During February, we heard rumours of this Coronavirus thing. We shared jokes about Corona beer and thought it wouldn’t come to much. During March, it was declared a pandemic and everyone started stockpiling toilet paper. My kids got sick from a generic daycare virus, and we stayed home just to be safe. A week later, NZ declared level 4 lockdown and we were all forced to stay at home. While my friends shared “day 5 of quarantine”, I shared “day 10” and they all got confused.
A week in, we all recovered from our cold and stayed at home to maintain physical distancing from everyone. I was surprised and pleased at how many people in our neighbourhood smiled and waved as we went for our daily walk around the block. The kids were manic without it – the weather has been great which is lucky, otherwise we’d all be mad. The worst part was knowing the playgrounds were closed. We are in walking distance of four playgrounds, and not having the ability to go for a swing was killing my 3yo.
As I make websites for a living, I was already working from home. Or at least I was, when the kids were in daycare. But with my husband at home working too, I was looking after the kids and getting only a few snippets of ten minutes at a time to do some work too. The kids can be palmed off with a movie, but that only lasts an hour tops.
I desperately wanted to write. But with my spare moments dedicated to work on my computer, I needed something separate. I love notebooks, and I had amassed quite a collection, so it was logical to start writing in a notebook, a sentence or a paragraph here and there while the kids coloured in or played hide and seek, or just a few page in the evening while they slept. I had forgotten how slow it was, and how much I had to build up the strength in my writing hand to last more than half an hour! I was used to touch-typing words which were far faster.
I’m now on the third notebook. I’ve learned to be patient with myself and my character. I can write two sentences one day and that will be ok. Some days I’m too exhausted to do more, or haven’t had the time. Sometimes I pick up the pen, open the book and my 3yo hits my 2yo over the head with a toy and it dissolves into sadness. Other days I crank out 6 pages. I used to think I couldn’t write unless I had a clear hour or two hours to get into it, but now I can dip in for a twenty-minute paragraph, and that’s fine.
The rest of the time I’m busy keeping the kid busy. We didn’t stockpile toilet paper but we certainly used the rolls for craft projects – hence the toilet roll castle (thanks Mr Maker!)