Isolation fun - may the force be with us

Nearly 7 weeks into this isolation and (at times) I am getting fed up with it, as I am sure most of us are. But don't think the end is near, so we just have to deal with it. While some of us are happily working from home and loving it, their productivity rising to the sky (crazy people, eh?), others are really missing face to face comunication and struggling with all this exclusively remote work.Video calls are generally ok (apart from that very important meeting with a new client when I was supposed to lead the meeting and make a good impression, but my bloody Zoom crashed) but still feel strange and just won't do for me. It is hard, I feel tired, annoyed to not be able to control things, missing people, spending too much time on social media to distract my brain.

Today I was witnessing from my kitchen a situation where an older lady fell on the road near the pavement, must have been the heat, and people were trying to help her but keeping the freaking (note how I am trying really hard to watch my language!) social distancing. So they only ended up giving her a bottle of water and a man stayed on the road to protect her from cars, until someone from her family came and picked her up. I really wanted to go out and help, but what more could I have done than the people who were already there? Felt so helpess and frustrated, and the situation was so ridiculous. 

It became almost instinctual to avoid people when we're out for a walk, run or ride, and I am wondering if we'll be able to revert to what was before. This is such a big test for humanity, but I keep reminding myself how adaptable we are, how quickly we adjust to change, so it will be fine. I feel quite glad that I haven't set any goals for this time, except for keeping us going and happy, which actually can be a challenge at times.

But trying to focus on the positives! Family time, yes, that's a gain. We're still all alive, and the only serious shouting around came from my side (once!) where there wasn't a square inch where I could step in the living room, so I accidentally stepped on some Lego pieces. Need I say more? There was  some tidying up afterward, but very useless, as the room was quickly filled with puzzles afterwards. So I gave up, I will either learn to levitate or simply use the front door to get outside. 'Chose your battles!' is one of my motherhood mantras, but sometimes that's so hard to do.

Anyway, the girls still seem very happy with this arrangement and of course love to spend time with us. We do as well, but we also need to juggle work around them. Or them around work, it’s sort of unclear sometimes. They do miss their friends and we’ve been lucky to see many of them walking past our house and managed to speak to them a bit. But Emma wants to give them a cuddle, and we need to keep her from running to people. It is so hard to explain to her why we're supposed to keep the distance, and then she says: 'But Mummy, we're not sick, and they're not sick', so we go over the whole explanation again, and again.

We haven't kept a diary, but took loads of pictures and videos, and looking back at these weeks, we managed some great time with the kiddies. I sort of suffer by the 'imperfect mother' syndrome, and I always feel like even if I am doing my best to entertain the girls, I could do better. These weeks I sort of understood where that comes from - it's because I am better at structured activities with the girls, rather than playing it by the ear and joining easily any of their game. Dan on the other hand is the flexible one and lets them lead the playing. I guess that's a win for them, as they can get the most out of both of us.

They are generally very happy playing together, and there's a lot of role play and listening to music, when they don't even want us around. It is funny though how Ariana is trying to play Star Wars with Emma, while Emma is trying to play Rapunzel with Ariana. The 4 and a half years gap between them is an interesting one, but they are flexible and managing it quite well. Yes, Emma knows a bit too much about Princess Leya and Yoda, and it's hilarious how they both sing Weird Al Yankovic's 'Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi'. Ariana also got into listening to great music - she's now in the Coldplay phase, possibly moving on to Cranberries, and also just realised how amazing Bohemian Rapsody sounds.

We've done a lot of arts&crafts stuff that we never actually had enough time to do before. Some of them got quite messy, but it's not like I had to go anywhere, so I had plenty of time to clean afterwards. Baking is another thing we've managed to do more than before, and some home made cake is always great to lift your mood, isn't it? 

Introducing movie night was a great hit, and we each take turns to pick what we're watching on Friday night, which is only to avoid watching Frozen every time. I think the weather being nice really helped these weeks, so the girls spent surprisingly little time watching tv and a lot of time outside.

Playing board games works well with Ariana, but it's a bit tricky with Emma who doesn't always want to join in, but when she does, she beats us all at memory games.

Homeschool is going ok, but that's probably the most difficult thing to manage. We're not really always sticking to the learning sheets and improvise, so Dan helped Ariana code a very cool game in scratch, where a wizard is playing tennis with his wand. Otherwise, we're grateful for all the Mathletics and Spelling Shed that Ariana can do on her own while we're working. She's generally happily working independently and asking for help if she needs anything. But also gets easily distracted by Emma and takes a short break which then turns into a longer break. The best thing for Ariana is that she has a lot of time to read, and she really makes the most of it. I love how when reading, she is so captivated by her book that has no awareness at all about what's gooing on around her, and doesn't even hear us when we call her.

Emma is also sometimes pretending to do some learning, so her sister is very happy to teach her, which is not exactly an easy job. She once scribbled on top of all the learning material that Ariana had prepared for her. This is a preview of how much headache home learning will cause me once Emma will be starting school.

Feels like we've been given the gift of time and I am unable to use it properly. So as much as I am looking forward for the 'normal', whatever that will be, part of me wants this to take a bit longer so I can actually make the most of it. Or maybe I am making the most of it but again, I feel like it's not enough. We've probably managed to connect much more since we're all home. I absolutely love going with Ariana out for a run or cycle ride and chat about things; those are the moments when she's really able to open up and talks about how she feels about this whole thing, and I can guide her through those feelings. Or I can just listen. It is so hard to just listen without giving out own opinions though, I've always been rubbish to do that. But am learning to hold my thoughts for myself and get better at listening, I think the girls (and many others) will be happier if I do so.

Anyway, I feel that the challege from now is to keep making the most of this time, trying to keep looking at it as a positive experience, enjoying and growing together with my lockdown team, building and maintaining that much needed connection.