The Gazette has put together a team of parents who are at home taking care of their children while the province goes through school closures and the shut down of everything other than essential services.
Ashley Worobec and Nicki St. George will write regularly on how they are coping. We invite parents to take part in this initiative by adding comments to each Coping with COVID19 & the kids article.
By Nicki St George
May 7th, 2020
BURLINGTON, ON
WEEK 7 –
What you don’t see in this drawing – is what appears at the bottom this piece
MONDAY, April 27th
It is my brother’s birthday today and the 5-year anniversary of the day my family arrived in Canada from New Zealand. My husband posts a memory on his Facebook page saying ‘no regrets’ in reference to our decision to move here. I concur; however, lately I have been rather envious of my friends and family in NZ with their low COVID rates and inspirational leader, Jacinda Adern. But mostly I am envious of the fact that their lockdown rules are being relaxed and they are now heading out to the beaches.
TUESDAY, April 28th
The day unfolds as usual. School work in the morning, bake something in the afternoon. I’ve created a list of ‘must dos’ for Beatrix and use screen time as a carrot. My hope is that I won’t have to ask her to get dressed 15 times (at least) every morning or chase her around the house with a hairbrush. But I do not have the discipline for reward charts and she seems to derive no satisfaction from folding down the little ‘to do’ tabs that I had carefully crafted. Still, I think she is getting the message and her behaviour is better this week.
WEDNESDAY, April 29th
As my return to work is approaching, I decide that we need to buy a Chromebook for the children to share. This involves spending a few hours trying to decide between the various models and features. Finally, I find the one and it is at BestBuy in Milton. Dan seems to think that driving to Milton for curbside pickup will be some kind of hardship for me, but I’m actually quite excited at the prospect of a whole hour in the car by myself! And it is glorious…until I get a frantic phone call from Dan because zoom has crashed my computer and Bea was about to start her virtual dance class…
Chromebook worse for these two – Mom likes it as well.
THURSDAY, April 30th
The Chromebook is awesome. It has all the Apps that the kids are familiar with from school and they enjoy taking turns picking songs from Go Noodle and can navigate the device better than I can. The iPad just doesn’t cut it when it comes to google drive. I am starting to feel better about being able to multi-task while homeschooling and working from home.
Trampoline – constant use
Our trampoline, which got taken out of the garage and set up last weekend, has been in constant use. Except for today because it is too cold outside. The kids need some kind of brain break, so we all find something to balance on our heads while we play follow the leader.
Later we play hide and seek. I sometimes wonder if all the grandmas of the world are just shaking their heads at mums like me and my friends.
What do we really have to complain about? They would have spent every day entertaining their kids and loving it. My friend sends me a viral video about how we need to re-examine our lifestyles and what caused us to get into this whole mess in the first place. I couldn’t agree more.
FRIDAY, May 1st
Today is officially my first day back to work. I feel like a fish out of water. When I left work at the end of November for my surgery and cancer treatment classes were in session and nobody had heard of the coronavirus. Now, it is like I am starting a new job. There is post-pandemic jargon to familiarize myself with and a slew of new technologies to get my head around, not to mention the whole zoom meeting culture and etiquette. Camera on or off? Can I just ‘leave meeting’ discretely? My computer, sensing my trepidation, crashes and that signals the end of my workday (at 11:00 am).
Dan scours the Bulk Food Warehouse for Kashmiri curry powder and cardamom seeds.
SATURDAY, May 2nd
We are not given the warm, sunny day that the weather network had promised. Dan spends the day distributing soil and grass seed to our front lawn. I believe this is called ‘over-seeding’. The children have been asking for butter chicken for dinner. Dan and I both like to cook and we make our curries from scratch. So, while Dan scours the Bulk Food Warehouse for Kashmiri curry powder and cardamom seeds, I study Jamie Oliver and Maunika’s FoodTube tutorial. And, well, it’s not an exaggeration to say that I haven’t stopped thinking about that curry ever since.
Two baby bunnies in there – more to this story for sure
SUNDAY, May 3rd
Finally! It’s here. The first day above 20 degrees that we have seen in about 6 months (and it is just the one day because the week ahead is back to single digits again). Leo complains that it is too hot (eyeroll). I get a sunburn. We eat breakfast, lunch and dinner on the back deck.
For the last few weeks, I have been watching a rabbit make a burrow in the planter box which sits on my deck and normally holds my herb garden. Today we find her sitting atop the planter box and upon closer inspection, we notice that she is feeding two little baby bunnies. It’s a nice way to end the week.
