Elizabeth's Day
All she ever wanted was more time with her daughter. She got it.
In May we heard from Elie Jacobs about what it was like to share 800 square feet with a working wife and a potty-training toddler. A month has passed, and his wife, Elizabeth, has lost her job as a fashion designer in New York. Today, it’s her turn.
by Elizabeth Jacobs
6:30am - My alarm goes off. My pandemic anxiety insomnia tends to surface around 2:00am and usually dissipates around 5:00am. Which means that I’ve just fallen back into a deep REM cycle as my alarm blasts me awake. In the Before Time I would get up and then spend forty-five minutes getting ready for work with a multi-step make-up routine, and then doing my hair with various heat tools and products depending on what level of presentable I needed to be that day. Now I just brush my teeth and put on some deodorant.
As a feminist, I like to think that I’m wearing make up for myself, not for other people, but I’ve basically not put any on since I’ve stopped going to my office every day. (Since I discovered the “improve my appearance” filter on zoom, there seemed to be little need for more than a swipe of eyeliner.) Also why squander my precious Sephora investments at a time like this?
6:45am - Set water up to boil for my first cup of coffee, check the monitor to make sure Batgirl is still sleeping, and select a quick workout from my Nike training app. This is less virtuous than it seems. I’ve had pretty significant problems with my lower back before, ranging from surgery for a ruptured disc when I was twenty-two to pregnancy-related muscle spasms that required three months of intense physical therapy for me to be able to do things like sit and walk and be a functional human. There’s a nagging fear that I’m going to develop a stress-related back spasm if I don’t stretch and work out, and if there is one thing that would make this pandemic harder to deal with, it’s debilitating back pain. And so I try to power through a quick yoga session before my daughter wakes up. As a healthy, curious, active toddler, she needs all of our attention from the moment she’s out of her crib. These are my last moments to myself. As soon as she’s awake it’s a full-court press until naptime. (Am I using this sport analogy correctly? Everything I know about basketball came from watching The Last Dance.)
7:00am - I have always showered at night, and my husband Elie has always showered in the morning, so when our daughter was born two and half years ago, we basically fell back into the same rhythm as before. Also, for a year after Batgirl’s birth I was nursing her first thing in the morning. This meant, by default, I had to handle her morning routine. (I know that the breastfeeding statement is a lighting rod - after all “fed is best” - but we were lucky enough to be able to make breastfeeding work for our family. To this day, breast feeding was one of the hardest things I have ever done, both physically, mentally, and emotionally. But maybe all of the long, grueling, stretches of time we’ve had to endure before have galvanized us for this moment?)
7:15am - I hear Batgirl stirring in her crib, so I peek my head into her room. She’s standing in her crib holding Dov Bear, with some of the most glorious bed-head that makes her look like a lion cub. Read some stories, stare out the window and try to spot some dogs. I’m trying to head off screen time until it becomes absolutely necessary. She’s usually in a really good mood first thing in the morning so I appreciate the quiet time we have together, but also sometimes I wish I had a moment to just have my coffee and mindlessly scroll through memes of Instagram.
7:17am - We hear some familiar yelling out the window. It’s my daughter’s best friend on an early morning walk with her mom! It makes me irrationally happy to see a familiar face. Batgirl and her Bestie first met in the playground when they were eight months old, (their nannies were acquaintances) and have played together a few times a week since then. In The Before Times, we regularly hung out with her parents, snacked on wine and cheese as the toddlers wrought havoc on whichever apartment we were in. In The Now we’ve tried to FaceTime with them, but that upsets the girls. They cry, so we’ve stopped. They don’t understand why we can’t just go over and play. The window visit seems to go over better. They’ll spend the next five minutes yelling toddler news updates to each other (we live on the second floor.) I hope the neighbors are excited to hear about the new monkey footie jammies.
They’ll spend the next five minutes yelling toddler news updates to each other (we live on the second floor.) I hope the neighbors are excited to hear about the new monkey footie jammies.
