This is our 4th week at home since Ravey’s preschool closed and I have been out 3 times, each to the post box at the end of our street. Living it large!!! I have a garden so going out hasn’t been ‘essential’ so we have stayed indoors as recommended.
This whole experience clearly has me flitting back and forth between feeling positive and upbeat about it all or being at my wits end. The weather has been glorious this week and I write this with the sun beaming down and the kids building potato heads and I realise I really am lucky. This lockdown could have been a complete nightmare but the weather has enabled it to be a nice(ish) experience and excuse to do all kinds of play outside. Any toy is apparently infinitely more fun once it is outside!
I live 2 seconds away from the busy south circular and on normal days would hear the constant drone of cars and lorries but these few weeks have been a relative calm bliss. The birds tweeting louder than ive ever been able to enjoy before.
The calm is somewhat imposed of course by the sound of my sons fog horn voice, which only has one volume- insanely loud! He shouts everything as though we are all deaf, from the moment of waking until he goes to sleep. Its unbelievably loud. I’m pretty sure my neighbours hate him, his voice sometimes makes me cringe and I love the little mite.
Si continues to work from home in the bedroom and the kids have a better understanding now that they need to keep away, although there is still the occasional dash to ambush.
Si and I continue to jestfully insult each other and the kids when out of earshot. A safe way to vent frustrations and have a laugh at the same time. Earlier we were in the process of debating why the living room smelt of poo, blaming each other, the kids, the neighbours etc, when in the midst of shouting through to him that maybe it was him as the bedroom smells of ‘poo bum’, I realised he had gone quiet. I then heard him laughing in the bedroom, clearly on the phone saying something about working from home going mostly well but the kids voices sometimes being heard. Please God tell me they didn’t hear me shouting “poo bum”!
Talking of which Ravey has discovered his body this week and is enjoying a regular little fondle. Nothing more gross than a 4 year old boner! Not sure how to respond to it really. Doesn’t help when you ask him what he’s doing he comes out with such cracking answers. Si just thinks its hilariously funny, and laughs his head off, which it kind of is, but I am trying to get the right balance between discouraging public exposure and not making him feel its something to be ashamed of. I want him to feel comfortable in his own skin but I don’t want him to be some kind of public deviant!
Its good Friday and thus far we have made American waffles for breakfast, printed and coloured Easter colouring sheets, made rabbit puppets from toilet roll inserts, done an Easter egg hunt, I did some washing and as I look at the clock its still only 11:45. Gahhhhh! It is amazing how ridiculously slow time goes when each activity loses its appeal after 10 minutes.
We’ve had lots of video calls with family and I am now able to actually look at their faces rather than be constantly distracted by my own awful face in the corner of the screen. Video calls with kids is a nightmare. Ravey and Roo spent the whole time shouting at the screen and wrestling for the phone so they can stick it right up to their face so as the caller can only see an eye ball or up their nose, or walk around with it showing them the ceiling or the floor. I try to hold the phone sideways with both kids in shot so they can be seen properly and actually have a conversation with grandparents but in reality all they really want is to look at their own faces!
We continue to do the Joe Wickes workout, although in reality I’m only doing about half of it and not putting in as much effort as that first week had me not able to bloody sit down and it was shameful. But the kind of shame that makes me want to give up and fully accept that I may very well be a disgusting mess by the end of lockdown, but not shameful enough to care enough to actually move my ass. I’ll do my token bit then when I feel anything that resembles a grumble of muscle ache I am outta there! I will worry about shedding the pounds when this is all over. Besides the rate I’m consuming chocolate I would have to be exercising all damn day.
Big news next week. We find out about Ravey’s primary school place for September. Its a big deal and something we were very preoccupied with a few months back, but after all this I think I will just be happy he is going to any school. Right now my focus is more on wanting him to have some form of transition and goodbye with his preschool. It has been such an important part of his world for over a year.
I am equal measures excited about the prospect of him going to school and terrified. Think it would always have been a bit emotional but having him home for months may render me a blubbering mess!
On the flip side it will be insane how much time I will have in my day with just Roo at home! The house might actually be clean, not a complete tip or that pretend clean I have come to accept which is basically vaguely tidy if you skim your eye across the room but once you spend any time looking you realise there is stuff piled down the corner of every piece of furniture and random paperwork shoved on every single shelf. And ‘clean’ means its been hoovered, not actually clean. The floor is filthy in reality and the bathrooms are grim with hair all over the place. The main problem of having a partner with longer hair than me and a beard that would give a wizard a run for his money. Even Ravey has long hair.
Its not just housework being done I look forward to, because that would make me an absolute loser. I am also hoping Roo might still be partial to a nap and I can hit me up with an afternoon nap. Have a bad feeling that at that age naps are quite late though and would almost certainly clash with school pick up which is just not fair and another example of how nature conspires against parents.
It will be nice to have 1:1 time with my daughter though, we haven’t had that for ages, but as much as I whinge I really will miss Ravey and his incessant need for attention, his constant questions and his insatiable appetite and requests for snacks.
Ok I now feel sad and am going to try and spend this next week not complaining about what an absolute pain in the arse the kids are and enjoy the time I have. Once September comes it will never be the same again ?