Well after over a year of negative Covid tests, my husband and I found ourselves staring at a positive one. No longer the comforting one line negative, we had a big fat two line positive situation.
My 5 year old daughter, along with 7 of her classmates, brought home a little more than homework last week. My husband was as calm as a cucumber. I was a little frantic and a bit sweary, silently of course – I don’t like to run my rather ghetto mouth in front of my child. The morning was a blur of telephone calls, emails and online box ticking. After living rather low key without Covid, we now had to shout it from the rooftops that we had it. Lateral flow tests, track and trace, school registration for home school and the obligatory family updates. Thankfully my daughter was well after the first 24 hours. Home schooling resumed, work groups were set up and Zoom classes in place. It’s amazing how quickly the old lockdown routine kicked in.
After feeling pretty confident in our efforts to avoid Covid, we now had it in the house. Cautiously we carried on about our day, nervously testing and surprisingly my husband and I managed to avoid getting it. Given how contagious the current variant is, we were bracing ourselves. The cleaning frenzy began. Dettol Disinfectant was my friend. All door handles, worktops, taps, sinks, bannisters and toilets. I can’t control Covid but I can control how many times a day I clean my house.
Managing Covid in a 5 year old is tricky. Trying to explain why my child can’t go to school and why they can’t go anywhere else is really hard. I’m annoyed that this is their new normal.
After a quick dash to the school to pick up my daughter’s body weight in books and worksheets, we were set for home-school with Mummy for the week. Starting with Maths, then English, word of the day, hold a sentence and project work which is currently covering the 1969 Moon Landing. All with the delightful support of the teacher via Zoom. We were in the classroom with everyone else – just remotely.
Kindly assuming that the children with Covid would be more tired than normal, PE was swapped for a nice gentle yoga option. My daughter tried that for 5 minutes and had no problem telling the woman on the screen who asked “Are you guys all warmed up and ready?”.
“No, I’m bored”.
Sensing that this was not going to go well, I decided that a PE session with Joe Wicks would be more her speed. She was much happier.
In her class there were 8 children off with Covid, another child off with a broken bone due to a scooter injury and 4 additional children off as a precaution; as they had parents with other medical conditions that couldn’t risk Covid. Covid had definitely made itself comfortable in Year 1.
I enjoyed home-schooling. The stress of that gave my brain something else to process. Swimming in phonics and number bonds was a great distraction. The sound of my own voice saying “letters on the line…finger space…no that’s a P not a 9…focus…look at the screen”, on repeat was a lot. I had to wonder if my daughter actually tuned me out, I think I would.
Thankfully the negative results are starting to appear and most if not all the kids will be back in class by the end of this week. My girl returned to school this morning with a big smile. I was also smiling as I handed back all her completed worksheets and books. I much prefer to be a fun mummy than a teacher mummy. I am also looking forward to a coffee that is still warm when I get to it. The simple pleasures.
I will have a Cappuccino please, no phonics.