7:28am - Batgirl is hard at work at her play-kitchen, making breakfast for Dov Bear. On today’s menu is vegetable soup and chocolate cake, which will usually keep her busy for at least fifteen minutes. I really think if she started to mise en place it would speed up her process.
“Does Dov Bear like his breakfast?”
“Dov Bear no like this soup. Too spicy.”
8:00am - Husband is out of the shower and can help me with breakfast. Once she is situated in her high chair, there are usually rapid requests for additional items (more blueberries monkey spoon my turtle bowl please Mama!) so we need to tag team.
9:00am - Around this time in the morning I would be settling into my place at the dining table across from my husband to start whatever that day’s work project was. At the beginning of the work from home order, I usually would have logged on to my email around 6:45am to tackle questions from overseas vendors before my daughter woke up, but those have trickled down to almost nothing. This isn’t shocking - you may have noticed in a bit of foreshadowing, but I was laid off from my job a few weeks ago. The entire company below VP level was let go, which means myself, my entire team and mostly everyone I interacted with day to day is no longer. Our stores had been closed since the middle of March, and even with online sales it wasn’t close to enough to cover the lack of sales that three hundred stores would have generated. I’d been worked steadily as a fashion designer since college, and somehow I made it through the 2008 recession without losing my job. In addition to the loss of salary and benefits, there is a huge loss of identity. If I’m not working as a fashion designer, then who am I? A woman wearing a pair of leggings older than most of Gen-Z, walking in Riverside Park, and whohappens to know an inordinate amount of information about the printing technicalities of polyester crepe du chine? Would you like to hear the pros and cons of using a rhinestone shank button vs a 4-hole button? Can I tell you what is wrong with your armhole?
To be honest, none of this feels real. We’ve been sequestered in the house for three months having all of our food delivered, giving the whole situation vague maternity-leave vibes. I was laid off over the phone, and I avoided the whole being called down to HR for a meeting and then being escorted back to my desk to pack up your belongings experience. I wonder when I can actually get all of my shoes and photos back.
It wasn’t all sequins and rhinestones by any means (I mean, yeah, there were also a lot of sequins and rhinestones.) There were also the long days, and the hard days and the infuriating days, and while I know we were not saving lives, there was a significant amount of monetary heft to the decisions we were making. Along with my merchant partners, the apparel groups I was managing brought in over $100 million a year. At times, the workdays were so intense that I just wished for one extra day at home. I’m trying to keep that perspective as the days have now blended into months. Isn’t this what I secretly wanted all along?
At times, the workdays were so intense that I just wished for one extra day at home. I’m trying to keep that perspective as the days have now blended into months. Isn’t this what I secretly wanted all along?
9:15am - Toddler activities that have a productive byproduct are my MO these days. Usually that means baking something. (Nothing too complex, I usually have about six and a half minutes before Batgirl starts shoving raw dough in her mouth.) I’ve found it helps if I give her an “ingredient” to snack on. Lately all of our recipes “require” craisins. I understand all of the backlash on social media about having a productive quarantine, but if there is something non-screen related that can keep us both busy for half an hour, and I have a delicious chocolate coconut banana bread at the end of it, then I’m here for it.
9:31am - I would really like some matcha tea, but for some reason now green tea is a scarcity. I understand why there is no instant coffee available, but is green tea suddenly a part of everyone’s self care rituals? I do have a box of my favorite jasmine matcha, but it’s in the desk drawer in my office so who knows when I’ll see that again.
It seems indulgent to even be mentioning some of the things I’m concerned about when so many people have lost so much. We’re all healthy, we’re fed, and though we suffered a blow with the loss of my job, we still have some stability with my husband’s work.
9:45am - I’m naturally more focused in the morning, where my husband seems to be more of a night owl. In the old days (February) I would spend my early morning hours working on a big ideas trend strategy deck for the coming season or working through a difficult development spec (when nowadays I should be focusing on finding a new career path and learning a new complex computer program) I’m instead participating in serial readings of the Very Hungry Caterpillar or creating every character in the Mickey Mouse club house canon out of toilet paper tubes and ultra washable markers.
