Surviving Week One

WELL. The first week has been quite the baptism of fire. Anyone else? I feel like a different person to the one from this time last week. That first day. I don't even want to think of it. All my gusto, bravado and let's face it, massive naiveté from last week disappeared pretty much within the first few hours of Monday morning.

The teenage girls decided to plant their laptops at the kitchen table and work from there. The husband decided to hide work in the study and needed QUIET at all times in order for this to be a suitable work environment. The youngest girls were exceedingly eager learners for the first half an hour, as we squeezed in the spaces left at the kitchen table, and then their exuberance wholly dissipated leaving me trying to bring the energy for us all. (Like all those family photos where dispirited/angry children are refusing to smile at the camera but the mother is so desperate for a lovely family photo she tries to smile enough for the whole family and looks slightly unhinged. Have you seen them? We have plenty of those. It is a near impossible task to try and get seven people looking at the camera and smiling. Although we did manage one beautiful family photo a few years ago, because I was secretly whispering hideous threats of physical violence, through gritted teeth, to the child who was trying to ruin it for us all - the result is a very flattering photo of me surrounded by a husband and all children facing mainly the right way, with troublesome child not smiling, but looking in the right direction with an innocuous expression on his face which is a total win.)

That left me with the boys. They had clearly envisaged spending entire days on their screens so were slightly upset to discover the Timetable (drawn up by my organised older child who is the Saffy to my disorganised Edina) banned screens from 9am to 4pm. And their silence-needing father had imposed a PS4 ban until 5pm, when he would finish for the day. The older boy, G, is very like his late grandfather and excellent at keeping hidden out of the way, so much so you can almost forget he is even there. G executed this to a T and would disappear with a work task until I suddenly remembered his existence several hours later, and run up to his bedroom to try and catch him out, but he would invariably hear me on the stairs and arrange himself in to a suitable 'I'm being a conscientious worker' pose so I would have to concede the point. He would emerge at the designated 'break times' and make a big song and dance over finding the timetable so he could verify that this was 'free' time and I was therefore unable to ask him to do anything. Second son, Ted, just wanted to get everything done as quickly as possible and would rush through it all in a half arsed, half hearted manner just to shut me up and so he could go back to whining about how much longer before he could go 'on a screen'. What I desperately needed was a TA. Or in fact four. Six children to one unqualified teacher was definitely the wrong ratio.

The primary school is sending the younger three children daily work which I dutifully print out every morning and then spend the designated 'work' hours on the timetable, trying to get through. That first day the tasks felt endless. By Friday we were doing a very 'me' version of the work and picking and choosing the best bits. Far from needing to worry about the days dragging, they seemed to race by and I started to panic that we wouldn't be able to fit in all the work in time for our Family Game session in the afternoon. It is very important we get that in on time, because as soon as the game element is over, they are allowed back on screens and the blissful silence that ensues (and the gin) is the only thing that keeps me going through the day and the almost CONSTANT 'Muuuuuuummmmmms' I have to endure. I swear there is a sensor that is linked to all of our loos, and the minute I manage to sneak off for a wee and my cheeks hit the seat, an alarm sounds somewhere in the house - like the old fashioned bell system that sounded in the staff quarters of stately homes - the bell sounds and a child will start with 'MUUUMMM'. I never answer the first one, in case they lose interest. This rarely works. So the 'Mumming' continues. And then the same old pattern - I answer, they don't hear. Mum? Yes, Mum? YES. MUUMMM?  YESSSSSSS! MUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMM?  WHAT DO YOU BLOODY WANT I AM ON THE LOO!! They then continue talking to me as if i'd said, 'absolutely my precious dumpling, tell me what is troubling you, I'm all ears!'

