8 Months Later.

As you may notice, my last post was in November. Ironically it about how to prepare for the upcoming cold/flu season. If I had only known how relevant that would soon become…also, I would have added extra soap, hand sanitizer, toilet paper, Clorox wipes (maybe some stock in Clorox while you’re at it). December was filled with holiday craziness and travel, but then January came. I spent so much time writing in January and February. I was working on two different series of posts. One was all about preparing for/dealing with pregnancy when you have Celiac disease. The other dealt with the only topic closer to my heart: receiving the Eucharist as a Catholic living with Celiac disease. I was at our local Starbucks once or twice a week at 5:30 AM to research and write before I had to return home to my son so my husband could leave for work. (Remember those days?? When you could work in a coffeeshop and people left to work outside the house??) I had several posts on each topic in the works to start publishing…

…and then March happened.

Suddenly my husband was working from home in our small apartment and it was no longer safe to venture out to the library, YMCA, or the assortment of kid-friendly activities my son and I often frequented in Boston. On top of all that, I was 8 months pregnant. The series on pregnancy was timely and I was excited to share tips and tricks in real-time. But then Covid-19 entered our lives and suddenly there was no time for writing and sharing.

March 14th is when the world paused in Boston.

I remember because it was our engagement anniversary and though we did take a family walk at the beach that morning, some anxiety had started to set in. There were warnings about something called social distancing. I was waiting for a phone call about whether a big event I had helped plan for that afternoon would be cancelled (it was). And by the time we went to bed that night, masses had been cancelled indefinitely in the Archdiocese. In other words, we knew this was more than the flu.

Exactly one month later I had a baby.

Yep, April 14th- almost as close to the peak of the pandemic in Boston as you could get- our little guy made his appearance. It was the strangest experience which rendered most of my carefully curated pregnancy with Celiac tips somewhat irrelevant. My husband had to leave after the baby was born. I was sent home in less than 36 hours. No one could come meet him. But it was still magical and I’ll be forever grateful for the doctor and nurses who provided a sense of calm and normalcy (behind masks and face shields) in an otherwise crazy time.

Another two months of quarantine life went by and we packed up our life in Boston and bid farewell to the East Coast.

That’s right, I’m a Midwesterner now. In February, just before the world went crazy, my husband accepted a job as a professor in Indiana for this school year. We knew it would be a crazy time in life to make that move with a newborn (and 3-year-old), but we could never have imagined throwing a global pandemic into the mix. Thank goodness we had movers (though that’s another story for another time) but as I’m sure you can imagine, a 900-mile drive with a toddler and a newborn when you don’t feel comfortable stopping in hotels is quite an adventure. Note: I do think hotels are pretty safe now but June Katie disagreed.

So here we are.

I’m adjusting to pandemic life in Indiana with a 3-year-old and 4-month-old. (Another note: it’s hard to be new somewhere when you can’t really meet up with people and all the places to make new friends are closed.) My husband is three weeks into full-time, in-person teaching. No virtual teaching for him- not yet anyway. And though I would say we’re far from settled in (SO. MANY. BOXES), I have missed writing. Even in the midst of all our craziness, I kept a mental list of posts I wanted to share: eating safely in a hospital, moving to a new kitchen, allergy-friendly nursing snacks, how to handle quarantine with food restrictions…just to name a few.

Since I’ve genuinely missed writing, and the online Celiac community, I am excited to be back. I can’t promise it will be frequent (again- pandemic life with a 3-year-old and a 4-month-old and a husband who works outside the house again) BUT I will try to share some thoughts when I have the chance. I’ll probably be sharing more on Instagram than this page for a few months since it’s easier to write a quick post or add to a story when the kids are napping, (if you’re interested in those, follow @cupofcoffeewithkatie) but I do much prefer longer posts so I’ll try to add some full blog posts on occasion too.

I hope you are doing well in the midst of the craziness that has been 2020. Know that you are not alone in however you are feeling. I don’t know how or when this will all be behind us but until then, keep the faith…and make sure to reach out when you need to.