The Lockdown Diaries

[S. aureus]

The day came that I was hoping wouldn't happen for a while yet, if ever. That is my mother-in-law reappearing.
She first wanted to take them shopping, because they 'need' it. This idea I shot down, and sent her some info about infection rates in California (increasing) and San Mateo county (also increasing) to illustrate my point. She claims that she will "protect them fiercely", Lord knows what the hell that's supposed to mean, was she going to growl at the virus? So she comes and picks them up (I wasn't terribly excited about this, but with masks and the windows down it might have been OK) and takes them to a restaurant. At least they didn't eat there, but they did go inside to order and pick up the food. Then to the park, where they met up with more relatives (something I only found out about afterwards), and stayed a while. When she brought them back, she comes into the house, immediately takes off her mask and goes off to the bathroom. Then doesn't replace the mask on the way back out again (accompanied with goodbyes and minor chit-chat). And she didn't think to protect them fiercely (or, indeed, at all) from sunburn. Apart from the restroom bit at the end it probably went better than I was fearing, as I wouldn't have been at all surprised if she'd taken them both to get haircuts, I'm sure in her head something else they 'need'. Maybe the hairdresser was closed.

[ursus arctos]

Has she always been like this?

[S. aureus]

Yes. My wife had to go through years of rather intensive therapy to recover from her, which (clearly) I'm glad she did, but not so much that she had to.

[ursus arctos]

I was afraid that was going to be the answer.

Your wife has done incredibly difficult work that has been and will be essential to your family going forward. It won't always be like this.

Be well.

[Nocturnal Submission]

My mother-in-law is lovely and very light touch when it comes to our family matters. I mean, she's 5,000 miles away but I don't think that she'd be a problem if she lived around the corner.

[Sam]

S. aureus, at least the kids got a good dose of vitamin D ...? I'm genuinely beginning to wonder whether it would be a good idea to go and buy some supplements for the two of us. We live in a south-facing flat and the sun stopped hitting our balcony around three weeks into lockdown.

[Sporting]

The day came that I was hoping wouldn't happen for a while yet, if ever. That is my mother-in-law reappearing.
She first wanted to take them shopping, because they 'need' it. This idea I shot down, and sent her some info about infection rates in California (increasing) and San Mateo county (also increasing) to illustrate my point. She claims that she will "protect them fiercely", Lord knows what the hell that's supposed to mean, was she going to growl at the virus? So she comes and picks them up (I wasn't terribly excited about this, but with masks and the windows down it might have been OK) and takes them to a restaurant. At least they didn't eat there, but they did go inside to order and pick up the food. Then to the park, where they met up with more relatives (something I only found out about afterwards), and stayed a while. When she brought them back, she comes into the house, immediately takes off her mask and goes off to the bathroom. Then doesn't replace the mask on the way back out again (accompanied with goodbyes and minor chit-chat). And she didn't think to protect them fiercely (or, indeed, at all) from sunburn. Apart from the restroom bit at the end it probably went better than I was fearing, as I wouldn't have been at all surprised if she'd taken them both to get haircuts, I'm sure in her head something else they 'need'. Maybe the hairdresser was closed.

My mother, who to be fair had many excellent attributes, might have been similar to your mother-in-law. Stuff like face masks and social distancing could easily have triggered off mutterings about "political correctness".

[Balderdasha]

Day 84. Thursday 11th June. 12 weeks of 'lockdown' completed (I realise it's not a full lockdown but I don't have a better word for it. Physical distancing possibly?)

Had a terrible night's sleep. I kept drifting off to sleep and then waking up seconds later with a jolt having had multiple surreal and disturbing dreams. Had to take extra medication to knock me out in the end. Then my daughter wet the bed in the early hours of the morning. So everyone was a bit groggy today.

Me and my husband have done about six rounds of laundry between us today. Son has spent most of the day going round the house with a toy spanner 'fixing' things.

