Week 1 of “Stay at home”

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It’s Sunday night and as I reflect back on the last 7 days, overall I don’t think it’s been too bad. Perhaps ask me again in week 6 and I may not be saying the same thing!

The main thing is, we’re all still healthy, and no-one in our immediate family has caught the virus. We hope we can keep it that way. We are beginning to hear stories of other families who have been suffering from it (or are simply under the weather anyway, and anxious that they ‘might’ have it.)

I’m not going to lie. Trying to do the home schooling, keep an 8 year old occupied without reliance on TV/computer,  and do the day job is tough. That’s definitely going to cause some stress and pressures, and I’m already feeling it after only one week.

But then so are millions of other families around the world. We’re all in the same boat. And technology is a massive help. I’ve also been considering all the upsides. The time I am getting to spend with my son; the money being saved; the jobs around the house finally getting done; and the new activities we are being forced into finding.

We’ll see how each week evolves.  Last week we tried to structure each day around our work commitments but ensuring we each had 2 hours allocated to James. Because my work meetings tend to kick in early afternoon onwards, I would typically spend 2 hours with James in the mornings (not necessarily back to back) with one hour being school work, and one hour being recreation (outside where possible). Then Howard would do the same. The goal is to replicate a ‘9-3 school day’ with learning/breaks/activities. No screen time (unless educational or Newsround) until after 3pm. So there has to be some independent self-play time in there too which is a good thing, and James was less objectionable to that than I was expecting.

Highlights included online meetings where the whole of Year 4 is invited; 1;1 online playdates;  and online Cubs session.   James kicked off the week painting his rainbow of hope (prep time by me to get it all set up and cleared away took 3 times as long as it kept him occupied for but he enjoyed it!), and James playing the piano (assisted by some cool apps!). Without all the usual rushing around, and to keep things varied, I’m driving James to local open space places he’s not been to before and which are remote enough for us to safely get some fresh air and movement.  Obviously with his hip restrictions we can’t go on long walks but finding new ‘spots’ to take a short stroll and find new terrain for his remote control car is proving good fun.

Let’s see how week 2 goes!

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