Coming out of it

The lockdown restrictions are going to be eased. It seems like yesterday now doesn't it when it all started. Shutting down. Some of things slowly, some of things suddenly. Our office for one, shut down with remarkable alacrity. We got a notice in the afternoon to pack up and go till further notice. The school and nursery were gentler, with a bit of prior notice.

Those were such uncertain initial days. I recall the "Christmassy" feeling. The schools were the last to close, allowing parents to work uninterrupted for as long as possible. I thought the schools would be the last to reopen - going by a last in last out policy. But it looks like schools will be the first to reopen, again allowing parents to resume work as quickly as possible. I am not very concerned about the health aspects of it. I think there are many much more qualified scientists, policy makers, doctors and educationists  who are way more well endowed for such decisions. For me, children are relatively low risk, so it might be fair to start schools first. The disease is here to stay, the idea was to avoid overwhelming the health care by the pandemic, which has been done more or less. Also we have to start somewhere. As I read in an article, "history will the judge of which country got it correct and how". So that is for a later date. 

On an aside, I never felt too worried about the disease per se. It's fatality and communication wasn't one to make me panic. I am more panicked by say a cholera or plague. Also people die of the flu as well. Being a pandemic, it could easily over whelm health care systems and result in preventable deaths. But that is the nature of anything related to diseases and a gamble we have every day. Anyways that is me. 

For now, June 1st is when things start kicking back to normal for our family. The nursery sent out a letter informing that they will be re-opening. That means Pumpki is definitely going back. It was a wonderful feeling having the kids at home. Though at times it was brain splitting-ly annoying, tiring, over whelming and a whole load of other negative emotions. But isn't parenting all about this superb roller coaster - the throes of joy and the chasms of despair? So though we found Pumpki tougher to manage, especially when Chiyaa had to do her school work, though we found it hard to manage two of them when they bickered and hoped for her to be a bit more "grown-up" and complaint, though we wished for it to all end - we actually did enjoy most of it. It was a different and special experience. 

Now when she will go back to nursery, we will miss her complains, her demands, her constant need for attention, her call for us to come and play with her. We will miss serving that extra bowl of food for her, having her set of demands, her clamouring for the very same toy or colouring pencil that Chiyaa has. We will rue waking her up, dropping her . But then she has to move on, go on with kids her age, play with kids her age and be back with her nursery teachers before she moves on to school in September.

Slowly we will have the emails trickling in about restart of schools and day cares. It seemed like forever, but it was a merely over a couple of months. I had moments when I was over whelmed. But I loved having the dining table full of papers, colouring sheets, pencils, crayons, dolls and of course the two work laptops. It was wonderful being all homed in. It was indeed a once in a lifetime opportunity. As an old advertisement went "Daag ache hain".