Life in lockdown
Today is Day 3 of the SA lockdown. For those out who don't recognize the cover image, it's a page from the children's book "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day." I've thought of this line countless times as my kids can flair towards this type of drama, and now it seems like sort of ironic. I included in in this post since I'm guessing that many of you think our journey is your own version of a no good very bad day experience!
So lockdown rules here are restrictive but are substantially better than quarantine. We are free to leave home for essential tasks like picking up groceries and other supplies; you can go to work if it's permitted by your workplace (mine is not). The good news is we are allocated 90 minutes daily for physical activity outdoors, but the bad news is must stay within a 1.5 mile radius of home to do so! As a side note, people take the lockdown rules extremely seriously, so compliance is high and noncompliance can result in fines up to $1,000 AUD ($777 US). Fortunately we have several parks and green spaces in our catchment zone, so we have been at the park numerous times to kick the soccer ball, play with foam gliders, and ride the zipline while making up games (like, try to hit my brother with the soccer ball on the zipline...)
Jeremy and I have learned a few things over our pandemic experience, and we know that we all need structure to our day in order to save our sanity! Jeremy printed out a schedule for the kids, and we've been trying to stick to it.
Because of the lockdown, all SA kids are in remote learning, but since our kids just got enrolled, they actually don't have their IDs and logins set up to join their classmates, yet. Hopefully by next week they'll be set up and ready to go! Fortunately, the school has already sent some assignments for Baxter to be oriented to the content. (Did I mention that both kids are starting Term 3 so the school is halfway through their academic year? This makes for an interesting unknown added to all the other unknowns.) Miles hasn't gotten any school work assigned, but since his classes will be 50% in Chinese (Mandarin) we've got him starting with DuoLingo to get some familiarity. So far Miles seems intrigued to learn, so hopefully that continues. The Principal of the primary school (aka, elementary school) indicated that there is staff dedicated in each classroom to help those kids who don't have a foundation in Mandarin; let's hope that's sufficient for Miles to get started with a second language.
Meanwhile, I have figured out how to do "Click and Collect" orders for local stores for the necessary school supplies and household items, and we've been able to limit our trips to the store for grocery shopping. We've made homemade lemonade, chicken street tacos and homemade baked churros (spoiler alert - not as good as the fried ones!), vegetable Pad Thai, and have plans this week for Indonesian noodle salad, lemon and basil ravioli, and Chicken Piccata. Food is always a challenge in our house due to allergies and severe pickiness, but we are leveraging the statement, "Well, your preferred food item isn't available in the same version/form here, so you'll have to give it a try/adjust." So far, Baxter has tried loads of new foods but it's still a constant challenge with Miles. At least everyone in the house likes this recipe for street tacos!
