Keeping small children alive, the house in a livable condition (the cleaning lady hasn’t been coming, obviously, so the standard which constitutes a “livable condition” has unsurprisingly plunged dramatically) and having to decide, AGAIN, what we’re going to eat for dinner (and now lunch and sometimes breakfast), was exhausting before the CB started, and is still exhausting now. Who knew?
I finished my training plan for the cancelled Income Eco Run last week and took this week off running completely, which means I have spent an irrational amount of time fretting about how this will affect my Strava stats. Funnily enough, I had more motivation to keep to a plan when life was going on “as normal”. I peaked just before the CB started, and it was a struggle to get to the end, though I knew I would feel worse if I just called it quits. I ended the training cycle with a crappy time trial, which made me sad for a while, but overall I was just glad to have some closure and certainty during this unsettling time. It’s been a weird couple of days without getting outside for a run, but I made the discovery of the CB just last week: I can cast my phone screen to my TV screen without a Bluetooth dongle. It has made Les Mills On Demand workouts more fun; almost like being in a live class where you know exactly what joke the instructors are going to crack next.
Other family members have decided they would also like to do a spin class
On Monday, Daniel’s class had Show-and-Tell. The topic was “A Weekend With My Family”. What the kids were supposed to have done with their families over the weekend that didn’t involve TV and multiple naps eluded me, although when I read the email again I realised that they could talk about a weekend Before CB. It didn’t stop one of his classmates from happily chirping, “Last weekend, I watched TV and play phone!”, a perfectly acceptable way to spend a weekend these days. Teacher P’s response was disappointing but expected; she suggested that this kid tell her parents to read to her more. Daniel drew a picture showing him taking the bus to music class with Mummy and Andrew (I later wrote “I like taking the bus to music class with Mummy and Andrew” on a separate piece of paper for him to painstakingly copy onto his worksheet as I tried not to freak out that he is 6 this year and does not appear to know how to spell “I”.)
On Wednesday, I logged on to my work laptop bright and early and made sure my IM status was an optimistic, green, “Available”. I continue logging in as “Available” every weekday morning despite the fact that it is an untruth because it makes me feel like I am “Available” and actually doing what WFH Parents are supposed to do, namely, WFH. But right after that I usually go to the living room and turn on the family laptop to play the videos the boys were supposed to have watched a couple of days ago for that morning’s HBL. That day I also double-checked the timetable which I received at least a week ago and remembered that I blatantly ignored the fact that there was craft, because we have no craft materials – when you let two small boys muck around on their own around the house pretty much 90% of the time, you end up getting rid of a ton of craft stuff, otherwise the mess is unbelievable (I collected all their oil pastels and stored them in a washed take-out container and put it in the storeroom after I spent a good part of the first CB weekend scrubbing oil pastel stains off the floor).
My mother thinks I should instil in them the good habit of Cleaning Up After Themselves. I agree, but am currently lacking the fortitude required to undertake this herculean task. In 5 years’ time I will be complaining about how no one helps around the house, and I will only have myself to blame.
I tried to start working but Andrew got really emo seeing all his friends and teachers on Zoom instead of in real life, so I allowed him to sit on my lap and look solemnly at the laptop screen while laoshi did her level best to engage a bunch of four/almost four year olds. I told her we didn’t have any construction paper and she said oh, any kind of paper will do, which is when I remembered the stack of old Economists lying around. Andrew snapped out of his emo-ness long enough to create a craft from an article about the future of artificial intelligence and a hastily retrieved roll of masking tape.
The theme was "traffic". I am available to clarify your interpretation of the craft.
During my trip to NTUC this week, I noticed that some enterprising member of their staff had brought in a whole bunch of assessment books for ages 5+ and up. I only threw the Spelling and Writing one into my germy cart which I was pushing without disposable gloves on before I realised that there were at least three other topics available, so I took one of each. Daniel is obsessed with writing the answers down as neatly and perfectly as possible, which means that he keeps erasing and re-writing and then I have to get out the vacuum cleaner to vacuum up all the eraser droppings. But I did have the foresight to replace our very old, on its last legs vacuum cleaner just before the CB started. We have the amazing Phillips PowerPro Expert 2100W, and I have to say, I have never enjoyed sucking things up more.
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See you next week.
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See you next week.
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