Sunday 19 April – Day 25
A pretty quiet day today after another night shared between the two of us, so I slept the morning away. Pretty much read my book, Star-crossed by Minnie Drake. Enjoyed that. I had struggled to get to sleep last night as Phil and Holly were laughing so much at Wipeout (British version), so tonight I stayed up to watch with them.
Monday 20 April – Day 26
Well, we have all been waiting patiently for the PM to do the announcement today as to whether we would stay at Level 4 or go to Level 3. The verdict was that the country will stay in Level 4 until next Monday and then we go to Alert Level 3 for 2 weeks.
It doesn’t change a whole bunch for us, Phil will still work from home, although he will be continuing to work hard on ways to safely reintroduce work in the warehouse. Caregiver wise we will be waiting to find out the governments response on whether they will continue to support the caregivers that are stood down with pay. It’s quite a complex process at the moment, to know what you can and can’t do with funding and as we are also nearing our transition to adult funding, it couldn’t really have come at a worse time.
Today, I put my domestic goddess hat on and baked some pies. Made a chicken and leek pie and a chicken and mushroom pie. They were yummy and as we are not going out anywhere, I am sharing pictures of them here, for want of anything else. Okay, so I am not going to win photography or cooking awards, but they tasted nice.
Tuesday 21 April – Day 27
Today was another day with Mitchell and no carer. Mostly pretty good and no profound comments to make. Spoke to my brother Neil and caught up that Golf may be a possibility at Alert Level 3, which could be great for the mental health! Details on this are being worked out, but the possibility of playing in your own ‘bubble’ is on the cards.
Tonight Holly and I watched The Juror, with a young Demi Moore and Alec Baldwin. Both enjoyed it, if enjoy is the right word. Something we often talk about at home is how we ask, did you enjoy that movie, and how when it is a tragic or real movie like Dunkirk, for example, enjoy isn’t really the right word. Did you appreciate that movie? What did that movie make you feel might be better.
Wednesday 22 April 28 – Day 28
Started reading Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant. I had not heard of Adam Grant, but was familiar with Sheryl’s name as the author of Lean In, and the COO of Facebook. Of course, not a personal friend or acquaintance of mine, don’t run in those circles. Anyway, I’m enjoying it. Or you could say I am appreciating it – it is speaking to me. It is about building resilience and finding joy – topics that I am interested in and also would like to write about with relation to their importance when parenting a high and complex needs child. Her angle, is through her own personal tragedy, as she lost her husband while on holiday in Mexico and he was only in his forties, and they had two young children. It’s written with an amazing balance of vulnerability and insight into how to not just cope but reignite (while not dismissing the grief) your spirit to build resilience and joy. She also mentions Kristin Neff, who is to self-compassion what Brene Brown is for vulnerability and shame. I ended up on a tangent watching Ted Talks about self-compassion, and learnt a lot of useful ideas about harnessing that critic that lives inside our heads. We often refer to Mitchell’s medical care as Plan B, as we always seemed to be changing course, i.e. make plans, only to have them changed, and as this book points out, there are many option b’s (plan b’s) being lived. Yours and mine, might be different, but who does have a perfect life?
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday Sherlie has been working the nights with Mitchell, so we have had three regular sleeps in a row. Woohoo. I also decided to change our bedroom around and managed to move the furniture around while Phil was working. I like the new layout, as we now have the bed facing out to the windows. Didn’t quite finish putting all the little bits and pieces away that are constantly homeless, but that I can’t seem to put in the bin either, but we are still in lockdown, so maybe, just maybe I will get to that.
As for corona numbers – pleased to say that here in New Zealand, we are currently experiencing a decline with only a few new cases each day.
Take care out there
Cherie
Yellow Azalea 