LOCKDOWN: Reflections on 1 month at home

A month. Really, since I’m writing this later than I intended, it’s actually been more like 32 days of lockdown. More than a month since our kids have left the property. Wow.

I will preface this, as usual, with a message for our friends and family: we are healthy, we are safe, we have everything we need. Adding: thank you all so much for checking in, and I’m sorry I’ve been so slow to reply to messages these days. I’m trying to get better about it.

I’ve been meaning to update sooner, but to be really honest, it has been difficult to find the motivation to write. However, I’m sitting on my balcony with a cup of coffee and a rare bit of solitude, so here goes nothing!

(Cue one of my children showing up to ask me to arbitrate a dispute like “who gets to be the murderer” in a game they want to play. Yes, that is an actual fight they’ve had recently).

On the news-y front, there isn’t a ton to update here. Every day at 6 p.m. we check to see the official death/new cases count out of Italy (a morbid ritual we’ve gotten into) and search for signs things are improving. At the moment, it’s hard to say. The number of deaths have fallen from the peak for several days in a row, but when you are talking about another 600+ people dead every single day, it is hard to feel encouraged. Numbers of new cases seem to be up and down. We are hoping those numbers continue to fall, but I think that I need to accept that it will not be a sudden drop off in cases as I secretly have hoped.

This was an incredible line just to get into Auchan (bit like French Walmart) the other day. I probably should stick to the commissary to avoid contributing to the crowding in town, but we really wanted some fresh parmesan, pasta and wine. I stocked up while I was there lol.

Lockdown is expected to be extended until at least May 3 here, with rumblings that it will go on in some reduced form for much longer. At the base, and now in all of Italy, you may no longer be out in public without a mask. For the most part, the Sicilians I’ve seen have almost all been wearing masks since the beginning anyway, but now it is official. The new mask requirement for the base started earlier this week. I’ve been so impressed by the great number of people on base who have been making up big batches of these masks and leaving them for anyone to come grab. Love to see people helping each other during these crazy times!

For no reason at all, here’s Owen with a tiger.

What we’ve learned so far: Observations from lockdown

We have to have things we “have” to do. While doing the e-learning stuff was a bit rocky for the first couple days as we figured it out, I have come to be glad we have it. As a group, we do not do well if we don’t have some kind of a “plan” for the day. I kind of knew this about myself, but holy cow is it ever true for the kids as well. Any day where we don’t have things to do, we all turn into absolute grouch monsters. The kids watch too much TV or play too many video games, which for whatever weird reason INVARIABLY leads to them deciding to fight all damn day. If I don’t have things to do, I get into a shitty mood, which makes me way less capable of dealing with the constant bickering. Then the sound of us all arguing gets to Chris, who ends up longing to be at work rather than in the other room listening to us all be cranky at each other.
This young gentleman has turned into quite the scholar.
*Yes, I will be tossing in random photos that I keep forgetting to post elsewhere, haha.

On days we do have things to do, on the other hand? Honestly, it is such a difference that it is hard to even describe. I have no idea why doing school work or projects in the mornings makes them so much more capable of playing nicely together in the afternoon and evening, but is just freaking does. Having a sense of “crossing things off my list” also gives me a sense of accomplishment, which I honestly need. Especially as I am also not working at the moment because my freelance clients have taken all their work in-house.

This is Fiona attempting to take a selfie of herself to send to her teacher as proof she did one of her school projects, which was setting up a bowling alley with recyclables and working on math

This week was spring break for the kids, so I was very worried about what we’d do to stay sane. At the suggestion of one of my friends, we decided to do a “theme” for each day and various activities. It worked really well every day except Thursday when, after a bad night with the baby and a lack of planning on my part, we didn’t really do many of “Portugal” themed things. Unsurprisingly, Thursday sucked. Real bad. We got back on track yesterday though, and consequently it was a dramatically better day.

Egg painting from Monday, “Amsterdam Day.” The egg painting was a bit of an add-on because I had the kit and a quick Google search told me the Dutch do that too. LOL. We also attempted to make dutch pancakes with various toppings, learned about windmills and Tulip Mania and took a virtual tour of the Keukenhof gardens. We also had a fabulous phone visit with the friends we were supposed to meet in Amsterdam before this all happened — can’t wait to see you guys in real life!!

