The low light of the last week in lockdown was when my two-year-old son Ruben pooed on my foot. . .
Lockdown is actually very good for potty training, so we are making great strides in the right direction (pun intended).
Only sometimes it feels like we have taken a few steps back, the foot incident being a prime example.
He did not mean to and in fact it was my own fault.
We were outside gardening (aka getting filthy while arguing over who digs the hole, who deposits the plant into its new home and who shovels in the dirt), him semi-nude (saves on washing) when he announced his “Poo Mommy!”.
I was simply not fast enough to get him to the toilet and the large missile was dropped mid-sprint (I must run up and down my driveway more often to get faster).
The highlight of the week was making a rocket (sorry neighbours) and completing the Human Climb Challenge with my hubby.
Look it up on YouTube, give it a try and challenge your friends (it’s basically very undignified and hilariously funny).
A number of our friends followed suit and the resulting hysterics made for a great day’s worth of entertainment.
Complaints aside, I love being home with my family.
I am also getting fitter by the day.
Before children I was relatively fit, enjoying running and bootcamp regularly.
Five years later and I still have not figured out how to fit exercise into my working mom life.
Now I am stuck at home with my very own bootcamp instructor (aka husband) and yikes!, he does not go easy on me! We do an hour’s exercise every other day and I am feeling it! There is not a muscle that is not complaining.
Life in lockdown with small kids is much like a weekend that never ends. Little people get sick often and so social isolation is not new to us.
A newspaper’s hours are never regular so I am used to working at odd hours, only now I have to hide from my toddler who thinks I have ‘left for the office’ – he is not easily fooled.
What I found the most difficult at first was this idea that I was supposed to be bored and have oodles of free time.
Bzzt! Wrong! While life has definitely slowed down, I am just as exhausted at the end of the day as BC (Before Corona).
No self respecting toddler allows mommy afternoon naps or ‘time to herself’. It’s a pipe dream.
I also struggled with feeling woefully inadequate with all the Pinterest-worthy crafts moms were posting on social media.
The more I tried to craft, the more useless I felt.
When the five year old wants to practice cutting so does the two year old and he wants to do it “Self!”. It’s a miracle no one lost a finger.
I came to realise that I am just not that sort of mom, and that is OK. We read books, ride bikes in the driveway and do stress-free activities like playdough and bubbles. You know the saying ‘Happy wife, happy life’?
The same principal applies to moms and children.
Soon (I pray) lockdown will be over and in time the dreaded virus will be vanquished.
Shopping this week felt so depressing with most people keeping their heads down and averting their eyes. I felt like the only fool smiling at people I passed (even masked let us never be dictated to by fear).
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