You know you’re a parent in lockdown when…

Parent in lockdown // Imagine a lockdown life with no dependents? I imagine it would go something like; wake up at your leisure, have a bath, do a skincare routine, paint your nails, watch This Morning, have brunch, snooze on the sofa, read a book in the garden with a cup of coffee, make dinner and then drink wine.

There’s a lot of ‘imagining’ as I have no fucking clue what that would be like, apart from absolute bliss.
Here’s my ‘you know you’re a parent in lockdown when…’

• You’ve worn the same pair of £5 Primark tracksuit bottoms for almost a week, saggy knees and all…

• The only hairstyle you’re rocking is messy buns and roots…and in my case, one eyelash extension hanging on

• You gleefully skip around a supermarket by yourself, 2m away from other shoppers, a trolley full of fizz, gin, beer and the obligatory bear rolls. And you don’t even care that you’ve been there for two hours

• You get overly excited watching the Nations PE teacher every morning, whilst sitting on your sofa eating toast, in your £5 Primark trackies

• You have craft boxes spilling out with glue, glitter, pipe cleaners and lolly sticks on every surface – and you’ve dissected the recycling bin to fish out milk bottles to make elephants and toilet roll tubes to make Easter bunnies

• You’re the only car on the road, wasting fuel, usually around midday to carry out the ‘go the fuck to sleep’ session

• You temporarily think about taking up running or some other form of exercise to get you out of the house – then remember you get out of breath walking to the end of your driveway

• You whoop, clap and cheer at around 8pm every night. And it’s not for the keyworkers. It’s just the kids bedtime

• You develop extra muscles from holding your children at ten minute intervals throughout the day…

• … and from lugging the fortnightly overfilled ‘glass recycling box’ to the front of your house

• Your Internet browsing history contains searches such as ‘what happens if I divorce my husband during isolation,  can he move out of home immediately?’

• Swiftly followed by ‘if I put my children up for adoption today, when’ s the earliest they would be taken during lockdown?‘

• You curse every one of those posts that say ‘spending extra time with our children is so precious’ and ‘I love having them so much, I’m considering home schooling’

• You experience mum guilt like no other trying to balance ‘working from home’ whilst attempting to home school them

• You let them design and build a full size mud kitchen in the garden and then let them throw the mud up at the walls and windows five minutes later – all so you can have a hot cup of coffee, in peace

• You make enquiries about remortgaging the house, solely to pay for their weekly snack bill

• After the first day, you realise it’s acceptable – and a necessity – to let them have unlimited ipad time

• You all develop a new clothing pattern consisting of ‘daytime pyjamas’ and ‘nighttime pyjamas’

• You write a ‘plan’ up every day only to ever complete one thing on the list – “iPad time”

• You become highly skilled at doing TikTok ‘lip syncs’

• You live for the one form of exercise outside everyday, even though it’s the same walk to school route you used to moan about daily – only now you look longingly at the gates, willing them to reopen

• You used to save drinking to weekends, but you’ve got a new routine now. It’s called ‘in in’ and every lockdown day’s a weekend

• You will never, ever take for granted nursery, school or grandparents and consider giving them a personal pay rise next time you hand your children back to them.