Lockdown (And Beyond) Hatchlings

[Zoomer]

I hear ya, Squiz.

I'm hating both my child and my husband. I'm trying to do some complicated work that I need to concentrate on and the two of them are making so much fucking noise. A comes upstairs to me any chance she gets as soon as she's out of J's sight, and J is such a fucking dramatic wanker that he continually shouts "Oh no!", making me rush downstairs to see what horrible tragedy has befallen my family, only to find that he's spilt some flour or something. Fucking wanker. I will kill him before this is out.

[SunnyMum]

To be fair if I spilt some flour I'd be very dramatic too. I can't find any anywhere within a 20km radius of us.

I for once am not unhappy for the age I am and to have grown up children.

[Loralei]

I'm sorry, Squirrel. That drives me insane. I can usually stop it by sending them to separate rooms but sometimes they just keep bitching at each other through the walls

I have worked out that sending my children into the garden in pairs (and making screen time dependent on no squabbling) is working reasonably well. They just canNOT get on for long as a three. They still fall out but they don't bring it to me for fear of a tablet/Xbox ban.

I don't have a problem with extended screen time in theory; these are not normal times. Like Viggy though, my lot are deeply unpleasant after too much so I'm keeping some rules in place, much to J's disgust

[Squirrel]

I can usually stop it by sending them to separate rooms

I can count on zero hands the number of times my children have gone to their rooms when I’ve told them to :hysteria:. They did eventually calm down and we had a reasonably sensible discussion sitting around the table. That said, I’m no clearer about what happened! They have been fine since at least.

[Loralei]

Oh please don't take anything I say as a suggestion of what anyone else should be doing!

[Ruby]

In my experience, Squiz, once siblings start needling each other there is little you can do to derail it. Mine do it as well and it always ends in fishwife style screaming from me.

[Squirrel]

Don’t worry Lora I’m just ranting. I have zero control over my children , they are completely demand avoidant and won’t do anything I say or suggest, it’s exhausting!

I did the hoovering to drown out the screaming a bit and talked to them when they had calmed down.

[olive]

I can imagine how tough that is, Squirrel. If mine aren’t play fighting and wrestling then they are kicking the shit out of one another. It always ends that way.

We can’t have too much screen time as it turns T into an absolute zombie. He can barely string a sentence together after long periods and is foul when he comes off. Throughout the summer we have screen free days (usually 2 a week) and the fear of me adding a third keeps them vaguely in line.

I will admit that having 2 close together in age does help and is easier than managing a massive age gap or one child alone.

We had a Grade 2 mums call last night with our grade teacher and it was so interesting on how everyone is coping. Everyone found it hard and one mum started crying and logged off - she has twins and she’s found it really challenging. A few parents had set the kids up with alerts and reminders to get to class themselves and put them in charge of their own schedules and I feel like a bit of a failure for not doing that. There is no way M will even log on unless I remind him and he won’t do any of the activities unless I’m there. He just spends all day shouting for me and is finally challenging how much air time T gets compared to him.

[smalex]

W and I are driving each other a bit nuts. He can't stop wittering at me incessantly and I can't stop being a snippy bitch back. We both want to e outside but we've also got horrendous itching heat rash

[purple_dress]

S seems to have pretty bad hay-fever. I'm still chucking him out in the garden as I don't want to keep him cooped up. I guess it's the tree pollen.

[Luce]

I've found myself being a snippy bitch back too and poor Theo does not know what to do with himself when that happens. My heart breaks for him, the we've babied him so much that now the gloves are off and he's had his eyes opened to a whole new world!

We've had a much nicer day, today. No routine, no jobs, just getting on with our lives. We did a really long walk, all uphill, so that has helped.

[smalex]

W has always not seemed to notice but I can see it in his eyes now when he does. I feel awful. I need to find more things to keep us busy. I feel like we've been hanging round the entire day waiting for S to finish.

[Jet]

In my experience, Squiz, once siblings start needling each other there is little you can do to derail it. Mine do it as well and it always ends in fishwife style screaming from me.

Same here

A teacher from our school posted (with his kids permission) him having to end a zoom call with his students to break up a fight between his children and the resulting discussion and resolution.

Mine had entirely too much screen time today as my work day was an absolute shit show and Mr J had twice as as many meetings than usual. I don’t even know what I can do aside from taking a day off. But that’s not sustainable. I am often on calls for hours at a time and often without the ability to be able to not talk or break my attention to check on kids. I fed them and everyone lived....they just watched entirely too much YouTube.

[Ruby]

I don't think it's a bad thing if your children see you being a miserable bitch during quarantine. It is fairly fraught and miserable. If they look back and see months of quarantine during a global pandemic as the highlight of their lives then there's something wrong. They will learn that it's hard, and people get grumpy but that everyone still loves one another and life goes on. "Sorry mummy was mean earlier, I'm just grumpy about not getting to go out and do the things I like." There's zero point being hard on yourself for being a snippy bitch in the circumstances.

[Loralei]

If they look back and see months of quarantine during a global pandemic as the highlight of their lives then there's something wrong.

There's approximately half a generation who maintain this about a world war

I get on well with the mum of one of my friend's, and she and TD have a particular bond. I asked if she might listen to him read over WhatsApp occasionally as she is isolating and he's lacking individual attention; not only did she agree but this has evolved into a daily evening call where she reads him a story

[smalex]

Oh that's lovely!

[Rhodonite]

That's so lovely, Lora!

[wendy james]

Aww, they must both love it’

[Loralei]

They do. She's always told me to ask if I need help so I thought why not, and she suggested making it a regular thing.

[Froozy]

That’s so lovely, Lora.