10:15am – It looks really nice outside, and I would really like to go for a walk, but the anxiety and worry outweighs the urge. There are still way too many people in New York to effectively social distance, and I was already a medium level germaphobe before any of this started. I hate that I feel this way. With everything that the virus has already claimed, all the lives lost, the global economic ramifications, our nanny’s livelihood, our health insurance, now my brain has been rewired so that I’m scared to go outside. I spend an inordinate amount of time staring at my houseplants.
I spend an inordinate amount of time staring at my houseplants.
10:17am - Coax toddler to use the potty. She hasn’t gone since before bed last night. I’m trying to keep my tone casual, like going to the potty is something all the cool kids are doing. When Husband and I were young-marrieds, our newly engaged friends would ask us what the secret to newlywed bliss is. Our standard reply was “have more than one bathroom.” As it turns out, a fun way to strain your marriage is potty training a toddler during a pandemic. Batgirl is doing really well with it, but the low-grade terror of an accident still haunts us. Then I talk myself down. What is the worst that could happen?
12:07pm - I need to figure out what to make for lunch. I’m craving a tuna melt, but Husband is allergic to fish and his work area is nine feet from the stove top so... I guess grilled cheese? On whole grain bread with the flax seeds so I can pretend it’s healthy? I would really like a salad for lunch, but we ate all of our baby spinach, and Fresh Direct isn’t coming until tomorrow afternoon so here we are. I’ve been making it a personal goal to work through all of the errant and odd pantry items I find, we’ve already finished off the half open box of whole wheat couscous, a semi-ancient can of vegetable soup, and 3/4 of a tub of miso. (The box of artificially beef flavored vermicelli is proving to be a challenge though. Would that pair well with a bottle of Trader Joe’s garlic oil from 2017?)
1:12pm - Husband is furiously typing away. I’m glad he’s still busy with work. He has been characteristically non-plussed with my whole layoff situation. I’m assuming it’s because his jobs is to create crisis plans for worst case scenarios, and he had seen this coming.
The truth is, I’m low-key terrified of being a full-time stay at home parent. This is the most intense work I have ever done, and previously we were fortunate to have worked with very loving nannies that had far more parenting experience than we did. I know I’m not the first person in the history of humankind to have a child, but my husband and I are the first people to raise our daughter. So it feels like a lot.
How do I fill in the knowledge gaps? How should I talk to a two year old about systemic racism? How do I teach her to respect personal boundaries and to acknowledge consent when she’s yelling “no touch me!” because she doesn’t want to take a bath? How do I foster a sense of confidence and fearlessness without letting her launch herself off the top of the couch? This isn’t for lack of trying. All of my novels on the shelf have been replaced with parenting books, and I have listened to so many parenting pod-casts that I don’t even know what type of music I like anymore. I hear Billie Eilish is good. I don’t need to solve this right now, I’m sure my subconscious will circle back to these questions sometime around 3:37am.
1:45pm - Wait – is he working or texting over there? I don’t think writing an oped would make him smile this much.
1:46pm – I caved and bought Batgirl a climbing triangle. It’s huge (even when folded up) and literally takes up our entire living room when it’s open. Husband was pleased to get to use power tools to build it, even if it involved an inordinate – even for him – amount of cursing. I thought she needed some sort of physical outlet since she can’t go to the playground anymore. We’re lucky that she’s so young with all of this going on, though she still senses something has changed. We were looking out the window, and apropos of nothing she said, “No one is happy outside.” But she experiences monumental shifts all the time. Is this any different than when she said, “Bye bye, diapers!” (a comfort she has known literally since moments after she was born) or when we flipped the direction her seat was facing in her stroller and she had a completely different world view?
We were looking out the window, and apropos of nothing she said, “No one is happy outside.”
2:00pm - Give toddler her half-hour warning that it’s almost time for nap. I feel ridiculous giving her these countdowns, but all the books about toddlers say they don’t like abrupt transitions without much warning, and the countdowns really seem to help her. Usually before nap we read some stories, have a potty run, and then some rocking time with either myself or my husband, depending on her preference that day.
