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The Oliver's Madhouse

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30/07/2020

Balancing Work & Family Life After Lockdown

Balancing Work & Family Life After Lockdown The Oliver\\\'s MadhouseOver the last few months I have been really quite absent from my blog if I am honest. And it is not because I didn’t want to be on my corner of the tinterweb it was because I wasn’t sure how to be online in this pandemic.

The world kind of imploded and although I wanted to share the ins and outs of my life for posterity during this time I was acutely aware that we were all struggling and using my online voice to tell people how hard I was finding it was probably not going to be helpful in anyway and in light of not finding a way to be helpful I thought it best to just take the time out and mentally take a break from being online.

Balancing Work & Family Life After Lockdown The Oliver\\\'s MadhouseHowever, a few weeks ago our own family life returned a little bit more normal with the government finally releasing the lockdown to allow me to finally go back to work as a nail and beauty technician. I have had the most amazing few weeks welcoming some of my amazing regular ladies back to appointments and meeting some new ladies that had been waiting patiently for quite some time to get to their appointment.

I went to bed the night before my first day back feeling like it was Christmas Eve. The excitement kicked in and I struggled to sleep. Yet I woke up the next morning feeling like I was about to embark on a job interview! … it has been the most bizarre few weeks.

Balancing Work & Family Life After Lockdown The Oliver\\\'s MadhouseThankfully my lovely regulars took the full PPE greeting in their stride and popped on their own and I haven’t looked back. 

Now that the first step back to work has occurred it’s been a whirlwind of balancing the kids around working. I know I am not alone in struggling on making a new normal work. Thankfully Jacob’s nursery is open through the holidays and have had a space for him to go a couple of days a week for the last few weeks which will increase in a couple of weeks to be 3 days a week. This will be every week then till he starts reception class in primary school in September. 

Joshua on the other hand really has struggled emotionally and mentally from being away from school since March. Part of his anxieties have been him not really wanting to return to school and I have no doubt some of that was because he was frightened. After all, as adults we have been left scared and in limbo and we have some control on things. Kids have no real concept of things so hearing and seeing things on TV and social media along with snippets of adult conversations must have left the kids even more anxious! 

I am immensely thankful that Joshua’s school run a summer play scheme for 3 weeks of the summer holidays and I decided paying for him to go to it was really important. It takes place in the school environment and some of his friends go. Initially he was worried about even going but thankfully he has taken to it like a duck to water!  

Thank goodness for the summer club as Joshua is now looking forward to seeing his classmates in September. I would love to say he is excited, but I think that is a little bit excitable! 

Balancing Work & Family Life After Lockdown The Oliver\\\'s MadhouseFor now, we are plodding along trying to balance it all and failing dismally but at least we are doing it together and at least we have some summer adventures planned! 

 

Filed Under: Family

About Jaime

Jaime Oliver is a multi-award-winning parenting and family blogger from Nottingham who has been sharing her parenting journey online at The Oliver’s Madhouse since 2012. Jaime writes about life with her 2 little boys from days out and adventures to milestones and moments there is no parenting or family topic she wouldn’t share to normalise and celebrate the differences in parenting.



When Jaime is not writing about her family she is can be found writing about her journey of self-discovery in learning to cook and fall in love with her home again on her food and interiors blog notTHATJaimeOliver.com

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