Don't mean to hijack this thread, but am just wondering if there are other introvert parents reading this thread who - besides looking for creative ideas to keep kids busy - are losing their fucking minds like me?
It didn't really register with me until the last few days how two months of having NO MEANINGFUL, UNINTERRUPTED TIME to recharge my batteries has caused me to completely waste away on the inside. I hit a wall on Friday and had a complete parenting fail day, to the point that I had to apologize to my kids for how impatiently and angrily I behaved.
I don't think I fully realized how much alone time I got (and actually need) pre-COVID, to re-center myself, to get my work done (my work is white collar *thinking* work and I can't think worth shit these days), to fill the tank back up to re-enter the world of our two kids (ages 8 and 5). Two kids who bicker seemingly constantly, and/or are unable to go more than 15 minutes without needing to show me something, and/or complain about what's for dinner, and/or whine that we told them to clean up their mess, and/or fight against doing their online schoolwork, and/or express righteous indignation that their sibling got to pick the first bedtime book two nights in a row.
I get that some/a lot of that is my kids' anxiety about coronavirus, it's just that I have nothing left to respond to them compassionately.
DH and I will be working on solutions and experiments in the coming week to help me get to a better place, but man. It just hit me today that I can count on two hands the number of times in the last 60 days that I've had 15 minutes to myself without my kids "needing" me.