I can’t quite believe it’s been over six weeks since Sybbie arrived. The eve of lockdown she decided to make an appearance along with the suspense and ultimate disappointment that she wouldn’t meet many people for some time. She still hasn’t met everyone and hardly anyone properly, who even knows when she will.
It makes me sad that she’s changed so much already in those six weeks and I am baffled beyond belief that her eyes are still blue and seemingly more blue each day. That would make one child with brown eyes, one grey and one blue from two brown eyed parents!
Fast forward to today and I still have the suspense feeling in the pit of my stomach, everything seems more serious all of a sudden with the new strain and the immense anticipation that the vaccine will still work. The prospect of no end in sight again is too hard to even think about. I’ve even considered making up little home working packs my potential future self will thank me for. Are we really going to end up there again? With the new strain spreading up to 70% more, I just can’t see how there won’t be another complete lockdown imminently.
As it stands we are tier 3 here in Lincolnshire with the option for three households to mix on Christmas Day. I am so nervous that this will continue to be the case and won’t be snatched away at the eleventh hour. I mean I’m a Clarke, eating is what we do but I’m not even sure I can get through the food we’ve got arriving in the next day or two for the big day.
I appreciate why it has to be this way and as a grown up, I can rationalise it but it still doesn’t stop me wanting to sulk. After such a tough year so many of us needed the family interaction for longer than a Christmas lunch. Those in tier 4 unable to even stretch to that. I know how badly the government wanted us to have the option too, weighing up Covid with our mental health, the economy and all the other considerations (and I thought I was juggling a lot of plates!)
2021 felt like it would bring much needed hope and freedom but I’m sitting here wondering if we have a very long and arduous road ahead of us, stretching far longer than the summer.
So I guess in a very waffle-like way I am trying to say I understand how my children feel sometimes. The carrot was dangled and has now been snatched away and I don’t think I had fully appreciated how much I had pinned on those five days of family time.
Handling disappointment is hard at the age of 32, so I need to cut the tiny humans more slack. My fears are projected onto them and their childhoods are currently altered for the worse. Literally the park is all we can do right now and even that feels risky sometimes, as I fight every fibre of my being to avoid helicopter parenting and spraying them down with sanitiser every three seconds.
We are all in it together though which definitely brings a sense of much needed unity, especially in the dead of night with a smiling Sybbie who just doesn’t want to be put down.
The Lincolnshire Mummy 