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Life lessons learnt in lockdown

17/05/2020 by Charlotte Leave a Comment
purple flowers and large trees in a sunny park

So it is possible to be organised enough with your meal planning and food shopping to avoid going to the supermarket twice a day, everyday. Who knew?

My husband has done truly wonderful and thoughtful things for our family during lockdown. But I’m sorry to inform you that removing his empty coffee cups, plates and chocolate wrappers from our office at the end of the working day is not one of them.

When I thought perhaps my daughter would enjoy doing an online workout with me I was wrong. She lies down the moment it starts and doesn’t get up until it’s over, and I respect that decision.

Buying a set of houseplants is a bit like having a load more babies to look after. Except these ones come with INSTRUCTIONS.

Though spending so much time at home with a toddler is far from easy, there is no human being on earth who could make me laugh so frequently as she does – and laughing helps.

The best way to check how stressed I’m feeling is to fall asleep and see what my dreams look like. Oh hello ALL OF MY FEARS ACTED OUT IN TECHNICOLOUR. Perhaps I am a little closer to the edge than I realised.

I can write with my daughter bouncing up and down on the sofa next to me, leaning on me, attempting to push me off my chair, saying “Can I help you, mummy” and punching my keyboard… you name it. It’s not my preferred way of working, but I now know I can do it. She is simultaneously the cutest and most destructive co-worker I have ever had.

Related: I have also learnt the importance of the ‘save’ function.

mum and daughter sat on the floor decorating chocolate

My phone is both crucial to keeping me connected to the outside world, and the item most capable of making me feel disconnected from myself when I forget to use it wisely.

There’s a reason everybody is baking so much during lockdown – it helps. You can look at it and say “Well, if I achieve nothing else today, at least I made that.”

…There’s also a direct link between my husband saying he’s going to exercise, and me wanting to bake something unhealthy. My commitment to balance in this marriage knows no bounds.

There is no greater high than coming up with an activity to do with your toddler and seeing them actually engage with it for more than three seconds.

Related: melting chocolate and using it to make chocolate buttons was a great thing to do with our daughter because a) she seemed to genuinely enjoy it (particularly the part where she poured the whole bowl of hundreds and thousands we were using as decorations on the kitchen floor) and b) I got to eat everything we made.

It’s astounding how much simply tidying up a shelf or sorting out the cutlery drawer can do for morale when you’re spending this much time at home. Of course we have little time do such things, but when we do find a window – wow, what a boost!

Finishing the day with a walk by myself with my headphones in and a podcast on – the sillier the better – does more for my sanity than I ever could have imagined.

…And when I feel I don’t have the energy to go on that walk, that’s when I need it most.

Limitations on the amount of time you can spend outside make you appreciate the insane beauty of flowers, trees, birds, the sky… all of it. I won’t be taking those things for granted any more.

orange tulips in a sunny park

If your two-year-old insists on listening to their audiobook of The Gruffalo enough times, you will become able to recite it on demand. I’m not sure this will prove a useful skill beyond my lounge, but I’ll chuck it on my CV anyway.

I can ask my mum to hold the phone a bit further away from her face so that I can see more than just her chin during a video call as many times as I like. It’s clearly never going to work.

Just because you found being a parent difficult today, it doesn’t mean you will tomorrow. Hang in there.

The bar for what classes as a life update worth sharing with other people has never been lower. I’ve got some new address stickers for our wheelie bins! I’ve started adding mascarpone to meals and it’s great, isn’t it! I thought there was a spider on the kitchen floor but it was actually a ball of my hair! I don’t care if you care, I have to talk to someone.

There’s a time and a place to let your husband know how much it irritates you that he doesn’t tidy up as he goes whilst cooking, and the second he places the meal he’s kindly made in front of you is not it.

There’s nothing like spending every hour of every day with a toddler by your side, copying your every move, to make you realise how much of your life you spend with your hands on your hips (the entire time, apparently).

My capacity for guilt as a parent is so huge that I even feel guilty that my child is having to cope with living through a pandemic, despite the fact that I PLAYED NO PART IN BRINGING IT ABOUT, OBVIOUSLY.

I don’t need to spend anywhere near as much time explaining myself as I thought. Don’t want to have a video call tonight? Don’t. Need a night off your phone? Have it. Only free to work at set times because you have a child? It’s all OK. This period has taught me how much better I feel – and how much more helpful a person I am to know – when I own my circumstances and stop apologising.

There’s something touching and heartbreaking about seeing your child step aside to let strangers pass in the park and say “We need to give people lots of space” even though they have absolutely no idea why.

a tray of pink cupcakes

No, I probably shouldn’t be letting my daughter chuck the tubs of water filled with food colouring she plays with in the garden all over the flowers we’re attempting to grow. But I’m just so happy that she wants to help, who cares if the sunflowers come up blue.

It’s incredibly difficult not to let the vast levels of anxiety involved with simply leaving the house during this crisis spill out into your parenting. When it inevitably happens, noticing, slowing down, and taking a moment to be kind to everyone – including yourself – helps.

It’s been said a billion times before but this is unchartered territory. If you feel like you’re not great at this, it’s because there’s no way you could be.

No matter how many weeks and months we spend at home, it will never be enough to get all the laundry clean, dry and put away, so I may as well stop trying.

Our marriage is at its best when we take the time to spot ways to make life easier for each other. And that can only happen if we keep talking about how we’re feeling.

