Playing in the back yard

Sibling rivalry

One of the most difficult things (for us) about being home all the time has been trying to help Maren and Linden figure out their sibling relationship. Maren is angry at and jealous of Linden, and basically won’t acknowledge it. Linden gets super dysregulated when Maren ignores her, which happens often. Like most of the time. Linden also goes into fits of rage when Maren takes things from her, which Maren does when she is angry and denying it, and yells when Maren yells, which makes for a deafening ambiance. Maren is also aggressive toward Linden sometimes, verbally or physically, and it is quite a delicate dance trying to enforce an anti-aggression policy while at the same time validating Maren’s feelings and recognizing her limits as a 4 1/2-year-old.

None of this is new. However, when Maren was going to daycare and preschool it didn’t happen All. Day. Long. We were able to have lots of Linden-only time during the day, which allowed for more attention paid to Maren at other times. But now it’s two kids all day every day, and with two parents trying to work from home, most of the time one parent is alone with two kids and it is impossible to pay full attention to both of them at once.

Which isn’t all bad. Maren is getting better at playing independently, and spending small amounts of time by herself. But Linden’s personality is such that she is more likely to go off and play by herself and Maren is more likely to demand attention, and we have to be really careful not to give too much attention to Maren at the expense of Linden.

So, on those occasions where the two of them are legitimately playing together, it is a relief, heart warming, and so much fun to watch.

We are doing our best to encourage this kind of thing and reminding Maren of fun things she can do with Linden, so hopefully we will see more and more of this as Linden gets older!

Vegan Easter

Holidays in isolation are not much different from our usual holiday celebrations. At least for Easter, we tend to do our own thing these days. We had a little treasure hunt with clues hidden in plastic eggs for Maren, with Easter baskets as the treasure at the end. We had family time. Then we had a special dinner.

More noticeable than being isolation was that this Easter was completely vegan. All the candy, all the food. We even dyed paper eggs instead of chicken eggs. I’m not gonna lie, I missed having milk chocolate eggs and Cadbury mini eggs. But we had Moo Free brand chocolates which are pretty good substitute. Linden had her first chocolate today and definitely approves. So really even the vegan part wasn’t that different. All in all it was a good day.

Here are a few photos from today:

Figuring out how to be

The novelty staying of home has worn off, and we are all trying to figure out how to be in this new normal. Maren in particular has had a bit of a tough time this week. I think she is realizing that this might go on for a long time and is feeling sad about not being able to go to preschool or daycare. She has been testing every limit there it is to test, and then for a couple of days this week had really low energy and just wanted to hide under a blanket much of the time. Eventually she said she was feeling sad, and maybe also lonely.

Our next-door neighbours also have a four-year-old, and he was in Maren’s preschool class. They have a six-month-old baby as well. We often see them when we are outside or on walks. The other day this four-year-old neighbour was essentially chasing us on his tricycle trying to catch up with us while his mom was telling him to stay back. It felt strange, and kind of wrong in some way.

So we talked to our neighbours. We decided that our children could play together. We are staying in except for groceries once a week, and so are they. They have no contact with anyone else, and neither do we. The benefits of the four-year-olds being able to play together seems in our minds to outweigh the risks. I feel like we are doing something wrong, like we are breaking the law even though we are not. I feel like I need to confess that we have done this. But after two days of allowing them to play together I am sure we are making the right decision.