Calm one moment...
... chaos the next!
Living far from relatives (on the other side of the world...) has its special challenges. These are things that you really don't notice until you have children. As two freelance musicians with irregular work schedules from day to day, week to week and with periods of touring... Well, our lives (and calendars...) are an exercise in barely ordered chaos!
Before the busy Easter season, I tend to travel quite a lot... Leaving my wife alone with her demanding works schedule plus the child trips and juggling. Needless to say, we lean quite heavily on friends and paid babysitters. This Easter season my mother was planned to join us for about 5 weeks, to help with the children and the daily running around!
Needless to say, if it's a blissful moment when you have grandparents around to help with getting people to the right place at the right time... Or even not needing to worry about cooking (or cleaning...) for a while! Of course, it comes with the feeling that you are back at your childhood home!
So, we were coasting into this coming month with that feeling that the cavalry was on it's way... however, we didn't count on the Corona-virus! Well, my mother is a touch on the older side of things... and she was due to make a stopover in Hong Kong before reaching us to visit her family. However, when things broke out... she cancelled her trip there just to be on the safe side. However, as things have developed this week... she isn't so keen to travel abroad. I don't blame her, it is tricky to travel to the other side of the planet as you get older... and with the possibility of getting sick with a virus that has yet incomplete information over it's effects and otherwise....
Anyway, she is making the decision not to come and to delay her trip until later in the year when things have become clearer. She works in the medical field (ER nurse...) and had recently talked with a friend who was part of the Australian contingent that was sent to China to gather information about the Corona-virus... and the friend (who is now in Quarantine for as part of protocol..) advised her not to travel unless it was absolutely necessary. Of course, it could just as well turn out to be nothing... but at this age, it is much better to be safe than sorry!
Anyway... which leads us to our little slice of the world! Where we are now in full scramble mode to get the next 5-6 weeks sorted with babysitting and children juggling! Our calenders have started to fill with nasty RED markings... which indicate problems with scheduling that will need to be plugged and sorted with babysitters, friends or sedatives (alcohol works well...).
Some of the weeks are starting to get sorted... and others... less so! I will have a nasty few days of driving up and down with little sleep for concerts in the north of The Netherlands... to get back after a late night concert, to get the kids to school in the morning of the next day. However, that is what needs to be done! For my wife, it is much more work.... at least in the weeks that I'm away and touring through Europe (which would be some dark humour if I ended up getting infected with Corona whilst I was away!).
Lots of emails and phone calls are now flying out from my wife and I... trying to massage calenders and rehearsals to better fit together. Or just to have definite clarifications on flight times and travel plans and actual work scheduling! Sigh... this is our normal tempo of things... but normally we do this roughly a month or two ahead of time... and not a couple of weeks before the crap hits the fan!
Anyway, it will all work out in the end... but this is life away from family and grandparents... interestingly enough, this is how my parents did it when they emigrated to Australia away from extended family as well. My wife's family have never had the dubious pleasure of being strangers in a foreign land.... and it is with envy that we sometimes look at her brothers and sisters... and see how much slack a couple of dedicated grandparents can take up!
So... schedule away, stomp on problems and get things done! That is going to be our life for the next month and a bit. When we are through and out the other end... we can breathe a sigh of relief!... and look forward to the next visit from the cavalry!
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I don't know how many people could have planned for that particular coronavirus to happen XD Definitely better safe than sorry though it's unfortunate that the chaos that caused your mother to have to cancel travel plans has added to your chaotic chaos O_O
I'm not sure if you would be able to manage homeschooling on top of everything you're already doing but the first thing that occurred to me was that if you didn't have the school run on top of everything else you could each just take one or more children with you XD (though this of course depends on how old they are and stuff so maybe it would be harder XD).
You'll be able to sort everything out because you're incredibly competent people :D
Yeah... I just forgot to put the proto-pandemic down in my diary...
Yeah, the school run is really the killer... mostly it is due to the fact that we chose a school that isn't down the road! ... but in the end, we will sort things out.. because they need to be sorted. It may not be pretty, but people will get where they need to!
Reading this reminded me of when I was a 'working mum', having to leave the house hours early in order to make drop-offs and still get to work on time... many (child-less) colleagues would comment saying 'I don't know how you do it!' to which my simple reply was always, 'Well, I have no option, I'm a parent and it's just gotta be done...'. Hope everything works out and that you both remember to get some rest (at some point during the chaos)
Yeah... it really does just end up boiling down to that... it needs to work, so we just make it work. Sometimes, the solution isn't elegant... and sometimes the kids need to come to work with us... but it works... and there are rarely any casualties!