Last year in March I decided to do a Lockdown Diary, these were weekly but with the return to a bit more normality, kids back to school everything starting to open, I moved it to Monthly ones as we were still far away from it being over, especially being back in Lockdown but it was January! a new year! but how did it start?
Table of Contents
Doom and Gloom
Well, January is an odd month, for some its new beginnings, goal settings, Targets, resets even last year I did a post with goal settings and targets before Covid happened and put that to the side, but for others, its a sad month, a low key miserable time of the year, this year you could argue is all of that but on the next level. With another Lockdown happening, some works and schools, a lot of uneasiness, or uncertainty, so for some their mental health can be challenged, historically January is a doom and gloom month and it doesn’t look any different.
For us it was a low key slog, Boo and I were balancing work and Blogging, and the kids etc. Money like many others is tight as we keep control of everything at the moment, with no clear end insight we cant plan, organise or anything at the moment, it was very much a month of head down and get on with it. It’s not a bad thing but in reality, it was just a blah month, we both managed to start catching up on blog items.
Boo was cracking on with her reading etc…with myself as I talked about last month, I was still a bit demotivated, I’ve been quiet this month, for a variety of reasons, I managed to get some blog stuff done and hopefully I will get back to being a few weeks ahead like I use to be, but my motivation is still low.
As for the kids it was one of the biggest things, with us both being key workers we had the debate of sending the kids to school, with schools closing after the first day of the return we decided to send them, Roo though would be homeschooling at home as her lessons etc were more set up for this, and being of that age she can actually focus and get on with it, and with Boo and I coming and going from work we would be less worried about her doing school work.
Whereas the other two would find it tougher, as for Roo it’s unfair to ask her to look after the kids with their work while doing hers, even just for an hour, there’s no guarantee the kids would put in the effort when not prompted, it’s not like they’re bad children but let’s face it we would all do less given the chance at that age, we would rather play.
So Piglet and Tigger were going to school, as I’ve mentioned before Piglet needs that constant challenge and she loves social interactions, with the school though it felt like constant obstacles, emails letters even a phone call to double-check and verify that the kids were going to school, with us both being key workers but both having random shifts it was very hard to say which days the kids could go to school or not.
Which is something the school was pushing let alone them not coming at all… but we couldn’t, we couldn’t say yes every Friday etc is fine because the chances are we would work, and we couldn’t then the week before say we can do that day, that day, but not that day, it’s not practical for the school etc.
Once the kids were going to school the school was in chaos, bare in mind this isn’t the first lockdown but for us, it was the first lockdown we took advantage of the kids still going, but they were all over the place, the first 3 days were 3 different ways to pick up the children and then collect, even the teachers didn’t know and were having public conversations about not knowing due to the constant changes, again what baffled me is this wasn’t the first time they went into lockdown?
With Roo I can see her getting a little bored with school work, don’t get me wrong everything is far more organised than last year, with Zoom lessons and a host of stuff to use, but what I’m finding is a lesson last an hour or two but then there isn’t work that last the time, let’s be honest in a school lesson the work is lasted the whole of the lesson because of questions, different students and further detail, so, unfortunately, she can blast through some of the lessons and have well over an hour spare, some follow along zooms but not as many as you would expect.
Next?
Next month hopefully we will see a turn, with Vaccines coming out and being issued faster, the weather turning, January in the past, is there a light at the end of the tunnel? let’s see.
