Coronavirus Lockdown: A mum's view on how to cope Week 10

I’ve been super thankful for the weather so far this week, it’s involved a lot of paddling pool time and the epic hour long inflation of a gigantic bouncy bus. I have no garden now but the boys are happy.

We went to Roves Farm this week for a walk and it was brilliant, really well organised and a small bit of normality got restored. The boys were so happy riding in the car for the first time in ages, commenting on everything from trees to houses, road signs and people. It’s been so long since we’ve done anything like that, it was fab to see them get really excited about having an ice cream from somewhere other than our freezer!

We took the 1.5 mile walk and the five year old managed to whinge more than the two year old for once, I probably shouldn’t have told him there was ice cream at the end of it, managed to tune him out fairly well for most of the way. The scenery was beautiful and it was just so nice to be out and to see how happy the animals made the boys, it was like they were seeing them for the first time.

Hopefully more child friendly places will be opening soon so we’ll be able to start the new normal out with kids. I think anywhere indoors would be a bit more of a minefield but outdoors feels a bit safer, it’s just so strange adjusting, how you do most things, especially with two small people, one of whom wants to touch and lick everything he sees, plus he has no qualms about eating off the floor.

I’ve also been busy organising the five year olds sixth birthday which again is an interesting one in lockdown. Our online shop delivered us the piñata stick and sweets minus the piñata itself so on to Amazon for an emergency one, plus helium balloons and all the paper cups and plates, plus getting an ice cream van delivery from Mario’s which is going to be an epic surprise, as well as a cinema night with his big sister. Lots of thought has gone into how we can make it special as he is missing his friends and the party we had planned.

We had a front garden bank holiday bbq with our neighbours and it was so much fun, the kids covered us in stickers and my bright idea to bring a bucket of water out the front for them ended up in carnage. I have no idea why I thought they would just calmly paint the path with it. Obviously we all got soaked.

All in all getting back to doing normal things slowly can definitely be done with lots of adjustments, plus careful pre- planning. I think that everywhere you go, kids will want to be getting back to business as best they can. This hopefully means that they will make sure visitors are following guidelines set out so families are reassured.

I’m looking forward to see where we can go next!

Find out more about our guest weekly blogger, Sara Witham owner of Evil Empire Marketing by visiting her website https://www.evilempire.co.uk.