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COVID-19

Family: Another Reason Why Parenting Is So Hard

June 24, 2020 by Elizabeth Drake

As you may already know, I have two children, both girls, both amazing. But so very different. This has really been brought home to me over COVID as we are home together a lot.

The differences between them were really brought home when my two children wanted to lay on the recliner. My oldest child inspected the recliner, circling it, looking underneath it. She pushed on it, trying to get it to lay back. As she sat there staring at it, my younger daughter walked up to the chair, pulled the handle, and reclined it.

wisdomintelligence
My oldest has told us a tomato is a fruit and explained why.

If you play D&D, my older daughter is a wizard. She is incredibly intelligent and hard-working. She decided she was going to read shortly after her sister was born as her father and I had a lot less time to read to her. And she did it. She was reading before she started 4K, and she was reading easy chapter books in kindergarten. She loves Rick Riordan despite being in early elementary school, and she will talk your ear off about any of his series. Her math skills match, and her teacher already has her working on simple algebra, decimals, and fractions.

But, she can’t work a recliner. We also had to put her in a series of extracurricular activities in hopes of her having at least an average amount of grace (dex) and strength. Which have had varying degrees of success. She still struggled to open the wrapper on her granola bar.

Then there’s her sister, who we expected to be similar. Same parents. Same house. Right? Wrong.

parent-meme4
Yep.

She is far more like a cleric than a wizard. She’s the one that pulls the handle on the recliner to make it recline. She’s also the one that when she can’t open the granola bar wrapper, gets the scissors off my desk and cuts it open. Yeah, she’s not yet in kindergarten.

She can also be brilliant, but whereas my older child is extremely motivated, my younger one is… not. She’s more like a diesel locomotive. Completely inert unless you motivate her. Even then, it’s a slow steady crawl at first. But once she decides she wants it and gets going? Whoooboy. Not much will stop her. The trick is figuring out how to motivate that diesel locomotive. Which I have not yet learned.

She is also incredibly creative. In Minecraft, she has built these elaborate worlds within worlds. She was explaining them to me the other night, and I was fascinated. So cool, so pure, in a completely uncomplicated way. Then, if you ever listen to her play, her imagination is amazing. She was explaining to me this whole fairy world and how the one had “the blood of the snow”. I still don’t know what that means, but it sounds cool.

Parenting is the hardest thing ever. Just when you think you’ve figured something out, they prove you wrong. But it is an interesting ride.

Filed Under: Family, Uncategorized Tagged With: COVID, COVID-19, Family, intelligence, Kids, Motivation, parenting, wisdom

Family: 2020 Mom

May 29, 2020 by Elizabeth Drake

Yes, I am a 2020 Mom.

That has meant a lot of time home with my children this year. More than I have ever had.

I work full time, and while I say I would have liked to stay home with my children, I think that is a lie perpetuated by society.

I love my kids. A lot. I would do a lot for them, including take them to dance class.

dancemoms
Some are nice, but the mean ones are really mean.

I do not think I am cut out to be a stay-at-home mom. I give those who can do it kudos, but it isn’t for me. And that’s okay. I happen to really enjoy financial modeling, and that isn’t for everyone, either.

I thought this safer-at-home period would make things better. No requests from teachers to come in on a Friday morning to help set-up binders (I do have to wonder how schools would function without the amount of unpaid labor they get from volunteers).

amazonmom
Seriously, give me your supply list and I will help out, but do NOT ask me to do arts and crafts with my kids.

Except now it seems like the whole world has a lot of time on their hands while I am busier than ever. My day job is crazy right now, but the sheer number of projects coming at us from school, family members, and even extracurricular activities has been mind-boggling.

I truly don’t have time to learn to a dance, study a foreign language, or develop video editing skills. I have been feeling lucky to get up enough energy to even sit down at my computer to maybe write a little at night after my children go to bed.

I’ve talked about stress and creativity before, and none of my tips and tricks to reduce stress have worked very well. I have cut myself off from most news, but I am still really struggling to stay positive and focused on more creative endeavors.

And the guilt of “am I spending enough time with my children” or “am I doing enough for my family” always rears its head.

faced-with-guilt-2126526_640
Because you must feel bad if you are not learning to code with your child.

Some of this is in my head, but I know that writing takes time. I am trying to maintain a reasonable cadence, and that means making time to actually write.

One thing is for certain, I have gotten very good at tuning out Breath of the Wild while my children play it and I try to sneak in another 45 minutes of writing time.

