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The Lockdown Diaries

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    Originally posted by Balderdasha View Post

    A very average 7lb 8oz (don't know that that is in kg sorry). The mum thinks her estimated due date was off by a couple of weeks.

    That must have been a relief for her.

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      Originally posted by pebblethefish View Post

      Are you sure that's wise? I've heard stuff about that...
      Haha, yes, the board game is actually comparatively dull, but the kids get to roll dice lots so they like it.

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        Originally posted by laverte View Post

        It's an incredible feat and a priceless text that you've produced. i hope you have it stored somewhere safe. i can't get enough of mass observation type documents from times of crisis and great social change, but yours is public too and i'm sure i'm not the only one here who appreciated its daily emergence during the peak of the uncertainty. i've been living inside for five months, trying to take pleasure in small things and focus on the here and now, and your diary has guided me in that.

        i never ever beat Nou at Scrabble, not even in English, which although frustrating is just as well because i'm sure your six year old copes better with losing at board games.
        I've got about half of it backed up. I'll try and do the rest soon.

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          Originally posted by elguapo4 View Post
          If you decide to stop Balders, just know that you kept a lot of people entertained in a difficult time, Bravo!
          You're very welcome. It was mostly for my own benefit. If it has entertained anyone else, then that is a serendipitous bonus.

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            It's been very nice, and hopefully the thread doesn't die completely off, I imagine that some of us may well be in lockdown for some time to come.

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              Yes, people are perfectly welcome to still post here even if I don't.

              And I'm not fully out of lockdown yet. I've become a bit institutionalised. Yesterday I was planning to take the kids out to a local museum that was having an outdoor crafts session, but I completely forgot. I'm so used to just puttering around at home, cooking and cleaning and entertaining the kids, maybe going to the local park. It's going to take a while to adjust back.

              Today I made a nice massaman curry for lunch with tofu, potatoes and peanuts, served with egg fried rice and edamame beans.

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                Meanwhile, husband and kids have spent about two weeks solid playing Legend of Zelda together. To the extent that now, when we go to the park, son plays "real-life Zelda", gathering sticks and leaves to make potions, etc.

                I think teachers this September are going to have their work cut out trying to re-engage children with such wildly varying experiences of lockdown.

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                  As I accidentally took my sedating evening medication 6 hours too early today and standing up makes me feel woozy, I am instead running a teddy repair clinic from the sofa. So far I have sewed a tail and an ear back onto the giant elephant and sewed shut the hole in Peter Rabbit's face (which I think was a result of my son experimenting with scissors).

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                    Balderdasha for what it's worth this has given me an insight into what various relatives with young children are going through in the UK. It has also at times been inspirational. Thank you.

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                      Games that my children have invented recently while I'm not bothering to provide structured learning for them over the summer holidays:
                      - making stunt ramps for their cars out of books
                      - setting up a horse grooming studio for the furry rocking horse, spraying and combing its mane, giving it a new saddle made out of teacloths, etc
                      - making plates of food out of pebbles and old frisbees in the back garden
                      - dressing as superheroes (this morning my son was indignant when I misheard him and accidentally provided him with a slice of cake instead of the requested "cape")
                      - playing "real-life Zelda" gathering natural materials in the park

                      It's almost as if young children do better when you just leave them to play instead of drilling them to pass tests. Who knew?

                      (In case it's not clear, the answer is loads of people, especially Maria Montessori, but not Michael Gove).


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                        You know how on the first day of term back in primary school your teacher made you write "What I Did On My Holidays"? Your kids are going to be writing a bloody book!

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                          Originally posted by pebblethefish View Post
                          You know how on the first day of term back in primary school your teacher made you write "What I Did On My Holidays"? Your kids are going to be writing a bloody book!
                          Yes, except that children have terrible memories and mostly what they remember from lockdown is the day that mummy made them wear carrier bags instead of raincoats, so they will doubtless be telling everyone that story and I will be on tenterhooks for the visit from social services.

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                            I managed 12 days between online grocery deliveries this time. Now that it's easier to book delivery slots, I can run down our store cupboards a bit. We'd got to an almost unheard of situation in the house where we were using powdered milk instead of fresh, had no carrots or peas, no apples or satsumas, no eggs, and the only loaf of bread we had was one my husband baked yesterday. We're now fully restocked. Even at the point we were at yesterday, we still had at least a month's worth of food in cupboards and freezer, but it's nice to have fresh stuff again. The delivery guys even commented on how much fruit we order, but quite a lot of it gets eaten on the journey from front door to kitchen.

