Life In Lockdown .. How We Are Coping

It is now around 50ish days since we went into lockdown. Longer than the kids school summer holidays … but without being able to escape and buying food takes a plan of attack and at least 4 hours to complete from start to finish. The only bonus to that is that its kid free but with some random not adhering to social distancing you have to be super quick on your feet. Why do people still think that standing next to you and leaning over to get something is still appropriate?! Morons.

The first few weeks of lockdown we were a hive of nerves but a little excited to be able to spend some time together. Life slowed down and it was nice to be locked down together. We watch films we played games we forgot about the school work being sent home. We enjoyed being tougher. 

We tackled shopping issues as a tag team and video called friends and family .. it didn’t last.

For the last 3-4 weeks it would be fair to say all 4 of us have struggled. Jacob is struggling with not having his regular routine or seeing his little friends. Nursery was a massive part of his social interactions and he misses that terribly.

His behaviour has been nothing if not challenging. And to be honest there have been moments he has just had such horrific meltdowns its been difficult to get him through the other side of them. He is 4 however and although we ‘thought’ we knew how he was coping it has been clear that so much of his anxieties over this lockdown he has been unable to vocalise. 

Joshua was in his element being at home for the first few weeks. We were far more lenient with the Nintendo Switch than ever before and it took its toll. I never believed that faming could be an obsession but it certainly became one with Joshua. The more time on his Switch lead to more meltdowns. So we had to curb his amount of time online gaming, which helped.

My eldest son, Joshua has always been what I class as my sensitive sausage. He has such an immensely deep and caring soul. He is one of life’s overthinkers and I would be fair to say he has suffered the most during lockdown. 

Every news report on how many people have died has made him emotional. He struggled having his 9th birthday under lockdown just for good measure! 

Just over 2 weeks ago Ollie developed a high temperature and cough and we immediacy booked into the government website for testing. Ollie has been at work through the entire lockdown as he works in food distribution and we headed to Boot HQ in Nottingham for a COVID-19 test for both Ollie and myself. 

For the whole journey Joshua was emotional. He said he was scared of being outside the house incase he caught the virus and he or us died. We have had to give him so much emotional support and we can always tell when he is overthinking things so we have learnt to read between the lines of his odd questions and are now getting good at preempting when his meltdown might occur. On a side note, no COVID 19 in our tests! We were so lucky.

There have been some positives to being on lockdown. It has been amazing to help Jacob more with his slight speech delay and hear him starting to say words that in the past had been too difficult for him. It has also been amazing being to generally spend extra time with the boys that we wouldn’t have had if they had both been at school and nursery.

We have completed some of the household jobs that we would have struggled to get done, such as sorting the garden and painting fences. I have also cleaned out my nail room and had new flooring down and repainted it. It has even had new storage furniture to make sure i can finally get everything in there and away to make cleaning and sterilising even easier!

Last weekend we decided to camp in the garden and finally get out family tent put up so we know what we are doing in the camping field when we hopefully get into one later this year. The kids thought it was epic! 

This week we have been more motivated for the kids to regain the routine element that is sorely missing from our days. With weeks still left in sight before i return to work or the kids returning too school we are going to really have to work hard on maintaining that routine. 

How have you been coping?