Thursday photo #342

With the announcement about lockdown coming to an end, it seems strange to be finally making plans again. Not a lot will change for us really, but the girls can’t wait to get back into the swimming pool. Christmas of course causes another dilemma, but thankfully I think for us it will be easily resolved. My mum is in our bubble anyway and we usually see her on Christmas day and boxing day. So, we’ll stick to the usual plan. It will be a shame that we can’t see other relatives we usually visit, but it’s only for one year. Hopefully Christmas 2021 will be very different again.

Missing sleep

I never thought that by the time my children were in school, lack of sleep would still be a problem. Especially in the middle of a pandemic when there is absolutely nothing to do in the evenings. And yet I find myself in an ongoing battle with children who are getting up earlier and earlier.

I tend to go to sleep at around midnight. I know that seems late but I often work in the evenings. Then I spend an hour watching television before heading up to bed to read. I don’t tend to feel sleepy much before midnight so going to bed earlier isn’t really an option. When the girls get up at around seven, they always wake me but I feel fairly well rested. The problem is, the past few days they have been getting up at around 5am or just before.

I can’t sort this out by sending them to bed any later, because they are exhausted by the evenings. They don’t seem to be capable of getting up without waking me. Additionally, I worry that they are not getting enough sleep themselves. I’m hoping that when they start exercising a little more after lockdown ends, they’ll naturally sleep for longer in the mornings. Until then, I’ll be surviving on plenty of strong coffee.

Playing football

Since the first lockdown started back in the spring, we have spent a lot more time exploring our local area. This time around, I worried that the weather might be a factor in keeping us indoors more. In fact, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Whilst we’ve avoided any torrential downpours, the girls have been up for getting out and about walking whatever the weather.

Last weekend, there was a lot of debate as to what we would do, despite there being very few options open to us. In the end, we all settled on going to a beautiful local park where the girls could play in the playground and kick a football around as well. I always appreciate the scenery there too, the views are quite spectacular on a clear day.

Libby has got quite into playing football at school recently. So, she was keen to take her ball up to the park so we could all have a kick about. Lia was initially reluctant but it wasn’t long before we all got quite into it. It’s amazing how appealing any sort of sport can be when your usual activities have to stop.

Thursday photo #342

We’re hoping that the ballet lesson yesterday was the last one to be held over zoom. The girls can’t wait to get back to the studio, it’s a bit lonely doing ballet in their bedrooms.