2:36pm - The rocking is a habit we’ve falling back into since Covid. I know we’re not supposed to rock her to sleep - she has to learn how to self-sooth and fall asleep on her own. But have you ever had a tiny being melt and relax into you - all hot baby breath and soft hair burrowed into your neck - as they are falling asleep? It feels like extreme contentment and joy, which will elide into protectiveness and terror if you linger in the feeling too long. Is there a name for this?
2:48pm - Husband asks me if I’m ok since I’ve been “gasping for breath all afternoon” (???) Spend the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out how to breath more normally.
3:00pm - Toddler is asleep and husband went for walk to take a call, which means I have some alone time in the apartment for the first time in about a week. I need to spend some serious time strategizing about what next steps I can take in my career, and I’m concerned some serious job retraining is needed. The apparel industry is going through a serious contraction with the coming string of bankruptcies and closures. It was very challenging to find a stable job as designer before Covid, now the feeling is that is going to be close to impossible.
Not that I think this industry-wide contraction is necessarily a bad thing, I think there is so much opportunity to improve it for the better. The fashion retail calendar was a broken hamster wheel that everyone was scared to step off of. Don’t even get me started on the appalling sustainability and labor practices of the industry. Does the planet really need a hundred thousand units of a polyester shirt engineered to be sold at the same price as a vente latte? I can speak candidly now. There is no risk of talking myself out of a job, as I’m already out of a job.
At the end of the day, I really did love my job. It were a lot more emails and spreadsheets and database management than Project Runway would have you believe, but I really worked with some fantastic people. My colleagues were a creative and hilarious, talented, and driven, and we all knew the inner workings of each other lives, which comes from having spent 10+ hours a day together year after year. They are, by far, the aspect of the job I’m going to miss the most.
3:48pm – I’m texting and commiserating with some friends from work. The giant retail industry is one thing, but there is also an entire ecosystem of smaller companies (some so small they only have one or two employees) that support the larger industry. What is going to become of the print studios and the fashion illustrators and the fit models and the color forecasters and the trend services and the sample rooms? Are fashion designers the new coal miners? It’s almost comforting (or terrifying?) that so many other industries are going through this at the same time. It’s not like retail is the only thing that cratered. With so many talented people out of work, there has to be some creative force to drive change and newness out of this.
4:15pm - Husband has been strategizing about how and when to shave his head and robust quarantine beard. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t notice he even had a beard until I overheard one of his colleagues mention it on a zoom call. How could I not notice that my husband had grown a full beard?!? But then I realized it’s very difficult to take notice of minute changes in hair growth when you have almost quite literally spent every moment of every day with someone for the last three months.
Husband has been strategizing about how and when to shave his head and robust quarantine beard. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t notice he even had a beard. How could I not notice that my husband had grown a full beard?!?
4:36pm - Toddler is starting to stir from nap, so I’m going to quickly unload the dishwasher before I go in and get her out of her crib. If we don’t let her fully wake up before we take her out of her room, she’ll spend the next fifteen minutes clinging to us and making small pterodactyl noises, which is adorable but also not ideal.
5:14pm - There is a wasp inside our apartment. What fresh new hell is this?
5:32pm - Husband offers me a glass of wine, which I decline. Wine tends to make me really congested, and these days anything that might hinder my sleep is deemed non-essential.
5:45pm – I need to figure out what to make for dinner. Our very small, very efficient kitchen doesn’t allow more than one person to cook at a time, so I usually try to do food prep the night before. What did we even eat before all this happened? I think I’m running out of ideas, but delivery is just so expensive. I settle on pasta with broccoli and cheese, it’s fast and we have all of the ingredients in house.
6:01pm - Husband queues up some dinner music. I’m glad he’s exposing Batgirl to different types of music. It’s just not something that is in my wheelhouse, and she really seems to enjoy it. I’m all over the coloring and painting though.
