Days 40-42

A weekend. Saturday means pancakes, so pancakes it was, a reminder of the time when Saturday was our one unrushed morning of the week. We could have pancakes every day now, but we stick to differentiating weekday from weekend, marking our relaxation, with carefully rolled, chocolate spread filled, delicately lacy pancakes. Well, A and I do. The boy grazes, A’s usual, on a fine mixture of frozen peas, dried pasta, Pringles, and cat biscuits.

Deliveries! Seed potatoes and carrot seeds. Much planting. More caterpillars in the death bucket. Fun with the hose; my boy loves water. More deliveries! A packet of school work for A to gloat over, shuffle, sift into piles, file away carefully untouched, review, make a plan for what order it should be worked through, organise into plastic pockets, but otherwise leave entirely untouched. And just like that, another day done.

Sunday. Weekend, so, pancakes. Church live streamed - this works so well for my lovely girl. She can turn the volume down, fiddle with her playdough, doodle in her notebook and still pay attention to the service, without being overloaded by everything else happening at the same time.

Roast chicken. With bread sauce. And everything else. My girl voluntarily clearing the table so that we can eat together. My boy grabbing chicken slices from my plate to squish through his fingers, stomp on, reject very thoroughly before returning to his beloved dry pasta and frozen peas.

A church youth zoom session for A, and then the sudden legalisation by her, at 4pm, that she had not had any of her music or her iPad all day up until this point. Don’t think that’s happened since I pulled her out of school. A quick music chill then a friend zoom too, whilst my boy and I bounced and swung and introduced more caterpillars to the death bucket. Tired of dodging falling caterpillars, I took the saw to the apple tree. Not the whole thing, but it no longer has branches at head height. I shall regret this in the Autumn, when none of the apples are in easy reach. But it works for today.

And then today. Monday. A picked a small piece of work from her folder and did in fact complete it with a little bit of prodding. D found the improved head height under the apple tree made for greatly improved swinging too. And I found a little butterfly which kindly paused long enough to let me admire it. Mum called by for a socially distanced delivery of tulips and donuts, always appreciated, but not by D, who cannot understand why I block him from running down the ramp in exuberant greeting. And very lovely friends and committee members from a local parent support charity dropped around a survival pack - pens and magazines for A, toys for D, and a very mini bottle of gin and tonic for me. Totally unexpected and really appreciated.