ZeldaBoTW
Three years later, it’s still an awesome game.

Filed Under: Family, Uncategorized Tagged With: Amazon, COVID-19, Dance moms, Family, guilt, Mom, Stress, Stress kills creativity, working mom, Writing

Things are Weird

March 22, 2020 by Elizabeth Drake

I am not going to belabor the COVID-19 outbreak, nor am I going to minimize it.

My family is struggling. Frankly, eight days cooped up together is a lot. My husband has a cold. Every time he coughs, we jump. But yes, just a cold, thankfully.

sick2
How we all feel with a cold.

I turn on the news only to turn it off again. I am doing what I can with social distancing. There is little more I can do right now.

We have no idea when or even if the kids will go back to school this year.

Grocery shopping is a nightmare.

The fear over if we will have a job in a few weeks also looms large. We live America where there really is no social safety net. We are fortunate that we have some savings to see us through, but the threat of unemployment is very real.

change3
Not the good kind.

Through all of this, I have been…writing. Yeah. I know.

I’ve basically tuned it to what I need to, then I have buried my head in the sand with my imaginary characters.

I finished one book during this time and am 30k words into a second. Yeah, burying my head.

middle-ages-knight
There will be knights. Mages, too!

I don’t know what else to do.

I look forward to a return to some normalcy. To at least knowing what we face rather than just being afraid all the time.

Until then, I pick up my sword and shield, and face the demons of the unknown in the dark.

Filed Under: COVID, Uncategorized Tagged With: being sick sucks, characters, COVID-19, Family, grocery shopping, Job Loss, jobs, Kids, Knight, knights, loss, News, Sick, Writing

COVID-19

March 16, 2020 by Elizabeth Drake

Everyone is talking about COVID-19, at least where I work. Our global supply chain is interrupted. We’ve stopped all travel, even domestic travel in the US. No one is allowed to shake hands, and there are hand-sanitizer stations every 10 feet.

I don’t really have anything to say that hasn’t already been splashed across the news.

I had a whole post on this, then everything changed.

Yes, we had already made a few changes because of it.

For example, we canceled all our vacation plans as they would’ve taken us to a high-risk area. We are currently trying to figure out what to do on our week of vacation that will be fun but not in large public spaces. My kids like the idea of unlimited video game time. I may not say “no”.

Animal Crossing
They’re angling for this. Suddenly, screen time doesn’t seem so bad.

No, a cruise was never in the plans. I can honestly say I had never liked the idea of a cruise ship. Not surprising that I, as an introvert, would not want to be in tight quarters with thousands of people I don’t know. After everything that has happened, I can all but guarantee I will never go on a cruise. Ever.

It’s a scary time, made worse by the misinformation and fear-mongering.

I had taken some other precautions. I bought extra fever reducer and allergy medicine in the event of supply disruption when we would most need them. I picked up an extra jar of peanut butter and some rice and beans. I had planned to keep picking up a little bit more each week on my grocery runs until we have two weeks of non-perishable food on hand in the event of quarantine.

When this is over, we’d just incorporate it into our regular meal rotation if we don’t use it.

toilet-paper-3964492_640
No, I didn’t buy 12 years worth.

I knew others are doing a lot more, but we were trying to be smart without giving into fear. Maybe I was not as terrified as others as I actually have colleagues in China. While not in the Hubei province, they are within a four-hour train ride of the epicenter, and they were on all but lock-down for a month. Yes, it was hard, but they and their families are all okay.

And then everything changed.

Our governor declared a state of emergency. All events with more than a certain number of attendees were canceled.

Our federal government declared an emergency.

Our state further acted on emergency measures and canceled all public and private schools for the next month.

Grocery stores are empty.

My work went from a, “we are not allowing telecommuting” policy to an urgent e-mail over the weekend asking anyone who can telecommute to do so for the next few weeks.

Trying to stick to prepare but not panic mode. Trying to be the rock for my department as I called each of them over the weekend to explain all that was happening, what they needed to do today, and to try to keep them from panicking.

There really is little more I can do. So I’m losing myself in my pretend worlds. Both reading and writing. Playing a bit of Outer Worlds (which is like Fallout is space. Highly recommend it so far).

And reminding myself of the Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”

My characters are calling it karma for all I have done to them. But I did give them all a happily-ever-after, so let’s hope it is karma.

 

Filed Under: Family Tagged With: Animal Crossing, COVID-19, Family, Family Vacation, fear, illness, Outer Worlds, Quarantine, screen time, Vacation, video games, Virus

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