There’s a difference between both being at home all the time, and actually spending quality time together as a couple. We still have to put the effort in and that currently takes the form of a takeaway and a chat on a Saturday night. I look forward to it all week.

A typical day as a mum for me right now looks like this – I’m knackered all day, unsure as to what we should do most of the time, delighted when there’s calm, ecstatic when there’s joy, gutted when there are tears, game for every cuddle I can get, and so very ready for a break when bedtime rolls around. And then the second she’s asleep, I miss her. Get comfortable with feeling 45 emotions at all times and you’ll be the greatest, most content parent there’s ever been.

It is entirely possible to be both grateful for everything that makes your life good and your problems manageable, and free to mention that you’re finding this situation somewhat trying. We are all a lot of things at the moment.

Whatever you’re waiting for – whether it’s the delivery of a new office chair, some much-needed flour, or for the time when you’ll get to hug your family and friends again, it will come. Hold on.

Posted in: Humour, On parenting, ON RELATIONSHIPS Tagged: 2020, Baking, becoming parents, being a mum, creativity, home, husband and wife, Lockdown, marriage, mobile phones, parenting, relationships, social media, toddler, toddlers, work

Holidays and learning to love coming home

17/07/2016 by Charlotte 2 Comments

IMG_7635The worst thing about holidays is that they have to end.

I love being away until that part on your final day when you have to admit that you’re not on holiday any more, you’re just a long way from home.

I find it difficult when my welcome in the country or city I’ve chosen for a break suddenly feels like it’s running out. When you’re no longer a resident of your hotel or apartment, you’re dragging your belongings behind you on wheels, and somebody only has to whisper the word ‘passport’ for you to descend into a blind panic, scrabbling around in your bag for a desperate feel of your documents which are, of course, exactly where they were the last fifty times you checked.

We just got back from Budapest. Leon booked us a city break there for my birthday, which is definitely up there with the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. It was 37 degrees on Tuesday and 32 on Wednesday and every part of me felt like it had melted. I recommend only travelling to countries of this temperature with someone who loves you enough to overlook comments such as ‘Even my shoulders are sweating!’ which are really not in keeping with the romantic getaway vibe.

I love these precious times of the year when we get to go away and pretend that we’re the only two people in the world. When our only concern is where we’re going to go for our next Aperol Spritz or, in Hungary’s case, as many glasses of water as it takes to keep us upright. This isn’t real life by any means, it’s an escape from it, and we all need that from time to time.

When the time came for us to come back, I felt the usual combination of pre-flight angst (Could we accidentally go to the wrong airport? Will there be a big queue at the gate? What if somebody sighs when I ask them to move out of my way on the plane so that I can go to the toilet? Do they not realise that will just make me need to go again really really soon?) and post-holiday blues. Why can’t we stay forever, I wondered, as a woman wheeled a trolley filled with miniature shampoos, conditioners, and shower caps by our hotel room. This place has everything we need.

IMG_7656But rather than really feeling down about our trip being over – which would surely be the ultimate definition of a first world problem anyway – I decided to focus on the good parts of what we were coming back to. If we can’t be here, I thought, I want to be in London.

I said to a friend recently that the relief I feel every time I get back to London tells me for sure that this is where I’m supposed to live. She looked at me with surprise because most people feel the precise opposite way. They will say that the relief they feel when they get the hell out of London tells them that they should live LITERALLY ANYWHERE ELSE LONDON IS INSANE.

We are all entitled to our opinions. But for me this is the place, certainly for now anyway. I don’t mean Leicester Square or Oxford Street you understand, I’m not mad – I mean London in the broader sense. Its billions of opportunities. Its tube system that I like watching documentaries about. The little corner of this city that I call home.

Home is a hard status to achieve. For years after leaving my mum’s house, which was my home for 18 years, I didn’t give anywhere I lived that title. They were just a variety of buildings to which I hauled my complete Beatles CD collection and extensive range of shoes, and in which I slept but did not truly rest.

But with age and relationships and a little bit of cash to make places your own, home comes. I know that my flat is my home now because I fantasise about being in its bath when I’m out at social events. I know I belong in this house because I dedicate specific hours of the weekend to doing nothing but hang out in it. It’s earned the precious title of home because it’s the base to which my husband and I return each day to chat, to eat snacks, and to recover from having to interact with other human beings.

So yes, it is a shame to have to leave a hot, sunny holiday and to return to daily life. But what’s most important is that you like the life you’re returning to. Because if you don’t, there’s nothing like having to get on a plane and fly back into reality to make you realise it. And in that case, it’s time to make a change, my friend. Listen to your post-holiday head, that guy speaks the truth.

But if you do like it, don’t take that for granted. OK, nobody’s going to deliver free tiny bottles of body lotion to your bedroom tomorrow morning, but otherwise you’ve got it pretty good.

Posted in: ON RELATIONSHIPS, ON TRAVEL Tagged: birthday, budapest, flying, holidays, home, hot weather, hotels, living together, marriage, relationships, travel

HELLO, I’M CHARLOTTE

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Welcome to Nothing good rhymes with Charlotte. This blog is full of honest words about parenting, relationships, confidence and friendship. I'm here to help us all feel less alone and to make you laugh when I can, too. Want to hire me to write for you or just fancy a chat? Get in touch: nothinggoodrhymeswithcharlotte@gmail.com

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