Like most parents across the country I started off with very good intentions when it came to keeping the children fit and healthy during lockdown. 9am on the first morning we were there in front of the TV in our exercise gear ready to work out with Joe Wicks. I enjoyed the workout myself, but the children made such a fuss about it (to be fair, they were about to come down with the dreaded temperature and cough) that I couldn't bear trying it again. So I compromised and counted their exercise as playing in the garden, occasional strolls around the block and longer family walks at weekends.
I've become far too relaxed about screen time. They do their schoolwork on their iPads, and they are very good about separating work time from playing time. But the amount of playing time has crept up and up, especially since they found they could play Minecraft online with school friends. They are so happy to have contact with their friends that I hate to stop them, but they really do spend far too much time on their tablets.
Bedtime is another thing that has gone out the window. I've always had quite a strict routine for bedtime, with them tucked up and reading nice and early in the evening. But both children are having trouble getting to sleep. Harry stays up far too late at the weekends, and we take him out in the garden to watch the ISS or satellites go over. Mia needs more sleep than he does, but she gets jealous if she thinks that he is still up. Neither of them want us to go to sleep before they do, and if we shut our bedroom door while they are still awake they'll come and find us.
At least I'm managing to keep the children on a fairly healthy diet, but my own diet is terrible. It's possible that I'm at the heaviest I've ever been apart from when I was pregnant. I went on a diet for our holiday at Easter, but when that was cancelled along with the reasonable chance of our summer holiday I gave up. Easter came with bags and bags of reduced Easter eggs, and I've been indulging in far too much lockdown baking.
My blogging pretty much stopped for a couple of months. I'm hoping to ramp it up a bit now that things are starting to look more positive and my anxiety isn't quite as bad as it was, but it's a lot harder to find the time, when I'm trying to keep up with school work and am surrounded by demanding people all day.
Along with the blog went the chance of doing any other kind of work. I managed a little bit of transcription work when it was available, but it's very hard to work during the day as my husband works long hours from home and all the childcare and other household duties fall to me.
A few days before lockdown was announced I filled up the car with petrol, in case there were shortages and we needed to visit family or friends in an emergency. It went round the corner to Asda about twice, then two months later when the lease on the car ended we had to return it with a full tank.
I put my cucumber plants out in the vegetable patch too early as I was taken in by the warmer weather, and they died.
Despite having fairly well stocked store cupboards, I had hardly any yeast for making pizza dough as we don't normally make it over the winter.
And most disappointingly, after my excellent start to the year in breaking up with my phone, as soon as the situation became critical I couldn't be parted from it. I'm constantly checking for news updates and scrolling through Twitter, even though I know that it's bad for my mental health.
As the coronavirus stats continue to improve and restrictions slowly begin to be lifted, I'm hopeful that I can call some of these things a blip, and start to get moving again in the right direction!"why can't i sleep" he said whilst staring directly into the light up nightmare rectangle that held the anxieties of every person on the planet— TechnicallyRon (@TechnicallyRon) May 2, 2020
Ahh! We started with good intentions too but this home schooling is hard and I have too struggled to keep mine off electronics. Our bedtime has gone out of the window too. My two are sometimes going up at about 11pm and we're not getting up until about 9am but my thinking is there's no rush to get up on a morning. The reduced eater eggs sounds like fun. x
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