I haven’t done one of these since August and am trying to resist the feeling of doing them ALL since then. As this is rather futile. Maybe I will go back and do a few but….
This week was the start of the next “new normal”. After going through 3 weeks of school, each week has been a different “routine” due to Antonia starting so doing half days and so on, our nanny then leaving to go to University so Mike and I sharing drop offs and pick ups, Sylvia doing half days at home, and everyone being due in school at different times. I think I might have mentioned my spreadsheet….
Anyway this week we had arranged a joint drop off and pick up for everyone and Sylvia started doing full days. SO all children out of the house from 8.30am to 3.45pm! which means that Mike and I can be back at the home office by about 8.50 and not have to leave again to 3.20. Amazing! All this uninterrupted time is well somewhat bizarre. Its pretty intense too. If I drop the kids off in the morning, I’m not required to leave my desk again to 6 or 6.30pm, that is 9 hours staring at my screen which is a LONG time. I had a big writing deadline last week and had blocked off a lot of the week to finish that, so the timing was good. It made me realise how much I could accomplish with these blocks of time and I feel better now about not being able to do much first thing, which I have really struggled with in the last few weeks as getting in a couple of hours work first thing was really important to me in the split-shift, no school, covid days. Of course, now I don’t need to do that so have been taking the mornings a bit slower and doing yoga first thing. Although I do quite like to at least reconnect with my day before the school run, set intentions and just remind myself of the map of the day. That can be a challenge though if I am on drop-off so we’ll have to see how it goes.
In other news, the children had some play dates which they really enjoyed including Mariela’s much long awaited sleepover with her BFF. Excited doesn’t even describe it. And we got a new chicken so the old one is not so lonesome. With the playdates and regular school, it feels like going back to some kind of normal. Admittedly without going into the office.
We also were due to have our first round of Covid tests as part of a national research project but unfortunately there were some teething problems with the tester’s app so that has had to be rescheduled. I did manage to do my test though. It was ok. Not as bad as getting stung by a wasp in my throat which happened on holiday!