Day 18 of Lockdown #COVID - 19

11th April 2020

Diary of a new mother 

My entire series of these 21 days will be based on my experience of being in this lockdown and staying home as a first time mother of a 5 month old baby, Anvay. 

Dear Diary,

Today, I would talk about the view from my room’s window, sometimes the only connection I have with the outer world. In case, I do not have time to go to the terrace, my happy corner makes me feel comfortable. During this lockdown, this provided me even more solace. On any given day I spend more than 10 hours sitting by my chair in a corner while feeding the baby and looking at the view from my window. Days pass this way and nights I feel a whiff of cool breeze as I sit by the window. I have a desk cum drawer set up where I keep all the baby essentials. I have my plastic chair with my feeding pillow ready and a small cotton cloth handy in order to wipe out any milk spill outs. My laptop is always there along with a diary and a pen which I can use immediately to hot down my feelings and memories when the baby is sleeping. I keep two bottles of water handy so that I don’t need to stay thirsty when the feeding sessions extend for a long time. I keep the bluetooth JBL FM tuner also handy because at times Anvay cries a lot suddenly and just turning the JBL FM on with the click of one button plays some music which serves as a distraction and calms him down instantly.

I also sing along with the songs on the radio if I have the time and the mood to do so. There is a table clock and a table lamp in the corner which comes in handy at night and also a solar lantern which gets charged with the sunlight penetrating during the day and also helps me to use it instantly at night when I don’t want to switch on the harsh light while feeding. I keep a mobile holder also there so that I can catch up on some videos when the baby has fallen asleep in my arms while feeding. There has always been a hand sanitizer on my desk from the time Anvay was born. It has come in handy even more during the times of the corona scare.

During the long feeding sessions when I don’t feel like looking at my mobile, I gaze out from the window to see the beautiful light green leaves of the tree whose branches come near the window and also see the bright yellow flowers. They brighten my dull and sleepy mood at times. I used to feel very lonely initially when I had to sit all alone in a corner in my room and feed the baby day and night but over time I made peace with it and tried to get hacks to make me feel better here. Most of the time I would be browsing Insta and checking the updates but these days I was giving myself less screen time when the baby is around. So I fix my gaze outside to observe the minimal view of the world that I can get from my window. A squirrel keeps jumping on the cable wire and then to the tree and it looks very cute while doing the scurried movements. The best part of this lockdown is that I am able to leave our room’s window open( with mosquito net fixed) throughout because there is hardly any traffic noise and the air that flows inside is fresh and cool.