two months now has at times been a challenge, especially when one of those people is a 15-month-old toddler. Of course, we are extremely lucky – we have a home, jobs and our health. Still, every day isn’t easy so I thought I’d share what we’ve been doing day-to-day and how we’re handling small space living at this time.

The Work Week

Every Sunday evening, we set up for the week. After baby bath time, Daniel handles bedtime while I usually clean up dishes and put all the toys away. Then I set up a folding table to be my workspace for the week in the living room downstairs. Daniel works upstairs in the office.

Weekdays are a little tough working from home with a toddler. He is pretty good at playing by himself for 10-15 minutes at a time when he is downstairs with me because he has the first floor to roam. Sunday night and Monday morning, we push to the side furniture that we don’t want blocking August’s play spaces or put up what we don’t want him getting into. We have a baby gate at the bottom of the steps so he can play in either living room, the kitchen, the mud room and the beautility room on his own. This usually means throwing and banging toys, getting into the pots and pans, or climbing up and down the couch.

But every week he’s learning something new, which is causing me some issues while trying to concentrate on work. After trying several different babyproofing cabinet locks, only one seems to work on one of our cabinets so we’re finally able to block him from accessing the dish detergent and recyclables under our kitchen sink. He can slide open the bathroom door, so we have to keep the toilet paper and garbage can up high at all times. But he recently discovered toilets, so we have a babyproofing lock for toilet bowls on the way as well as adhesive magnets that I’d like to adhere to the door and wall to keep the door closed even when he tries to slide it open.

We have a tension-rod-based baby gate for upstairs, but it isn’t strong enough to be safe for the top of the stairs, so we can’t leave him roaming the second floor on his own while Daniel works from the upstairs office. When he’s upstairs with Daniel, he’s stuck to just the office, which does not keep him entertained for long. Because of the layout of the top landing and the old detailing of the stair rail and trim, putting up a baby gate isn’t just as simple as screwing in the average baby gate. We have a new one on the way that I really hope will work so August can spend more time upstairs during the day.

In the mornings, I’ll usually check in on work stuff before 7:30 a.m. Then August and I will listen to the birds and watch the squirrels play while we sit on our front porch and Daniel takes Molly for a walk. We alternate who feeds August for his meals and who puts him down for a nap around noon.

During his nap is when I can really get to work without disruptions and Daniel takes that time to workout, either using the rowing machine that’s in the office or going out for a run.

Finally, we shut down around 5 p.m. and all take a walk in the neighborhood before dinner around 6:30. Then it’s bedtime, and I usually go back to work until about 9 p.m.

Each day is very long, which is why we – and everyone else, probably! – look so forward to the weekend. Even though we can’t go anywhere or do anything, at least on weekends we only have one job to do instead of trying to juggle both jobs at the same time from the minute we wake up until we go to bed.

The Weekend

Having only one job to do at one time on the weekend – being a parent – really does make Saturdays and Sundays so much easier. But since shelter-in-place started, my biggest goal for the weekend was making sure it felt different enough than the week even if we couldn’t go anywhere.

If the weather is nice, we spend much of our day outside, which is getting easier now that August is getting better and better at walking. We hang out on the front porch while talking very loudly to our neighbors next door and across the street. We set up our backyard recently, so we’ve started hanging out back there and eating meals out there. The weekend also means a lot of concentrated playtime and reading time with August.

Daniel and I usually cook, I’ll bake bread or some other kind of treat, and we’ll watch a movie or have a video chat hangout with a group of friends.

Again, we are very lucky. While the house is small, there is actually enough space for some separation. And we are very lucky to have private outdoor spaces so we can get fresh air without being within 6 feet of another person. I don’t think the small space has been as much of an issue during this time as one may expect. The two real issues with our small space are that there isn’t enough closed storage to hide stuff from August and also that we never babyproofed so him being home all the time is just illuminating for us how dangerous our home is.

But about spending all that time with a toddler: we got to practice walking with him and see him really walk for the first time! This is something that we probably would have missed but heard from daycare about it happening.

And that is it. It starts all over again.

And how is your day-to-day and week-to-week during shelter-in-place?