7:07pm – Husband and I have gotten really adept at the bedtime routine. Batgirl asks to “play ten minutes” (both hands outstretched in the air to demonstrate all ten fingers) so we can use the time to clean up after dinner a little bit. For the most part, I handle food management, and Husband handles the clean up and dishes. (There are also chores that he takes care of that I have never touched. Since Batgirl was born, I have literally never bought diapers or emptied her diaper pail. He is also usually the one to get up with her in the middle of the night if she needs something, so it’s a pretty even division of labor.)
7:14pm – Batgirl has been in a “Dada bath” mood this past week. Honestly, I think he’s better at giving baths than I am – there is always fun music playing, and he’s much more thorough at washing her hair.
7:28pm – As a treat, we let Batgirl read bedtime stories on the iPad. We can virtually check books out of the library for a fresh supply of bedtime stories. This also helps stave off the mind numbing boredom of having to read Elmo’s Potty Book. One. More. Time.
7:58pm - Batgirl is allowed max three trips to the potty before bed. She learned how to parlay our fears of a nighttime accident into a bedtime delay tactic shockingly quickly. She is her father’s daughter.
8:07pm – Tonight Batgirl requested “Mama rawk” but then quickly insisted on “DADA RAWK!” I overhear Husband and toddler having their nightly bedtime conversation where they run through the day. It’s the sweetest thing, but also seems to highlight the current dismal situation. Seeing her Bestie out the window this morning seems to have been a high point of the day.
8:15pm - Finish cleaning up the toys in the living room. How are these puzzle pieces exploded all over the floor again? Am I Sisyphus?
8:28pm - Take shower, considering doing a face mask. Decide I don’t want to waste one, since I only have three left. What exactly am I saving them for?
8:52pm - Quickly scroll through Zillow app to see if there are any updates. Since the change in my employment status, we need to look for a less expensive place to live. That doesn’t solve the question of where to live though. Our options for a location have opened up since I’m no longer tethered to mid-town Manhattan. The location was really the only reason we had stayed in this apartment for so long. But our current place is too small and too expensive as a cocoon for sitting on the couch and watching Daniel Tiger.
9:02pm - I really should try to watch videos to learn a new web design software, but I’m too exhausted to focus on that. Husband has gone back to working at the table now that the apartment is quiet, so I’ll retire to our bedroom and watch the new floral design competition show on Netflix to distract myself before bed.
10:36pm - I know I should put the phone down and go to sleep, but I can’t stop watching Instagram stories of home renovations done by people I don’t know.
10:45pm – OK, fifteen more minutes and then I need to put the phone away. Husband is still working, but I can’t keep my eyes open, and there is definitely no sleeping-in tomorrow morning.
11:07pm - The only way out is through. Let’s see what tomorrow’s sunshine brings.
What She is Reading, Watching, and Listening To
Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby
Untamed by Glennon Doyle
The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner
Insecure on HBO
Shrill on Hulu
Nailed It on Netflix
What do you think of today's email? I'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback. I might even put ‘em in the newsletter if I don’t steal it outright.
Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Unless of course you were forwarded this email, in which case you should…
Want a way to send gifts and support local restaurants? Goldbelly’s got you hooked up.
I used this to order scotch delivered right to my door. Recommend.
I’ve lost 35 pounds this year with Noom, and haven’t had to cut out any foods. Noom is an app that uses psychology, calorie counting, and measuring activity to change your behavior and the way you think about food. I’m stronger and healthier than I’ve been in years. Click on the blue box to get 20% off.
If this newsletter is of some value to you, consider donating. Honestly, I’m not doing this for the money. I’m writing this newsletter for myself, and for you. And a lot of you are contributing with letters and by suggesting articles for me to post. But some of you have asked for a way to donate money, so I’m posting my Venmo and PayPal information here. I promise to waste every cent you give me on having fun, because writing this newsletter for you is some of the most fun I’ve had. Venmo me at @Jason-Stanford-1, or use this PayPal link.