I’ve often admired the way children’s authors weave life lessons into their stories in a way that probably go way over the kids’ heads but amuse the adults nonetheless. This week we have been enjoying our own little dramatisation of A Squash and a Squeeze, Julia Donaldson’s tale of the little old lady who thought her house was too small until a wise old man encouraged her to move all her animals - a cow, pig, chicken and goat - in with her. “Take in your goat”, said the wise old man. “Take in my goat? What a curious plan.” And so on.
It is only after days of chaos that he advises her to turf them all out again, upon which she finds her house is suddenly plenty big enough after all.
After three days of home-schooling the big kids and muddling through our work commitments, thinking what a raw deal it all was, we were presented with our Squash and a Squeeze moment at 6am on Monday morning in the form of a voicemail from nursery saying they were closing with immediate effect because someone had reported a positive case.
I walked into the kitchen, Andy took one look at me, froze and said ‘What? What’s happened?’
And yes, it was as bad as you might imagine. Xander is no longer the baby of Lockdown 1.0, when he was napping at least twice a day and didn’t learn to crawl until April. No, this time he is a whacking great 18 month old with opinions, demands, a fully developed voice box, and a frightening right hook. It is a foolish man who thinks they can sneak away from him when he’s engrossed in a book, or who believes a quick snack with their back to him will go unnoticed. Don’t for a second think you can have a shower - or wee - without the door being all but pounded off its hinges, or that a child who is quite capable of coming downstairs on their own won’t stand at the top SCREAMING for Daddy until someone appears to accompany him on the journey.
(At this point I should say insult has very much been added to injury in that he calls us both Daddy.)
So now we have home-schooling, two full time jobs, and a feral toddler who will not settle for anything less than what his siblings are doing. So that’s sitting at the table - in a big chair please - scribbling with actual felt tips - not crayons if you don’t mind - drinking out of a cup without a lid because NOTHING ELSE WILL DO, and spending perhaps two hours of every day standing below the wall cupboard that contains the snacks pointing, shouting and swiping at you when you offer him a banana.
Not so much a Squash and a Squeeze as a Scream and Silent Plea for help. Our evenings have been spent at our desks, our mornings alternately working from 6am or on childcare, and to top it all off in some insane act of self sabotage Andy decided last Sunday to quit tea, coffee and alcohol for a week. The drink isn’t a problem but the physical withdrawal from caffeine was an eye opener.
So that’s been our week. No worse than anyone else’s but probably not much better either. Please pray for us on Monday morning when the quarantine is supposed to end. I am fully prepared for nursery to have another case and remain shut.
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In the last lockdown when I got accused of being negative or downbeat, I felt bad and tried to take a more optimistic, cheerful tone. I mean, it was bad but really was it that bad? It was sunny, we spent all day in the garden slippy sliding or learning to ride bikes. The whole thing was only going to last a few more weeks, wasn’t it? This time round I have had the same claims levelled at me and spent a few days musing on it more than I really should have.
This blog started as a diary, something to look back on when we optimistically thought it’d be a crazy few weeks - maybe a month or two - of national lockdown. We had no idea what was ahead and I wanted to record it for us and for the kids. It snowballed a bit when I shared it on social media and people started feeling an affinity to the stories I was telling. People I barely knew were talking to me about it and saying how much it had helped them to see their lives reflected back at them, or cheered them up to read about our mishaps or chaos, and I was so pleased I was bringing little moments of recognition into otherwise stressful or mundane days.
But I think something has shifted now. Everyone is in survival mode. There is no more Blitz spirit, no more novelty to lockdown. Moods are low, tempers are frayed, people are TIRED. We are all worn out, physically and mentally, from the past year. Be under no illusion, I do not think we have it any harder than anyone else. It is not easier if you have fewer children, or no children, it is not harder if you have a more time consuming desk job or if you don’t work, you haven’t got off lightly if your children are in school or if they don’t need as much attention as kids of other ages. This whole situation is tough on everyone in so many different ways
This is not a competition for who’s having the shittest time. We are ALL having a shit time. And I challenge the most optimistic person to say otherwise. We can all put a positive spin on things - and I absolutely encourage that (please remember these posts do engage some poetic licence for dramatic effect) - but there is no one reading who isn’t desperate for all this to be over.
So I will try and write with a humorous tone, to tell our stories and record our experiences with self deprecation and sarcasm, but please don’t tell me to be more upbeat. I am not being dramatic, or a misery, I am being true to what this blog was created to achieve: a record of our time in lockdown. The highs and lows, the laughs and tears and the humdrum of everyday life.
This is us, this is me. And that’s that.
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