August 2021 Highlights
What can I say about August 2021. We spent almost the entire month in lockdown here in Melbourne - it's like 2020 over here! Lockdown in Melbourne is serious business. Masks outdoors, a 5km travel limit, and even a curfew at 9pm! In the past week we passed 70% of the adult population having their first vaccination, so we have been given a few little "treats" by the government: we can now travel 10km from our homes and if we are fully vaccinated (which both Andy and I are) we can have a picnic with up to five adults. There are other little restrictions that have eased (exercise outside for four hours instead of only two!) but those are the two that most impact us. We can now see some friends who live a bit further away for picnic and park playdates, which doesn't seem like a lot, but we'll take what we can get right now.
This current lockdown - lockdown 6.0 as it's lovingly referred to here - started on 6th August, only a week after lockdown 5.0 ended. We had a week of normality and Ella was able to celebrate her 100th day at school with her friends. Here is the t-shirt we made for the occasion:
Making t-shirts, or any sort of fancy dress things, is not my forté, as you can see. Ella seemed happy enough with it though.
We also managed to make a trip to Ceres during our one weekend of freedom to buy some herbs for our garden. We also splashed out on dwarf lemon and mandarin trees! It's my Australian dream to have a lemon or lime tree in our garden, but as we are renting we settled for the dwarf varieties as they can grow in pots. It will likely be a couple of years before we actually get any fruit, but I'm excited about them nonetheless. Ella also picked out a blueberry plant which actually looks like it will give us some berries soon.
For the last couple of weeks I've had a very relaxing lockdown morning routine... I start with a 15 minute meditation and then Andy usually brings me a coffee while I read in bed. What luxury! I recently treated myself to a subscription to The Atlantic and I am loving reading long form magazine articles. I even splurged for the print edition so I don't always have to read on my phone, but that won't come for another month or so.
Our days in lockdown tend to blur together... everyday seems the same. Well, that's not totally true, I definitely look forward to the weekends when Andy, Ella and I are free from our virtual classes. Weekday mornings start out quite relaxed, as described above. Andy usually gets some school work done while the kids watch a bit of TV and have breakfast. Once I've finished my morning read I make them porridge and try and get in a yoga session, unless I have a last minute class to plan, and then one of us takes Ollie to daycare around 8:15am. It's a daily struggle to get Ollie dressed and out the door. He wants to stay home with us of course! We have to wrestle him into his clothes and he's normally quite upset when we leave. If I'm doing drop off I will usually snuggle with him on a bench outside his daycare until he says he is ready to go. Otherwise he is very clingy and I have to uncurl his little hands from my clothing while passing him off to one of the educators at his daycare and leave listening to him cry "mummy! mummy!" which is never a good way to start the day. But he always has a fantastic time and is all smiles when we come to pick him up so I know he's not as distressed as he seems. Usually Thursday and Friday he's much more willing to go in the mornings, but every Monday we seem to start all over again.
Ella has online classes at 9am, 10am and 12:30pm for half an hour at a time. The first and last sessions are her whole class, and the 10am session is a small group lesson. Ella's teacher is fabulous and although I am sad she has missed almost a whole term of in-person learning, I have to hand it to her teacher (and school), they have done a terrific job of maintaining routine as well as a robust learning program for the students. We have tasks to complete with Ella everyday in between the online classes and we generally try to get it all done before lunchtime depending on our own timetables.
If we are not teaching in the afternoon one of us will take Ella for a bike ride or to the playground. We will usually see someone from her school at the playground which gives her some social interaction and she always has such a fabulous time when she can play with other kids. I have also tried meeting up with a friend for a walk occasionally, as you are allowed to exercise with one adult that is not in your household. Getting out for these walks and seeing other parents at the playgrounds for a chat are really what keep us sane though lockdown!
On weekends we try and get out somewhere within our 5km radius. One weekend we drove 8 minutes north to explore Yarra Bend Park, and came across a mob of kangaroos. (Side note: I just had to look up what a group of kangaroos is called... a mob! How funny is that?!) When we first arrived they were all lounging around, but something made them all get up and jump together to another spot, where they just all stopped and looked in the same direction. I wonder what they were looking at? I know kangaroos are not a bit deal to Australians, but I will never get tired of watching them hop around.
The kids play together a lot at home now, they have really developed a very good bond and can amuse themselves for long periods of time together. We've bought a few more big toys for them to play with at home, like a mini trampoline and mats to jump around on. We also got a play couch, which has been a fabulous purchase. The "couch" is just big pieces of dense foam that you can arrange to look like a little sofa, but also arrange in different ways to create things like forts. They also make a good landing pad for jumping off the trampoline on to - basically our living area turns into one big obstacle course on a daily basis.
Comments