The easter break is over: how did we tackle it?

When the schools got closed 3 weeks ago, it was no surprise to me.   My nose is daily on the stastistics, so by end of March I knew something would happen. The pandemic numbers took a wrong turn so something needed to happen. In my head I usually prepare for the most pessimistic scenario. Ironically that is my approach to keep hope because I am never disappointed by measures. On the contrary, since the new government in October takes the hospital numbers more serious and understands statistics a bit more, the change of measures sometimes brings some relief to me rather than despair. 

Yet most other parents seemed to panic or sigh.   A year ago I was in sheer panic when I heard the schools closed. But now we had done it 3,5 months before and survived quite well. So why panic over 3 weeks: 1 week closed school and 2 weeks of Easter vacations (where the children's youth camps had been cancelled though). In the WhatsApp group of the other school parents there were a lot of voices on who'd apply for the emergency care. But we were 2 parents from non-essential professions working from home. I didn't consider for a second to send the boys to that care.  There's people that truly have no other option, please leave those spots to them. 

I don't look back to last year's period with a lot of devastation. Many people claimed they'd never be able to do it again. Maybe my worst memories had been erased? Maybe I underestimate the effect of the many vacation days I was obliged to take in April 2020.   

I am currently overworked and very stressed but it's always my retreat in that case to withdraw in my family. I love having my boys around then as distraction and love.  Somehow lockdowns do me well. 

And Jan agreed that we'd just tackle the 3 weeks as a family just like we did it in 2020. 
So how did we approach this 3 weeks of "Easter break"? 

- We took some planned vacation days to extend the long Easter weekend in order to have real break away from the daily routine. This had already been planned at the start of the year.  With just a couple of extra days we managed to spend 6 consecutive days in the Ardennes which is almost a real little vacation. 

- We applied more flexibility in our agenda to escape now and then an hour or two to the nearby playground with the boys as our tiny city garden doesn't provide them any outside play room. It's not as if we don't do enough overtime.  Sometimes that was combinable with reading documents or listening in to a webinar.  Or we could have a little masked conversation with some other classmate's parents that we'd cross there.  

- We put things in perspective. It is what it is.  It's no issue if the children come to wave once in each video call. It's part of life now. They've become familiar faces to all of my colleagues. It's no issue to send them away now and then and tell them to help themselves and sort it out without our help.  It's ok to come back upstairs and find 2 boys in pyjama, dozens of boxes of toys turned over on the floor and some empty cookie packages.  And plenty of screen time is no disaster. 

It's also lovely to hear them from the other chamber play together, plan, organize, run and laugh or fight.  And notice that all of a sudden they decided to go and get dressed.  To some degree it was also educational to them to leave them on their own for a few days (with us just in another room of course)

- We had some play dates with classmates to break those days that we tell them to sort it out on their own, to distract them and give them more interactions.

- Jan added some more (part of) days off and I took 3 extra days of corona technical leave to spend with the children.  I did the latter to ensure I wasn't going to deplete my energy levels further by catching up work late at night after their bedtime each day. This way (combined with the already planned days of vacation) we were only working on average 2,5 days per week in each of those 3 weeks. 

So with hindsight we did not truly work for 3 weeks from home with the children around. We only did half of that. We probably wouldn't be able to continue like this for another month with this amount of days off either (unless I'd be able to continue to take corona technical leave).  But we made it and in all honesty...while I am relieved to be able to work undisturbed again, I miss my little trouble and noisemakers in the house that counterbalance all work stress so well.