Home schooling topics: maths Carroll diagrams, threading wool through penne pasta, phonics comics, geography labelling the physical and human features seen from our window, handwriting. We didn't do all the set activities as we were just too tired and busy with the laundry. My daughter was supposed to draw a comic, kept procrastinating again, cried again, then eventually drew an extremely disturbing comic. It's meant to be about an animal that gets into a back garden and causes 'mischief'. My daughter's comic had a black panther that killed the family cat, played drums with its bones and then wore the cats' skin as a macabre trophy outfit. Should I be calling a child psychologist? I was just pleased that she eventually drew and wrote something.

Husband made veggie bolognese for lunch. I went for an hour's walk in the park so I could phone my friend whose dad died at Easter. Had a really nice chat. Talking about bereavement is hard, but I tend to view talking about it as better than doing the whole British "pretend it never happened and brush it under the carpet" approach. I also try very, very hard to never say "at least..." during the conversation. My mother is the worst for trying to minimise other people's pain through saying "at least..."

Made tofu, peppers and onions in black bean sauce with rice, green beans and baby corn for dinner. I've had a craving for tofu in black bean sauce for ages but hadn't been able to get hold of the right ingredients from Tesco. Still couldn't buy proper doubanjiang (fermented black bean paste) from Morrison's but I managed to buy a relatively authentic low-sugar black bean sauce which did the job.

We're nearly at the end of the third season of Avatar. Kids have been mesmerised throughout.

[Balderdasha]

Also, when bringing the mattresses downstairs to be cleaned, we let the children ride them down the stairs a few times first. They enjoyed that.

[Patrick Thistle]

That comic sounds great

[Balderdasha]

Day 85. Friday 12th June. Nearly the weekend again.

I was so tired yesterday that I went to bed around 8pm and was asleep much earlier than usual. Which meant I woke up at a reasonable time today.

The kids were ravenous so they had toast, milk, fruit and pain au chocolat for breakfast.

Home schooling topics included: writing the full story of the cat-killing black panther (* reproduced in full for those interested below), sorting 2D and 3D shapes, squeezing playdough through calpol syringes (fine motor control), threading wool through a colander, drawing with pencils taped to the side of glasses, national geographic animal quizzes, Peppa pig mazes (and a couple of episodes watched on TV), pair matching games. My son cried whenever we got an answer wrong on the quizzes or whenever his sister won at pairs.

Omelettes for lunch (cheese for children, mushroom and parsley for adults) with new potatoes and crudit?s.

Took the kids out to the park for several hours in the afternoon in raincoats and wellies though there was only a smattering of rain in the end. Drew an obstacle course on the basketball court in chalk. Chatted to the Chinese identical twin girls who always lie and pretend to be each other. Litter picked, including picking lots of broken alcopop glass fragments from out of the sandpit (I think the teenagers have got bored and started drinking in the sandpit in the evenings. To be fair, I have been a teenager drinking on the streets and left my fair share of broken glass so I feel I'm only repaying earlier sins). Played hide and seek. Balanced on the wobble springs. Let the kids climb up the climbing wall with ropes. Put the kids on top of the giant bench. Son decided to leap off the giant bench. Might have been ok but he wasn't wearing his shoes and hurt his feet. He's fine but we had a long chat about the fine line between bravery and foolhardiness. Danced the conga on the way home.

We have enough leftovers to just heat those up for dinner and make the kids toasties.

* The cat-killing black panther story

First, the mischievous black panther went to the great big garden and drank from the glistening paddling pool. Next, the person who owned this beautiful landscape was watching. The panther was cautious and leaped at the red door to make sure nothing was there. The owner of the house got furious by the rate of the frightening panther so he gave him water to stop him causing more chaos. After that the panther saw a delicious-looking stripy cat. The panther was delighted to see the cat and gobbled him all up. Then he used the leftover skin as a disguise. Finally the house owner came out with torches and scared the panther away.