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                              Originally posted by Balderdasha View Post



                              Yes, the girl who holds this record says she had her hair cut to shoulder length when she was six years old and then never had a haircut since then. As my daughter is currently six and her hair goes past her knees, and grows very rapidly, she thinks she's in with a good chance of beating that record.
                              Show her this:

                              https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...d-for-80-years

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                                Now starting my sixth month of furlough. At least I've got Le Tour to watch. Whilst it lasts...

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                                  Today's parenting win. Whenever I cook a meal, I tend to put a plate of vegetables in the middle of the table for everyone to choose from. It might be raw crudites or it might be cooked veg like green beans, baby corn, broccoli, etc. The children are encouraged to choose from the vegetable plate, but not forced. Today, because the dining table is piled high with books that I'm selling to various websites, the kids were allowed to eat in front of the TV in the lounge. My son has just "stolen" the plate of spinach leaves and red pepper slices so he can make himself sandwiches of red pepper wrapped in spinach. He's giggling away to himself thinking that he's got away with doing something a bit naughty...

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                                    And daughter is back in school.

                                    Managed to get her there so she was the first in the queue which made her very happy.

                                    I'm exhausted. Not used to the early mornings. I'm now sitting on the sofa with my son, watching cbeebies, with a packet of post-it notes, drawing pictures of each new cbeebies character.

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                                      And time to resurrect this thread again.

                                      It's going to be very different this time round. My husband is going to be attempting to home school while I'm attempting to do a full-time job from home.

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                                        And the very best of luck to both of you!

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                                          Day 1. Husband seems to so far be teaching Snail and the Whale, phonics and maths. Have only heard daughter yelling "Google classroom isn't working daddy!" once so far. Son only attempted to break through my office door with a drumstick once this morning. Spinach and ricotta pasta is being prepared for lunch. Husband was supposed to have a business meeting with his co-director today. Was originally going to be outside in our garden. But with new lockdown it has been moved to Zoom. And then moved to evening as they both have the kids at home.

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                                            It's funny, but this thread being resurrected has made me think about how my situation now is pretty much identical to what it was when you were doing the first iteration of this, however mine was also no different during your hiatus.
                                            Anyway, good luck with this lockdown.

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                                              Popped down to get a cup of tea. Son is doing a PJ Masks jigsaw. Daughter is writing a lockdown diary. Husband appears to be actually managing to do some work on his computer. All remarkably calm.

                                              I, of course, attribute this to the fact that I took them to the park for an hour at lunch and made them run around after a frisbee. We also saw a little boy from my son's class and I let them play distance football for a bit (just booting the ball back and forth. That's got to be pretty low risk right?).
                                              Last edited by Balderdasha; 05-01-2021, 15:28.

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                                                Are you going to be doing Dungeons and Dragons again?

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                                                  Distance football sounds very safe.

                                                  My situation is the same as it's been since last March, both kids trying to do distance learning, both parents trying to work remotely, dog trying to convince all of us that he's being starved and deserves whatever you might be having for lunch.

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                                                    Day 2. Husband is gearing up. He did cosmic yoga and Andy's animal workouts with the kids today as well as all the school work. For our lunchtime outing I route marched the kids into town to help me collect my medication from the pharmacy. They were super good, wore masks without complaint, sat quietly and played together on my phone while I queued up. But the queue took so long that we essentially had to run all the way home (about 1.4 miles) so I could make it back in time for a scheduled meeting with my boss. Again, the kids did very well and I bribed them with the promise of sweets on the way home. There is a narrow tunnel under a railway bridge on the way home and two people entered it after we were already halfway through. If we had time I would have reversed, but as it is I ended up shouting like a crazy lady "we were here first, back up, don't enter the tunnel when there are already people in it". They just stood to the side bemused.

                                                    After work finished, me and the kids took all the Christmas decorations down. Husband will put the tree outside later.

                                                    We tried a Trivial Pursuit Nintendo switch demo as daughter has recently got addicted to gameshows (Pointless, Tipping Point, The Chase, and she also likes Taskmaster which isn't really a game show).

                                                    Nobody has cried yet today. Big improvement.

                                                    We're thinking of buying a trampoline for the back garden.
                                                    Last edited by Balderdasha; 07-01-2021, 10:37.

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