Covid-19 better known as Corona virus 🦠

When the virus broke out in Wuhan China, I didn’t think much of it. This was January 7, 2020. I found it interesting that some believed Dean Koontz predicted the virus in his book The eyes of Darkness.

Since it seemed that the virus would only stay in China I wasn’t worried too much. I would follow the news as always but it wasn’t the first article I would read.

Then the virus started to spread. first to Thailand, then the USA, Nepal, France, Australia. The spread was due to individuals traveling to those countries. Africa seemed pretty safe until tourists or South Africa came back from overseas trips.

Our epidemic started when 11 people returned from Italy. Eleven people and now we are on a 21 day lockdown.

Italy has pretty much given up. I have never seen such devastation in a man as when their prime minister said:”We have lost control”

Back to South Africa again. Our president did not take long to stand up and take control. Our lockdown is meant to last from 27 March until 16 April.

Will it be enough? We don’t know but we need to try. So far it looks as though it is flattening the curve however we don’t think our people living in locations are getting the treatment they need and therefore the country doesn’t have the correct figures. Maybe with the mobile clinics going out they will be diagnoses and get the treatment they need.

So how does this affect my family?

• Luckily school is just the same for the homeschoolers.
• Kyla gets her work from school via whatsapp and I think she has finally realized that homeschool is not for her 😉
• Quintus misses his friends terribly.
• Walter is with his brother and I am sure he is having a good time,
• Me however, I’m constantly anxious. I have to tell myself to relax my jaws.

• I am so worried about finances. I know I can work from home but if “my companies” aren’t working, I have no work to do. I have a lot of money outstanding but people aren’t paying and I am sure for a while they won’t.
• I worry about our economy and if it can recover from this.
• I worry because I could not go for my 6 month cancer check up. The big one. With scans and sonar and mri. I know it’s crazy but that is what cancer does to you.
• I worry because Jason can’t have his operation. Chance of recovery must get worse every day. I mean he already has arthritis between the fibula and tabula.
• I feel horrible that Zander worked so hard to achieve SA Level 2 and now it has been postponed and more likely cancelled. He also can’t practice at all now. Loosing all the hard work he had been putting in both in pool annd with the biogenetic trainer.
• I have many other worries that is not corona related so I won’t mention them.

I’m going to repost something many people have posted on Facebook. Just so that I don’t forget how it was. How normal it felt to be lock inside our own homes.

Just so I NEVER forget

Gas prices at a record low.

School cancelled till April 17, but I think it may be longer.

Self-distancing measures on the rise.

Tape on the floors at grocery stores and others to help distance shoppers 2m (6ft) from each other.

Limited number of people inside stores, therefore lineups outside the store doors.

Non-essential stores and businesses mandated closed.

Parks, trails, entire cities locked up.

Entire sports seasons cancelled.

Concerts, tours, festivals, entertainment events – cancelled.

Weddings, family celebrations, holiday gatherings – cancelled.

No masses, churches are closed.

No gatherings of 100 or more, then 50 or more.

Don’t socialize with anyone outside of your home.

Children’s outdoor play parks are closed.

We are to distance from each other.

Shortage of masks, gowns, gloves for our front-line workers.

Shortage of ventilators for the critically ill.

Panic buying sets in and we have no toilet paper, no disinfecting supplies, no paper towels and no hand sanitizer.

Shelves are almost bare.

Manufacturers, distilleries and other businesses switch their lines to help make visors, masks, hand sanitizer and PPE.

Government closes the border to all non-essential travel.

Stadiums and recreation facilities open up for the overflow of Covid-19 patients.

Daily updates on SA’s new cases, recoveries, and deaths.

Barely anyone in the street or on the roads.

People wearing masks and gloves outside.

Essential service workers are terrified to go to work.

Medical field workers are afraid to go home to their families.

This is the Novel Coronavirus (Covid-19) Pandemic….. nations world wide go into lockdown to protect their people.

One day it will show up in my memory feed, and it will be a yearly reminder that life is precious. To not take the things we dearly love for granted.

He can read … he just can’t read

Unless you are the parent of a dyslexic child, you don’t know what it feels like to watch him struggle.  You don’t know how it feels when you sit down and feel inadequate because you aren’t sure you are helping him enough.

I see the reality of this daily.  As a homeschool mom, I’m doing my utmost best to make things as easy as possible but yet leave him to feel able to do things himself without getting frustrated.

Just so you know…he will never outgrow it.  No amount of reading will made it ‘better’.

At a gala last year he wanted to buy some raffle tickets.  I saw him take the form but he just stared at it.  I asked Quintus to quickly go over and help him.  Zander couldn’t read what he had to complete.  He was standing between his fellow friends and teammates and couldn’t read.  Thankfully he has amazing brothers.

Last week, I gave him the card to withdraw money for the first time.  It was just us, so I knew he would be okay to alone.  My car was parked right next to him.  He just stared at the screen.  I thought to myself that surely the machine must be broken or something.  It can’t take that long.  I got out of the car and when I got to him, he asked me to read the words on the screen.  He couldn’t make out what it said.

