It was on 16th March that I hugged my kids for the last time in a long time, when I dropped them off at school in the morning.
They didn’t know then, and they thought it strange, when I hugged them so hard and didn’t want to let go. I knew it was going to be a while. I wasn’t sure how long, but it would be long enough.
Their Dad and I had just had a disagreement about the Covid-19 risks and whether the kids should continue to go to school. Both myself and my other half are people of risk and other countries (like Portugal, where I’m from) were already implementing strict lockdown measures. The UK, in my opinion, was having a light approach and I didn’t want to keep sending the kids to school. Dad disagreed and the compromise we found was that he would take on the responsibility of having the kids for the foreseeable future until the crisis passed.
During that time at Dad’s, two of the kids had their birthdays. My small part on those days was arranging to go on a walk with each one of them, first thing in the morning… trying my best to keep to the social distance measures. I gave them their presents and left, heart broken. Later, I participated in the singing of “happy birthday” via WhatsApp…
Three months later, after many video calls and missing hugging my kids terribly… after spending a Mother’s Day without a nice breakfast in bed or a card to celebrate (in fact, not even a phone call), after many sessions of remote marking my son’s 11+ practice tests, after worrying sick every time I heard they went out for a walk or a cycle in the middle of the day and dreading that they could catch the virus… the day came for me to have them back.
And here they are! We were eagerly awaiting them… bicycles ready for cycling, a brand new swimming pool in the garden to enjoy the lovely weather we’re having and I got all clued up on the homeschooling stuff to support them (whilst holding my full time schedule, working from home).
What I wasn’t counting on was that the kids coming through the door were very different to the ones that left…
My little one cries for just about anything. It’s like a near-7 year old left, and was traded by a 2 year old.
My son, the middle one, who’s now 10, has basically copied all the attitude and anger from his older sister and feels like he’s turned 14.
My eldest daughter, now 12, is still staying with Dad, as she was already before lockdown (a whole other story).
In the last 2 weeks I feel like I had to re-teach my very clever little one to be the independent girl that she can be. And to not cry like a baby at every interaction. This is still work in progress.
My son has had more timeouts in the last 2 weeks than in the last 2 years. But one thing he hasn’t lost is that he is still willing to listen (once he calms down) and apologise / make amends.
On the plus side, I’m now a pro at making shapes in PDFs, navigating Purple Mash (online education tool) and making paper plate parrots!
One day at a time… Stay safe! 💛