Dawn's Dry Arch Blog - Week 5
I am so tired listening to the word "CORONAVIRUS!"
Anyone else with me ? This has been a long week, I think we might have hit a wall. Its important to heed advice and see this through but WOW it is hard. Don't get me wrong we have had some lovely times, funny times this week, but big and small in this house are definitely a bit fed up. As a Mummy I feel the need to be the motivational inspirational one, keeping everyones spirits up whilst keeping everyone fed. Bribing my kids to do school work, to share as well as trying to keep everyone, including myself ,emotionally balanced. Sometimes I get it really right, sometimes I get it really wrong, it's a balancing act at best and I hope to keep the scales steady.
I read a poem this week that goes:
"Drop the pretense, this isn't the summer holidays, this is homeschooling, this is parenting in a pandemic.
You don't have to do the maths or the pinterest crafts.
Give them food, and shelter, and meet their emotional needs as best you can.
Spread the word. This is you doing your best.
You are doing great."
We are doing the best we can. I am doing the best I can. In the meantime I will continue to take each day as it comes and remember I can do this,whilst getting into my big girl pants again !
In this house we do Autism, we take the rough with the smooth, we do HOPE, if its been a bad day or night we HOPE for better ones to come.
We stop - reset - try again and at all times try to show love and understanding even on the toughest of days, we try again.
One of the results of being at home for the last five weeks is that our teenagers are spending a huge amount of time online (gaming not schoolwork) talking and connecting with friends. My advice, keep checking in on them, keep an eye on their social media and online activity. They are vunerable, the downside of social media connections is there can be no switch off unless WE switch it off. This is not easy as we all know, trying to keep them safe whilst not invading their privacy.We started the conversation, we discussed what we expected and we listened to their thoughts and somewhere in the middle we will get it right , hopefully, but it does well to just check in.
We had a big event happen this week, my P3 boy had to do his first ZOOM Show and Tell. One of the greatest sources of delight this week was helping Haribo get his talk organised and he wanted to talk about his passion, ANIMALS. Specifically animal tourism (which he kept calling Animal Autism) bless him, he can talk for hours on this, our very own little male version of Greta Thunberg.
He told me in a very animated way (wee hands up like a lecturer)about the ice caps melting because of us,our cars and our homes. I kid you not I have never been so proud or laughed so often by what he said next.
"The poor polar bears Mamma they are so tired from swimming and swimming and then they only have ice cubes to rest on".
I had a mental image of this huge polar bear balancing four huge paws on four tiny ice cubes.
I love seeing the world through Haribo's eyes.
At the end of week 5, I wish you all enough, enough to get through each day. The Dry Arch Team are here for you, call us, reach out to us, you are not alone. Take time to stop, time for you, drop the pretense and remember, this is parenting through a pandemic and you are AMAZING.
So for now we are a home in lock down, loving each other through it (mostly!)
D X
