If you haven’t heard the word “unprecedented” in the past two months, that’s because its use is unprecedented. Or maybe you thought you were hearing “un-presidented,” which sometimes it feels like we are.

But as a mythically rested mother, I would like to point out just how precedented the stay-at-home world is. If you have never wondered what it feels like to be home with children, who tend to get sick with something contagious every other week (and they take turns), then settle in for some fun. F-U-N fun.

I would like something I do to stay tidy, so let me illustrate in list form:

• You do not casually leave the house. Ever.
• If you do leave the house, those who see your goobery, coughing child step away from you at least six feet and glare at you for potentially exposing them
• Your shopping cart is full of the essentials: toilet paper, diapers, cleaners, and donuts
• Instead of packing around a mask, hand sanitizer, clorox wipes, and a distancing apparatus made of pool noodles, you have a screaming toddler and a bag full of snacks, toys, technology, and sedatives. You won’t catch germs from anyone, unless again, a glare transmits pathogens.
• Still, going to the grocery store feels like a salvation you can’t explain
• They’re out of everything on your list (but this time because everyone else was shopping the same ads and doubling the same coupons you were)
• You attempt to save money in every way possible as the homemaking, non-breadwinner on the team, so everyone is sporting homegrown haircuts. Except you. You have pulled out all of your hair.
• You leave your make up on the shelf
• Everyone expects you to be home all day with a refrigerator and never gain weight
• If you try to work from home, you never get anything d…o………n……………..__ Wait–what was I doing?
• You have all this time (ha!) to clean, organize, and decorate your home, but it looks like you hired a drunk tattoo artist and a poltergeist to do those things for you
• Unless you want social services called on you, a child with a fever means you stay home. No park, no camping, no amusement park, no church, no school, no lessons, no extracurriculars, no babysitters, no theaters, no dine-in restaurants, no bars, no nightclubs, no…hold on–what kind of mother are you?
• You haven’t set an alarm clock in decades
• You have to guess the day of the week based on when your garbage was collected
• It should be strange that you stayed in your workout clothes all day and working out never did work out
• You have to make meals from the ingredients in your kitchen
• When the internet goes down, you lose your last connection to the real world
• Sometimes you scroll social media and re-post memes for hours just so you don’t set fire to your house
• It feels like all of your neighbors are getting ready for the garden party of the century: putting in a new deck, redoing their landscaping, repainting, remodeling, and not inviting you over
• Amazon Prime is your backdoor man
• You read and write blogs, hoping to find others like you