[E10 Rifle]

I'm impressed at the amount of home schooling you're managing Balders. Call me falling down on the job if you must, but I'm utterly fucking sick of it. A grudging, thankless, blood-from-stone exercise that brings out the worst in both parent and child, and leaves me thoroughly exhausted, particularly on days like today when I go straight from that to home-working the late shift on my paid job. Of course, when it clicks and something lovely is made or written or learned, then it's great, but the downs are now massively outnumbering the ups with out eight-year-old, who's doing well enough at school, but would so much rather be doing all this at school and actually is quite worryingly miserable, which brings out her surly and selfish and unco-operative side. We're sending our four-year-old back to nursery's "new normal" (whatever that might be) next week. Let's see how that goes.

[Sporting]

Wait till your kid's 16. Gets a lot easier, I promise you.

[E10 Rifle]

Hope so. Sometimes feel like I've got an eight year old teenager right now

[HORN Reborn]

A friend's Zoom prayer meeting was interrupted by an interloper with a hard-on. I refrained from asking her how it affected the following Sunday's turnout.

[Balderdasha]

I'm impressed at the amount of home schooling you're managing Balders. Call me falling down on the job if you must, but I'm utterly fucking sick of it. A grudging, thankless, blood-from-stone exercise that brings out the worst in both parent and child, and leaves me thoroughly exhausted, particularly on days like today when I go straight from that to home-working the late shift on my paid job. Of course, when it clicks and something lovely is made or written or learned, then it's great, but the downs are now massively outnumbering the ups with out eight-year-old, who's doing well enough at school, but would so much rather be doing all this at school and actually is quite worryingly miserable, which brings out her surly and selfish and unco-operative side. We're sending our four-year-old back to nursery's "new normal" (whatever that might be) next week. Let's see how that goes.

Please remember that I am on furlough so not attempting to do any paid work at all at the moment. I would find it much, much harder to be attempting the home schooling and also working. Also, though my husband is working, the lack of commute means he has more time to help with cooking, cleaning, taking the children to the park, etc.

Different children will react differently to a home school environment as well, no matter how hard the parent is attempting to educate them.

I believe the small age gap between my children (6 and 3/4 vs 4 and a 1/2) is helping rather than hindering. When my daughter is tired of her writing assignments, she can switch and do my son's more relaxing and creative activities with playdough and junk recycling. With an 8 year old and a 4 year old it must be much harder to find activities they can do together.

I hope that the return to nursery goes smoothly next week.

[Benjm]

A friend's Zoom prayer meeting was interrupted by an interloper with a hard-on.

Very harmonious alignment of poster name and content here.

[Balderdasha]

Day 86. Saturday 13th June. Better weather finally.

I was up first with the kids for once. Gave them the last of the pancakes with Nutella and grapes. I eat a small portion of low sugar cereal with fruit and skimmed milk. They know that we're trying to lose weight and we've had discussions about how some foods are healthier for children while others are too calorific for adults, but I still think it's important for them to see me eat something with them every meal time.

Played Animal Crossing for a while in the morning. Then went and had a nice, long hot bath while reading Dodger by Terry Pratchett. It's ages since I've taken the time to have a soak instead of a quick shower. Think it's the first time during lockdown.

When I got out husband was wrestling the freezer and losing and getting frustrated, so I defrosted it after lunch (fish fingers for the kids, I made a salad from the leftover new potatoes, plus fennel, lettuce, radish and boiled eggs).

In the afternoon we sent the kids out to the back garden to play while we cleared the house and put away all the laundry. They acted like they'd been banished to the North Pole, so I gave them a lecture about how when my grandparents were children they were sent out to the street to fend for themselves between breakfast and dinner, whereas they had a nice garden full of toys.

Defrosting the freezer unearthed some items I'd forgotten about so I made Chinese for dinner: vegetarian shredded duck with red peppers and spring onion, a home-made hoisin sauce (made with sweetener instead of sugar), egg fried rice with peas, vegetable spring rolls, broccoli and edamame beans. Daughter declared the hoisin sauce to be delicious and immediately demanded to know the exact recipe so she could feed it to her own children, which is possibly the best review I've ever received for my food.

[Janik]

vegetarian shredded duck

A bit of an oxymoron, that. What stands in for the duck? Or at least I am assuming something does, and you don't mean it was an actual duck that just happened to be a vegetarian during it's life (which, again, would be quite a bizarre choice for an omnivorous family but one that features quite a high proportion of meat in it's diet).

