This post begins with a little disclaimer – it could be worse. All I have had to worry about over the past two months has been keeping my kids fed, entertained and passably clean. I am not on the frontline, I am not a keyworker expected to keep showing up against all the odds and, although I am furloughed, my job security is not threatened. There may be a bit of moaning in the paragraphs ahead, but I have not lost all sense of perspective or gratitude at the privileged position I am in compared to thousands of others.
However, there are fundamental issues with using ‘it could be worse’ as a comforting life philosophy. Some days it is immaterial whether or not it could be worse – it’s still bloody hard. And there have been many, many days over the past two months that have felt significantly longer than their allotted 24 hours. Looking after my kids in these strange times has been a test of patience, endurance, creativity and humour – it has been a Mega Parent Challenge that neither I nor anyone else raising children in this situation could have foreseen. Some days I have felt like the most organised and loving mother a child could wish for, and other days I have been drinking gin in a tin at 3pm outside the gates of a locked park. It has, as everyone keeps saying, been a masterclass in taking one day at a time. Certain things have really made a difference, and what follows is a list of things that have helped to pass the time over these endless days and weeks. This post is also intended as a memento to my future self; as a snapshot of life with children under lockdown. Doubtless even a year from now these times will already feel distant and strange, the details lost as we return to some form of normality, or at least move forwards into a new normal.
So, here it is, in no particular order: Spring 2020: How Did We Cope?
- Craft. Living in a flat with no garden has posed some challenges for me and my three-year-old, and the antidote seems to be to craft like we’ve never crafted before. I am not naturally crafty and I have rarely had occasion to reach for anything more complex than a roll of Sellotape, but these days we have PVA and pipe cleaners coming out of our ears. Sometimes literally
- Yoga. Eight months ago I gave birth to a baby Herakles who is one part human to two parts uranium. The child is SO HEAVY; when I carry him around my lower back screams at me before crumpling into a tragic C shape of submission. Yoga with Adriene has helped me to withstand this unintentional weight training a little more gracefully. Better still, Maggie has observed this and decided to give it a go herself, and now every morning she spends at least fifteen minutes in front of the adorable Jamie from ‘Cosmic Kids Yoga’ saying Namaste and looking cute AF while pretending to be a yogic frog/fish/heron/shark/troll
- Rob Biddulph AKA Draw with Rob. This is one of the few things I do with Maggie that qualifies as 100% good fun for me too. It’s a draw-along video series and, for my money, it knocks Joe Wicks into a cocked hat. Who wouldn’t want to be better at drawing dinosaurs and racing cars?
- Old-school PROJECTS. A friend’s mum has been sending ideas for projects at home, none of which rely on being online at all, and it has brought back so many memories of primary school as well as filling many a happy hour. We have made salt dough roses, planted sunflowers, made bird feeders out of lard and yoghurt pots – heck, we even made a POOTER! Happy days
- Instagram. Bearing in mind that it was only Christmas 2019 that I even worked out how to post my own stories, it is amazing that I am now avidly watching so many of them on a daily basis. The people I follow (whom I don’t know IRL) can be split into the following categories: parent influencers manically crafting bumble bees out of pine coins and twine, women applying expensive skin care products, celebrities whose oeuvre I am not actually very familiar with (who IS Chrissy Teigen?)
- Crying. The world and his/her wife has ‘admitted’ to crying more than usual in recent weeks, and I am certainly in that boat. I have cried in every room in the flat, and sometimes outside too. I’ve cried out of genuine sadness but also from exhaustion, frustration, fear – and sometimes because crying is the only way to express an enormous, unfamiliar lockdown emotion that lies somewhere between incoherent rage and inert resignation
- The Kindness of Others. From the childminder who gave us access to a yard full of toys to the neighbour who lent Maggie a bag of My Little Ponies from the 1980s, there have been moments of incredible kindness brought about by this awful situation. We have contributed to initiatives involving food banks for the most vulnerable and sweets and treats for the children in Brighton Hospital. We have met neighbours for the first time who have shared books, given cakes, organised clothes swaps, and generally shown warmth and initiative in their response to our straitened circumstances. Don’t get me wrong, we have also come across some very strange characters, but the man who keeps a seagull for a pet let Maggie feed it our home-made bird food which was really incredibly sweet. It also didn’t matter that we put had all sorts of out-of-date odds and ends into the mixture – I once saw a seagull eating vomit on North Street so they’re not fussy
- Routine. I didn’t realise until it fell away how much I had relied on the routine we had put together during my maternity leave. A combination of childcare, classes, and knowing when friends were off work with their kids and might be up for drinking Pinot Grigio at 4pm by the swings kept me sane. It took a while but I am much better at imposing the same kind of structure on these endless, formless days and weeks. Why is 2pm Going Out time? Why is 4pm TV time? Who knows, and who really cares – kids crave routine and I crave not constantly wondering what on earth we are going to do next
- Wine. There is no further detail needed here except to say that sneaking a little nip of the dodgy, dusty brandy you found lurking at the back of the cupboard once you ran out of wine is NOT a good idea when you’ll be woken up at 5 .30am the next day by a baby who desperately wants to stick their entire arm down your throat
- Noodles. Let history note that I chose to cook my way through the Observer Food Magazine’s 20 Best Noodle Recipes as a lockdown distraction and that I have genuinely just ordered Chiankiang vinegar and chilli crisp oil online for the next instalment. I was also embarrassingly excited when their social media person chose to like all my attempts and a couple of the chefs did the same. They say you don’t know how you’ll react to a crisis until you’re tested. Who knows what the noodles say about me, except that I crave the recognition of minor culinary celebrities.
- Patience. This is my last one as my son is trying to eat a bead and my daughter is thrusting a large toy cat in his face. Today we have made four people out of wooden pegs. Earlier I walked home with her on my shoulders whilst simultaneously pushing him in the pram because she had grazed her knee. I had a wedgie all the way and my hair in my face but no hands to sort either out. This all speaks for itself.
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