This was the kids’ favorite thing ever — for “Ocean Day” they got to go for a swim in the sea. Other activities were watching one of those ocean documentaries, a fresh water vs. salt water experiment and some art.

Attempt at a sea painting using pointillism because we have approximately a million q-tips but only a couple paintbrushes LOL. Owen got the theory but lost patience quickly.

Fiona didn’t care for the dots technique, but has been painting constantly all week and now has a gallery set up in the kitchen.

Wednesday was “Harry Potter Day,” aka the BEST day!

Magic milk experiment. Super fun. The only thing is all these activities take a fraction of the time I expect, but invariable make a way bigger mess than I anticipate.Other Harry Potter activities included reading the Gringotts chapter of Hallows on the balcony, doing some “Lord Voldmath” on some random website and getting the kids sorted on the Wizarding World of Harry Potter website (like Pottermore but new, for some reason). Both kids sorted into Slytherin, bah!

Fi only refers to the bedrooms as “common rooms” now, and insists you need a password to get into her room, aka the Slytherin common room.

Fruit rockets from Friday’s “Space Day.” High point of that day was the kids’ designs for what they’d bring for a year-long mission to Mars. The need to bring a place to poop was, obviously, HYSTERICAL.

School starts Monday and I am SO RELIEVED.

2. It’s all jammies all the time over here. Having a “routine” does NOT extend to getting dressed, however. Owen, who has bizarrely shunned pajama days at school in the past, has declared that when they go back to school he wants to make EVERY DAY pajama day. I suspect he’ll change his mind about the fleece jammie pants when it is 100 degrees out, but in the meantime I’m all about it. Ha!

3. Exercise is crucial. Another discovery — every single one of us is a jerk if we don’t get some exercise. Preferably in the fresh air (which mostly means the balcony, since we aren’t allowed to walk outside our property. I’m so jealous of all of you in the States who have been going hiking). I started with my balcony walking as a way to get a bit of solitude, but now it is freaking ESSENTIAL to my mental health. We’ve had a lot of bad storms in recent weeks, some of which were so torrential that we couldn’t even walk on our covered balcony because of how slippery the tiles got. On those days, we all felt terrible. The kids are now required to do 30 minutes of activity as a bare minimum, and I definitely see a difference in them too.

4. The kids still like us. Ha! I guess what I mean to say is, while I know they miss their friends they really seem to be enjoying the opportunity to have more one-on-one time with us. While I’m SO READY for life to get back to normal, I do love the talks and snuggles we’ve had recently.

Every time they talk though, I realize how many of our verbal tics they’ve picked up. Whoops. I guess I should be glad they aren’t dropping f-bombs (yet)?

5. WE EAT SO MUCH. If there is one thing that is driving me a little bit crazy (audience: only one?) it is the absolute unending relentlessness of the dishes/cooking cycle. How is it possible for five people to eat this much? How is it possible to do so many dishes and yet ALWAYS HAVE A SINK FULL OF DISHES?

We did finally order pizza from this one local place that delivers starting at 6 p.m. (!!!) and it was a very nice change. We haven’t ordered much because not a lot delivers here and we tend to eat a LOT earlier than restaurants usually deliver. This pizza wasn’t my absolute favorite, but the owner spoke flawless English over the phone, it got here in probably 35 minutes and it was cheap. So, I imagine we’ll be having it again.

6. The low-budget carriers are a bunch of bastards. I won’t get into a whole big thing about my hours of efforts to try and get refunds for our cancelled flights to Amsterdam, Bordeaux and Lisbon, but it has been a mess. At this point, I’ve settled on vouchers since they’ve deliberately made it impossible to go through the process to get the cash refunds we are entitled to. Here’s hoping these airlines don’t fold before we get to use them, as Chris predicts.

It’s been weird not only not going anywhere, but not knowing when it will be possible to plan future trips. We did move one of our Bordeaux flights to be a flight to Lyon at Christmas time, but beyond that we are just waiting and seeing. At this point, I might start planning stuff for Summer 2021, just to scratch that itch. Ha!

7. There aren’t enough hours in the day. I would have thought that we’d have an excessive amount of free time now, but go figure — there still isn’t enough time to get everything done that I mean to. And when there is free time, I’m too damn tired. Oh well!