I’m not saying he can’t read.  He can.  Not everything.  Not in every single font.  He needs help when it is a certain font.  He concentrates so much to read that he tends to forget what he read.  Is he intelligent.  Hell yes.  When I teach him via drawings or my very own funny acts, he remembers everything.  Even dates (which I really can’t)

I lie in bed at night, worried about him.  Will he be okay?  Probably but it will take more for him to be okay than it will for non-dyslexic children.

As much as many people believe it is something they can get over, I promise you so do I.  Unfortunately, that is  not the reality.

I don’t want to learn

If there is one child in our family that has the most interesting excuses, it will be Kyla.

A recent example would be her maths marks.  I told her many times that she should be learning. I could see that she wasn’t giving it her all, if any.  She definitely didn’t try more than I would try to run a 100m sprint.

You know how it is.  You get tired of asking and at some stage decide they must man (girl) up and take responsibility.

Well….she did in a very weird and her own way.

She did badly!  Not at all near the normal good marks she gets. When I asked her why she said: “I decided not to learn because I didn’t want to be cross all the time and upset everyone.  So I decided to just not learn”

I could only laugh.

What do I know …

I saw a client this morning who knows two of my children are homeschooled.

She wanted to know who teaches them. Who gives them their classes. Well, I do I replied.

What do YOU know? (In a very accusing you-are-messing-up-their-lives tone of voice) Are you a qualified teacher? What do you know about maths for example.

Well…I told her that I got 98% for maths at university. I think I know enough.

It bothered me all afternoon. How dare she. This is actually the first time that someone has asked me this to my face. Dared to judge my decision, my parenting to my face.

Tonight though I realized one of the things I do know. I know that I have a dyslexic child who just asked me to explain his maths work because he didn’t quite grasp it and he didn’t want to wait until tomorrow. A child who wants to learn.

So no, I don’t have a degree in teaching but I do know my child better than anyone else. I know to encourage him to want to learn and not force him to do so.

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand” Albert Einstein

My biggest wish

Friday we were busy with Afrikaans and part of our work for the day was to conduct interviews.  Jason was promptly nominated as the first person to be interviewed and as always we had some brilliant answers from him and spent most of the time laughing.  He really could be a standup comedian.  Homeschooling would not be the same without him.

Some of the questions were very straight forward…the usual what is your favourite food, colour etc.

Zander was also interviewed and one of the questions asked was what is you biggest wish.

“My biggest wish is to be able to read.”

There was a very short moment of silence, where both Jason and I knew we had to handle this answer the correct way.  We don’t want him to feel any less because he battles to read.  We want to acknowledge the fact that he does, as well as give him praise because he never gives up.

My heart broke.  In that very moment my heart broke for him.  Why should his biggest wish be to be able to read?  Why not to meet his hero (who BTW he said was me), get the newest electronic game, new cellphone or whatever it is that young boys desire?  Why the ability to read fluently?  Life can be very unfair.

However, I am very proud of him.  Proud that he is not embarrassed to admit he is dyslexic.  That is doesn’t mind asking for help if he is not sure how to read a word.  He is fine with the fact that his friends will correct his spelling.  I’m proud that he actually types whatsapp messages instead of sending voice-notes.  Not the lazy kind of typing (where typing 2morrow is such a time-saver!  What on earth will you do with that extra split seconds you saved)  No, even my dyslexic son takes the time to type out the words.

Zander, I love you.  I love how you accept the hand dealt to you even though I know it can’t be easy. I will forever be proud of who you are.

Remember that you are allowed more than one wish.

Love,

Your greatest supporter

Parenting

Parenting is darn difficult.

You might be the perfect an amazing baby parent but then battle with your toddler.  Toddlers and babies might drive you insane but teenagers seem easy.

Raising your child changes all the time.  It changes as your child gets older.  Things that worked before, might not work at all now.

I had some parenting battles this past year.  Not all the time but some days were bad.  I felt as though I was losing my relationship with my child.  Something I never ever want to happen.

We had always been close (as I am with all my children) but then something changed and he seemed to drift further and further away from me.

It came to a point where I either had to discipline the heck out of him or work on getting our relationship back together. I chose the latter.

This brought some judgement from others and it got me thinking.  Look, I don’t like judgement.  I don’t think any of us have the right to judge others.  We don’t know what really goes on in their lives and cannot judge based on the little bits we actually see and know.

I was just thinking how raising your child is such a balance.  A balance between being fair to all the children.  Disciplining them equally but not the same?  If you understand what I mean?  Not all children react the same discipline.  However, not just the discipline but also knowing when to discipline and when to see the bigger picture.  When discipline will just push your child further away and into more danger than just trying to find what can work for both of you.

I don’t want to say who this child is but please know that you are loved beyond measure.  I will do anything to keep you (a) safe and (b) happy.

Soos die son

Oh cancer

Dear cancer

Two people that I personally know, in two weeks.  You have stolen two people, in two weeks.

Fuck you, okay?

Fuck you.

Now I have to hear that my cancer markers keep increasing.  Quite substantially the last 3 months.  Well, fuck you again.  You will not find a place to hold onto in my body.  Not again.

Fuck you, cancer.

Fuck you.