As I've been texting and messaging with other shut-in friends across the country, I'm discovering that, among my friend group, there seems to be four categories of mamas in this Covid-19 crisis: Overwhelmed, Over-worked, Over-joyed and Over it.

The OVERWHELMED mama has transformed overnight from a lunch packer and drop-off line kisser to an instructor, homeschool teacher and professional manager of cooped-up, crazy children. She’s checking teacher emails like her friends are checking retailers for toilet paper trucks, and she feels like in 23.5 hours of attempting to present the information her kids’ school teachers present in six, she will never be able to get through all.the.things.

The OVER-WORKED mama is now playing parent and professional while creatively finding childcare solutions from babysitters who will also agree to administer education to her children OR working from home while managing Zoom calls and zombie children who can somehow focus for six hours on a school day but can’t seem to do anything but request more food now in her home. She’s the now work-from-home professional and the retail clerk and the grocery stocker and the healthcare employee and the toilet paper delivery driver who have become our heroes in this crisis and, with all the demands now on her plate, is just.plain.exhausted.

The OVER-JOYED mama is the one dancing in the streets. She’s the one who loves the kids and loves the crafts and loves all the quality time together. She couldn’t think of a bigger gift than unstructured time and margin, and her children are the ones now hand knitting socks for children’s hospitals and grinding their own wheat for homemade bread. She’s the one we love to hate because, while we’re still figuring out how to open a Google classroom, she’s already turned HER classroom into a one-room schoolhouse and leaped three grades ahead.

Her children are actually graduating at the end of the year.

And the OVER-it mama looks like this.

OVER. IT.