2 weeks in – lockdown lessons we’ve learned.
This is a very personal post with the insides of my family’s life.
In my household, there are 5 of us. My husband Jash, myself and the kids:
– Angeli (11)
– Arjan (5 turning 6 soon)
– Jay (nearly3)
We have been following the lockdown advice for two weeks so far and I would like to share with you our experiences.
I and the kids have not left the house since the Saturday after the schools have shut down. My husband is the only person in our household that leaves the house for the essential shopping and the weekend’s work.
I have been working from home from nearly 3 weeks already and my husband has been working on the weekends only so that I can focus on the work while he takes care of the kids.
Luckily the weather has been nice and we are blessed to have a large garden.
Hubby and the kids have been spending a lot of time outside in the garden improving it.
But we did manage to get into some sort of routine despite the craziness of it all.
Monday to Friday
Mornings
We wake up around 7:30- 8ish.
No rush to get out of the bed allows us to have more of much-needed sleep. Everyone then gets up and gets dressed and ready for a day.
One by one we get downstairs for breakfast and by 9 am I’m already at my desk while daddy takes care of the kids’ education.
The eldest manages to get through her work herself. She uses Google Classroom set up by her school and goes through the assignments as directed. She also does Kumon tuitions on top of the school work hence she is also doing one piece of match and English every day.
The middle one is the one that needs a lot of support to actually sit down and get the work done. He doesn’t always like it and it can be challenging to get him to focus and work.
He also gets some work sent from school on a weekly basis to print and go through.
The youngest one is running around the house playing with toys and making mess occasionally sitting down to have a little telly watch.
Middays
Around 12-ish we start preparing the lunch and we even managed to have few picnics in the garden when the weather was really nice.
The rests of the afternoon the kids usually spent in the garden helping daddy. They have been sowing seeds, planting plants and even a plum tree. They’ve mowed the grass, cleared up the back garden and tidied the shrubs. The front garden also had a clean of tiles and even my car got washed on the way!
Evenings
Around 5-ish I am wrapping up with my work and start the dinner preparations. Sometimes Jash would prepare the dinner or we would both make something together. We both are pretty good cooks so it makes it enjoyable for both of us to be making food together.
After the dinner (6:30-7ish) we’d sometimes play some board games or put some movie on. Around 7:30-8ish is time to bath the boys so they splash around for 15 minutes while I’d catch up on a bit of tidying up in the bathroom or I’d do a bit of Pinteresting while watching the kids play.
The youngest one falls asleep pretty quick. I always read a story to the boys as they enjoy this time with me.
The eldest then takes her turn getting ready for bed. She’s pretty independent so I don’t have to remind her or prompt her much.
I’d then go back to join the hubby downstairs. We’ve managed to do quite a few workouts together and even Angeli has joined us a few times to do a bit of cardio.
The days we are not exercising I have some time to work on my blog.
The days are so busy that I’ve not managed to go to bed any earlier than midnight.
The weekends
The weekends so far were busy for me with kids playing around (and driving me crazy).
I get to catch up on the laundry, cleaning and general tidying. I try to spend some time working on my blog too. Kids choose what they want to do on the weekends and they usually end up running in and out of the house. So far the weather has been fantastic allowing them to spend a lot of time in the garden.
By the time husband comes back from work I usually got the dinner ready so we sit down to eat together. We let the children stay up a bit longer on the weekends. We get to play some games or just watch some telly.
What has or has not changed?
The work
I have been working from home only and this had its challenges. Kids do not understand that mummy is busy and keep coming to me asking things and this is so distractive that I am not able to be as productive as I normally am in the office. Although the husband is trying as much as he can to keep them away, they still prefer to come to me (especially the youngest one).
As a result, I probably only get to work on my 60-70% capacity and sometimes have to catch up on some work on the weekend. This, in turn, takes the time away I could spend on my blog.
Husband also had cut down on work for two reasons- one to help out with the kids and two to eliminate the exposure to possibilities of contracting the virus. But as he works in the essential transport sector, when he’s needed he needs to be prepared to work.
The shopping
I used to be the one who does our food shopping on the weekdays during my lunch hour as I have a big supermarket next to my office. Now only the hubby goes out to shop and has not able to get enough products to get us through more than 3 days so he goes out and buys half the things in double the time because of the queues and restrictions.
