Things are starting to blur.
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday who knows. Morning active-wear, afternoon jammies, let’s go for another walk/ride/, do another online exercise class, cook some more food…..
Sunday was really flat, Nixon had a bad day yesterday but today we got back on track. I’ve stopped watching the news so much, turned notifications off on my phone, decided that checking the NZ Herald app 773 times per day was not helping anything, and I’m literally solely focussed on the day ahead and making it as smooth as possible for our family.
Like any other day, there are the arguments about brushing teeth, showering (gross boys!), who said what, or who gets to choose which Hello Fresh meal will be cooked for dinner, but the fundamental urgency of how we move through our days has shifted. I wonder just how this will adjust when the lockdown is over. How will it be possible to revert to a world without social distancing, without paranoia around our 6-year-olds rubbing their hands all over every surface in the public realm, without those whiplash-inducing head spins to identify from exactly which direction ‘that’ cough came?
Will we be the generation that forever stockpiles hand sanitizer? After we are able to buy it again of course!
For those overseas, we are on Stage Four Lockdown here in New Zealand. Our borders are completely closed, each family must self-isolate at home, only leaving for essential supplies or services such as groceries or medical attention. All non-essential businesses are closed and non-essential travel is limited to exercise withing our immediate neighbourhood. People are working only from home if they are able, otherwise, the mandatory business shutdown is in force for 4 weeks.
Meanwhile, we have been watching Australia and the USA fail to act with such urgency and force, as people keep dying.
It feels like we fell asleep one night and the world changed in a matter of hours.
Dave has worked from home for years so compared to many families, we are finding the lockdown not quite so jarring in its totality. Nixon is probably struggling the most. He is an incredibly busy, social little boy who has been relishing the freedom of cycling around our neighbourhood over the past few months, constantly exploring and playing with his friends – our parent network of Mums and Dad’s keeps everyone up-to-date with the location of the Boy-Gang at any given time. Now he must stay home with only his family for face-to-face company and attention.
Our days now start a bit later, we are all sleeping a touch longer without Ethan’s 7 am departure for school. I plan our F45 workouts the night before and Dave and I slowly head for the garage whenever the coffee kicks in. Ethan and Nixon play basketball in the driveway every morning and a family walk is mandatory for everyone. The boys complete their school work, we cook, bake and catch-up with our friends via ZOOM workouts, HouseParty, Facetime or Skype. Nixon and his pals have slowly adapted to online communicating after first attempts saw he and his friend yelling back and forth for an hour “CAN YOU SEE ME?!”. We have been bike-riding in the early evening, though to be honest I find this quite stressful as the sheer number of people and kids out and about can make social-distancing quite hard on the footpaths.
I was fully prepared so food and entertainment and exercise equipment are a-plenty, however, the daydreams about what we will do/eat/visit when the lockdown is over have begun.
I haven’t laid down any grand goals to aspire to over the isolation period. I literally just want my little family to be as happy as possible, for Dave to be able to keep working without any huge increase in stress due to the boys being home, to somehow maintain motivation to keep working out
(it feels like it gets harder every day tbh) and perhaps to read some more books.
That’s all I want aside from health for my family.
The post Corona Diaries – Lockdown #4, #5 and #6 appeared first on The Best Nest.