In amongst the tantrums, the storming off, the tears, the placating, me endlessly saying 'hang on' - 'in a minute' - 'there's only one of me', the mess, the endless food preparation and the twice daily loading and emptying of the dishwasher, there have definitely been highlights. By day two, the big girls had realised that working in the chaos of the kitchen was a rookie mistake and found a way to make it work in their room. I decided to write off the youngest as collateral damage and basically let her play her 'long game' (which involves babies and handbags) all day with a little bit of reading and some counting thrown in. I allowed G to stay hidden for the best part of the day with only a few shouts up the stairs to ask what he was up to. This freed me up to focus on getting through the work with Ted and Cybs, aged 10 and 7 respectively. This worked. And as all breaks were taken outside in the beautiful Spring sunshine, I was able to clean up the mess left in the house with them all outside annoying our neighbours. I even managed to squeeze in some of my work. I felt like Erin Brockovich. On Wednesday afternoon we organised a 'whole school' rounders game up at the (empty) village sports field and took our home made cake with us as a snack to enjoy afterwards. That felt like a huge win. By Thursday I was desperate for the school work emails to stop coming and by Friday I had a horrible realisation that the school emails would indeed stop coming during the Easter holidays and then I would be responsible for finding ways to keep everyone amused, all day, every day. I started searching for trampolines. But it would appear I missed the memo which told everyone else to buy one which means all the reasonably priced, reasonably sized trampolines are all sold out. They will just have to learn to jump up and down on the grass with gusto.

However, I remain determinedly upbeat about it all. I have much to be thankful for and I am all too aware of our luck. My eldest, Bea doesn't take her GCSEs until next year (we hope....) and she managed to get to her much longed for ski trip before all the madness kicked off. Her best friend in all the world, and our surrogate 6th child, A, was delivered to us before the lockdown and so will be staying with us for the forseeable. (It is exceedingly serendipitous that her name begins with an A as the first letter of our girls' first names are in order, B, C and D. 'A' joining the fold is clearly meant to be). They have known each other since they started school in London aged 4 and have been a huge part of one another's life ever since and A has come to stay with us in almost every holiday since we moved to Suffolk five years ago. She is an only child and the idea of endless months stuck in the house, whilst her parents worked from home and attempted to navigate a house move (now on hold obviously) was enough to make our noisy and chaotic house look like a very attractive prospect. I'm also thankful that my husband, K is an employee and able to work from home, so we will still be receiving an income - for now at least. My work for a Dementia website has been all but stopped but I am able to do the odd few hours to keep a trickle of income coming in, and as another plus, our only expenses now seem to be food and electricity so I'm hoping my outgoings diminish in equal proportion to my incomings. That is the hope anyway.

My main outgoing BC (Before Corona), used to be petrol for the car which is clearly no longer a concern. Last year we upgraded our family car (which is actually just 'my' car that K occasionally drives. He gets to travel around in his car which can conveniently only fit two small children on the back seats, or one larger child if they have legs) to an 8 seater, long wheel based van. I am utterly in love with it, but like the rest of my loves, it is bloody high maintenance. It has needed more trips to the garage in the year that we have had it, than my old Ford Galaxy did in ten years of ownership. I have already had to replace all of the tyres. And every time I turn the key it beeps several angry demands at me. 'Low Fuel' (stop trying to push your luck with this you bloody fool), 'Park Assist not working' (take me to the sodding garage again you lazy bitch) and my least favourite of all - 'Only 550 miles of Ad Blue Left' (AGAIN). I find this incomprehensible. Who invented this warning system? Why does it need to warn you so far in advance? The warning light and message start annoying me at around 800 miles to go. WHO in, the developed world, sets off on a journey of many hundred miles without the prospect of a service station en route so might need reminding that they could conceivably get caught short? It's not even possible to drive for several hundred miles anywhere in the United Kingdom without finding a petrol station. Why does it need to be so needy? At around 'only' 300 miles it starts beeping at me mid journey, telling me the engine won't start in T-300 miles. WHO needs to think that far in advance? It is just not in my DNA. I hate filling up with diesel as it is. I never fill up the tank as I hate the money leaving my account so I only ever put £30 in at a time which I feel is a reasonable amount to 'lose'. It does mean that I visit the petrol station far more often but who cares.

In summary, we survived the first week. The children learnt a bit. We enjoyed our mandated exercise hour. Gin helped. Also, I haven't even managed to tell you all the blissful ways Marie was proved wrong during this week. I shall save that for next time. I sincerely hope you are all surviving too and not drowning under the weight of Whatsapp Group messages (STOP THE MADNESS), School emails, searches for a usable pencil/pen, coronavirus updates and yells of MUUUUMMMMMM and or DAAAAAAADDDDD (depending on who the default setting is in your house - in ours, I am default setting, back up setting and emergency contact. DAADDD is only used to find out if their playstation ban is up or if he has finished in the study so they can go back on the Playstation.)

A tout a l'heure mes amis xxxxx