The schooling
With the schools being shut we took over the education of the kids and it is not easy especially that kids don’t necessarily want to study home so much and would rather play around.
I realise they do not get as much of the studies done as they would at school as neither I or my husband are teachers so we try our best to do some education as opposed to none.
The socialising/ outings
I used to meet friends or host them pretty much every weekend. The kids also had some clubs which now we cannot attend. Once a month we went clothes shopping or a movie morning which currently is impossible to do.
We now stay in touch over the Watsapp and Messenger with friends and family which it’s not too bad.
Cooking
Majority of the time we make food from scratch at home. However once in a while, we used to go to a restaurant with friends or ordered some food in.
We have now completely cut down on any type of takeaways and the only ready meal we ever have is frozen pizza which we enjoy once a while for lunch (cooked in the oven obviously).
Workouts routines
My husband used to go to the gym a few times a week.
I always exercise at home and not been to the gym in over 7/8 years now. I have learned to discipline myself to do my workouts at home watching YouTube channels and over the years I have developed a good technique- enough to form my own routines. But from time to time I do use Youtube when I get bored or run out of ideas. I have my mat, a few weights and bands to keep it interesting too.
Home Exercise Tips for Beginners for Weight Loss
Nowadays we work out together in the evenings at home. Since we do it together it’s more fun and even before we used to randomly work out together on the days hubby felt like the gym was just too much hustle to get to. I sware by this to be one of the secrets of a happy marriage.
Adults outings
This has not changed at all. Since we’ve had our second and third child we pretty much killed going out. Not because we don’t want to but simply because we have no one to help us with the kids. We have a childminder to look after the youngest one but this cost us enough to allow ourselves to spend more just to go out. We have no family to help us out either (we both are immigrants) so we rely on each other. Occasionally we used to meet friends out but this was not a regular occurrence. We do like spending time with each other so we end up watching a movie at home or doing things we like.
My beauty routine
I am very self-sufficient and can do pretty much everything for/ to/ on myself. From grooming though the nail care, makeup or hairstyling- I can do it all!
The only beauty place I ever get to visit is a hairdresser. I get my highlights (once a year on average) and a haircut (once a half a year). I usually take my daughter for a cut with me too but she’s got lovely long hair that we like her to grow anyway.
I had my last hair cut and highlights done in August 2019! I am due a visit (overdue actually) but it does not bother me too much. It is what it is and I am rocking the sombre look at the moment.
As to my husband and the boys, they will manage with the overgrown hair.
Just as the last thing I wanted to add:
I have recently opened up the TikTok account and I am having so much fun with it.
I and my daughter have been practising some moves so that we can film later- they are not as easy as it might seem especially that we have not much of dancing experience. The app is a massive time stealer, but certainly a fun way of wasting time! It can actually help you get moving so perhaps not such a waste of time! I definitely recommend you try it.
You can follow us under the name Agnes_with_kids
One tip- if you ever wonder how to learn the dance routine- this is how you do it:
You can either watch a YouTube– just pause and play until you learn.
Or, in the actual TikTok app you can do this:
1) Find a dance you like
2) Press the Share button
3) The bottom menu will pop out – find Duet and select it
4) You should see a split screen of yourself and the dance you chose
5) Select “3x” just below the split-screen and press the red record button
6) Now watch the routine being played 3x slower and dance along until you learn it (around 50-100 times lol)
7) Each time you don’t get it quite right just delete (by pressing little x next to the record button) and start over!
Have fun with it!
Conclusion
So here is the summary of the lockdown lessons we’ve learned:
- It’s not as easy to work from home as I have always thought it would be- so I admire all the parents that work from home while homeschooling their kids
- Homeschooling seemed more challenging to what we have originally thought and despite planning, we have not managed to go through as much as we wanted
- We enjoy spending time together as a family and we are not struggling as much as we thought we would without other people visiting/meeting with us (I might have said it too early as it’s only been 2 weeks)
- We are trying to take advantage of this rare opportunity and keep ourselves as productive as possible and working on new ventures.
Please check out my other post:
30 Productive Ways to Spend a Lockdown Time
How should a parent work from home during a lockdown period? 5 Top Tips
How to stay sane during a lockdown situation as a family – 10 tips
How did your routine get affected by the lockdown? Let me know what has been your struggles or how did you manage to make it more fun than you have expected?
Thank you for reading
