6am baby (3 months, dd2 - I’m on mat leave) wakes up. Feed, cuddle, change.
7am dd1 (4, preschooler) wakes up. Comes into my bed to cuddle and watch iPad.
8am dh wakes up (we’re sleeping in separate rooms due to baby), makes me tea and if we want it breakfast in bed for me and dd1.
8:30 baby has first nap, I play with dd1 in her room or she has a bath. I try to make it special for her and put colours in it, or different toys. Often I get in with her.
9:30 baby wakes. all get dressed together usually mucking about and being silly putting our pants on our heads. dh makes porridge for breakfast if he didn’t bring us toast in bed, dd1 “helps”. All eat together downstairs, he goes upstairs to work
10-3 I play with kids! Inside, outside, craft, cook lunch, films, occasional walk around the block. Mostly it’s fun, occasionally gets a bit whingey. Dd1 adores the baby so is happy to involve her in our games and doesn’t mind me holding her all the time. Sometimes dd1 plays independently, sometimes not. We video call friends and family a lot too.
3ish dh finishes work. He walks the dog unless I’m desperate for a break and then I do it.
4 dh is back. He showers and changes. We put on tunes, and have a long drink. We all play together as a family or watch a film.
5:30 dh plays with kids while I cook dinner
6 ish, dinner. Wine.
Once or twice a week dh finishes at about 1. We generally start to gently day drink and end the afternoon a bit merry and all dancing round the kitchen together or doing some over ambitious craft project or building a huge blanket fort.
7 bedtime -dh does dd1, I do baby.
8 me and dh meet downstairs, have another drink or two, watch tv or play video games together.
9:30 let the dog out, put the cat out, admire the stars, bed
At weekends we stay in our pyjamas all day. We play together and watch films and make things and cuddle a lot. At least one of the weekend days we gently day drink our way through. We never get wasted or hungover, just a bit tipsy and giggly.
Once a week we have cleaning day where we do big chores like bathrooms and change sheets. Small chores like tidying, dishes, laundry, vacuuming and wiping sides we each do throughout the day as and when we see it needing it.
I’ve had further investigations and treatment for possible (probable) cancer cancelled as a result of corona. I’m dammed sure that if it’s too late by the time this is over and I find that my number has been called I want my family to look back on this, possibly my last time with them, as a wonderful happy, technicolour time and not even really remember that it was an austere, scary lock down. I’m trying to live and love and feel as hard as I can, to fill them each up with love and give them each as much of myself as I possibly can. To be playmate and comfort dd1, to be a loving, fun wife to dh, to be an endless safe, warm hug to dd2. I love being a mum, we fought so hard for our girls, we had three rounds of ivf for dd2 last year, I’m not ready to leave them so I’m just trying to drink them all up - the warm smell of their hair after a sunny day in the garden, the feel of dd1’s little body wrapping around mine after getting out of the paddling pool sucking in my warmth, the way the baby relaxes as she falls asleep in my arms in the sun. It’s such a blessing to have this time (if it is the end) to be able to spend it so intently together.