[Balderdasha]

A bit of an oxymoron, that. What stands in for the duck? Or at least I am assuming something does, and you don't mean it was an actual duck that just happened to be a vegetarian during it's life (which, again, would be quite a bizarre choice for an omnivorous family but one that features quite a high proportion of meat in it's diet).

It's this: https://lindamccartneyfoods.co.uk/ou...d-hoisin-duck/

Textured soya and wheat protein. Our family likes the version that the local Chinese used to do with proper pancakes and hoisin sauce and cucumber and spring onion, so I got this to try it out. It sat forgotten in the freezer for a while. Not as good as the version that the Chinese does (I suspect that one is made from the gluten-origin fake meat that you get a lot in East Asia), so I probably won't buy it again, but I enjoyed it as something slightly different.

[Balderdasha]

Day 87. Sunday 14th June.

Daughter lost another tooth last night. Wrote a letter to the tooth fairy, stuck it under her pillow, but then went and slept in her brother's bed. We were too tired to write her a reply so we told her the tooth fairy magic doesn't work if her head isn't on the pillow that the tooth is under. Fairies need the dream magic, right? Except this morning the tooth is missing. Her brother has probably hidden it again for a big reveal in three weeks time. She has another really wobbly tooth though so she's not too bothered. Her questions for the tooth fairy are getting more tricky. How old is the tooth fairy? What's her favourite food? How am I supposed to know these answers?

Started today answering questions from my friend who gave birth last Monday and who's struggling a bit with breastfeeding. I'm pleased to be able to put some of my training into practice and things seem to have been improving for my friend over the course of the week.

Then bought loads of turnips on Animal Crossing. For this weekend's home improvement project, I waged war on all our bedding. Changed all the sheets on all the beds (king size bed, two bunk beds, queen size spare bed), sorted through all the miscellaneous sheets and pillow cases and duvet covers and everything and did an audit. I found loads of bedding that we no longer need, for old cots or long-gone mattresses, and bedding with holes in, so it's all gone in a big bag to be used for sewing projects. In normal times I would just give the whole bag to a charity shop, but I might have a go turning some of it into colourful face masks if they're going to be compulsory on public transport for a while. I also organised the remaining bedding so it's actually in the relevant rooms and I can find what I need easily (previously it was all just stuffed in the top of one cupboard and I would end up pulling most of it out and rummaging through a heap of bedding whenever I needed anything).

Leftovers for us for lunch. Bagels for the kids. We sent them out into the garden again (stops them causing more chaos inside while we're trying to clear up), but this time they prepped. They packed a big bag with snacks, drinks, blankets and teddies so they could have a teddy bear's picnic outside. I was quite impressed.

Husband had ordered an inflatable outdoor portable sofa which arrived this afternoon. It's hard to describe, sort of like a giant plastic wind sock which you wave in the air to inflate. It's incredibly comfortable. I spent a happy half an hour lying on it in the sun, drinking an iced coffee my husband made and watching clouds drift by.

A couple of weeks ago my daughter watched an episode of "My World Kitchen" where they made a banoffee pie. She really wanted to make one so I ordered all the necessary ingredients in the last shop and we made it for dessert after dinner. I don't think I'd ever tried a tin of caramel / dulche de leche before, dangerously tasty.

We've started watching the second season of "Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts". Not ready for school to start again tomorrow.

[Nefertiti2]

Day 87. Sunday 14th June.

Not ready for school to start again tomorrow.

Neither are we.

How are we going to cope?

[Balderdasha]

Neither are we.

How are we going to cope?

To clarify, I mean home school starting again. My kids aren't due back into a physical school until September at the earliest.

[Balderdasha]

But the question of how to cope remains, and I'm not sure I have an answer for that.

[S. aureus]

My kids now have only three more days of school before the Summer holidays. They are very happy about this (indeed, far happier than they usually are at the prospect of the end of the school year). Though really nothing much is going to change - we'll still be kicking around at home most of the time for the foreseeable future.