Life in Lockdown
Well, 2020 is turning out to be a bit of a downer. Let’s recap. We began with the extensive fires which seemed to engulf Australia. Then, the threat of World War 3 reared its ugly head as America and Iran butted heads after the US assassination of an Iranian General. February brought Biblical-style plagues of locusts. Storm after storm has left large parts of the UK under water (and all of us sick of the sight of rain). And then, just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, enter Covid-19: a pandemic which has brought the whole world to a grinding halt.
As a friend of mine recently pointed out, life at the moment is akin to living in a sci fi movie. The events of the last couple of months are unlike anything we have known before. Of course, this is not the first time that a virus has caused widespread death and destruction. There is a long history of plagues and flus which have killed tens of thousands of people. What is different this time is that instead of filling masks with herbs and digging large pits on Blackheath to cope with the inevitable, the world has responded by aiming to prevent the spread of disease.
And so it is that I find myself in lockdown with three children, one husband and a dog who thinks that all of his birthdays have come at once — he loves that everyone is home all the time and that we are spending a good amount of time in the woods. For the first time I think we are as excited about getting out for a walk as he is. The rest of us, I must confess, have been underwhelmed by the idea of twelve weeks together under one roof. The day that school closures were announced, I believe that I shed a tear.
However, in this situation I believe that our experiences to date have served us well. When Sasha was born, I was engulfed by the feeling that I just could not do this. I could not imagine how the world would keep turning when I was stuck in a situation that I really did not want to deal with. And yet deal I did. Day by day, week by week. We started off just getting through and then, as time passed, we were living again, rather than just surviving. One of the things which we realised very quickly was that contemplating an alternative universe was not just wholly unhelpful but positively torturous. It did not matter what Sasha should have been like, or would have been doing had things been different — different they were not. I have found this to be a good strategy to apply to the current situation we are in. I have tried not to think about how our life would currently be progressing had Coronavirus not taken over the world, and more to focus on how we can manage what is actually happening now. Surviving the early days of Sasha’s life made me realise that I am stronger than I think and that I can cope even with things that feel impossible — a knowledge which has served me well over the last week.
Last weekend we prepared for lockdown. I froze a loaf of bread and four pints of milk (enough vital sustenance for a family of five for at least two days), ate six Easter eggs (laying down energy stores), and let my inner teacher loose, preparing individual daily plans for each of the children. It turns out that, although it has been eight years since I taught in a classroom, the love of a good timetable never leaves you. Martin agreed that he would be able to spend a few hours a day working with Sasha and the girls’ schools have uploaded a fair amount of work to their websites. I scheduled this along with time outside, PE with Joe Wicks (definitely for the exercise benefit and not to watch Joe for half an hour), and slots for creative activities and free time.
Week One has now been completed — successfully, I would say. The girls have adapted well to this new and alien situation, spending every day completing their school work without the fun diversion of seeing their friends. They have bickered relatively little; having discovered a shared love of loom bands, they are working on making the world’s longest loom band rope, burning at an alarming speed through the 13,000 tiny rubber bands which came in the new kit we got them in the hope that it would buy us a few minutes of peace. Sasha is extremely bright, although you may not believe me if you have ever tried to speak to him while he is watching Mr Tumble. He is using the Khan Academy maths programme and this week has been learning how to multiply multiples of tens by hundreds and thousands numbers (for example 60 x 300). He uses a complex combination of an iPad, a tablet and specialist switches to type his answers. It looks like something that NASA may use to launch a rocket and I am entirely baffled by even the process of setting it up. On Friday he completed the quiz and scored 100% correct. Not bad for someone with extensive brain injury.
In a situation which is far from ideal, I have been trying to think about things for which I am grateful. I am extremely thankful that we have been locked down in our current house. Despite the state of the hallway, which we were due to have decorated this week, there is plenty of space and the house is fully Sasha-specced. In addition, it is situated across the road from a vast wood which provides ample government-sanctioned exercise opportunties (now that the gym is off limits, I have resorted to the Couch to 5k app). The flexibility of Martin’s work means that he is able to spend a good amount of time working with Sasha, meaning that he will not fall behind or get bored (he does surprisingly have a limit to how much Mr Tumble he will happily watch in a day). It is also a relief that our children are all now at an age where they can be fairly easily entertained — shout out to all of my friends who are battling through with toddlers or babies. Sometimes these thoughts do not take a more proactive form than ‘at least…’ but glimmers of positivity, I figure, are better than none at all.
What I think I will really miss though is quiet, free time to get on with, well, anything. While child-free individuals across the country are buying Scrabble and 1000-piece puzzles and redecorating their living rooms, those of us with children are faced with the prospect of twelve weeks without once going to the toilet on our own. After a day as teacher, cleaner, laundrette, chef, midday supervisor and arbitrator of disputes over such vital matters as who sat on someone else’s chair, I may or may not be lucky enough to spend half an hour in front of the TV before I go to bed. Fingers crossed for the fastest development of a vaccine in history.
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