This lockdown thing in Melbourne is HARD. Hard for everyone. No matter how easy someone’s life may seem – this is hard. We’re currently in our second lockdown- stage 4. We’re allowed out of our houses for 1 hour a day. I choose to exercise in my garage- mask  free- for an hour, so I may then spend my hour outside my house with my children.

24 hours a day with children is hard! The one thing that has made it “easy” is seeing the absolute love and bond that has occurred between my daughter and Luca. She is absolutely besotted by him. I listen in on her class Zoom calls and there is not one day that goes past that she doesn’t talk about her brother. She often mentions that he has disabilities and/or is sick. Sometimes I think “tone it down a little”…. but most of the time I think, that it’s great that she’s SO proud of him and wants to tell her friends all about him. She is not ashamed or embarrassed of her brother. It also exposes children  to words like “disabilities” and “additional needs” etc so they can ask further questions.

In the current COVID-19 climate, I jumped through a few hoops to allow me to have Luca at school two days a week, so that I may actually get some work done. My weekdays start at 4:30am- so I can try get some work in before kids wake.  It’s near impossible to homeschool one child and work, let alone a second child and one that does not understand or care about Zoom meetings or school work. The moment Luca wakes in the morning, she tries to make him laugh. This is their HUGE connection. She makes him laugh so hard, I’m sure it hurts his belly. On the days that Luca goes to school, his sister is very sad to see him go. She loves seeing him in his school uniform. When he comes home, crawls through the door- his sister is there again ready to make him laugh again. And then after dinner, when there is no more food left in his bowl, my daughter will crouch down and scream “BOO!” and there he goes, my little man, in absolute hysterics. We’ll move from the dinner table, to the couch and, it’s there, that for the next 30 minutes, she will crawl all about the room, hiding and jumping and screaming to the delighted 5.5 year old boy who is squealing, excited and amazed. Bopping up and down on his knees. He always laughs and reacts as if he has never seen this before. Absolute JOY every.single.night. “Groundhog Day” of happiness.

One morning, recently, Luca didn’t laugh at his sister. He also refused to eat- which is a big alarm bell for me, as he’s always been happy to eat anything that goes near his mouth (including Grandma’s finger!). He’d had a cold for a few weeks, (which we got tested for- negative for COVID). He was starting to do these weird shakes things and facial expressions were a bit off- so I emailed his paediatrician. I really DID NOT want to go to hospital in current climate. His amazing paediatrician told me to go to ED “just to be on the safe side”. Just days before, I had bragged to someone about Luca not being in hospital for almost 2 years. I DID NOT TOUCH WOOD.

History has taught me, if going to ED with Luca, pack an overnight bag- just in case. So, I packed our bags, drove to RCH and was greeted by staff in PPE, taking my temperature, giving me a disposable mask and providing hand sanitiser. The waiting area was empty. We went straight through to triage. Luca’s temperature was 33 degrees. He was super cold. We went through to the resuss area, where they tried to keep him warm with blankets, while many blood tests were taken. One of the blood test showed that he had high pancreas levels. They should be under 160. Luca’s were over 25,000. Super high. Inredibly high. The doctors could not find the reason for it. The first night there were so many beeps all night. The Drs asked me confronting questions about how far did I want them to intervene if Luca’s body started to crash…. WTF?! I casually walked into ED thinking it may be a chest infection, now I’m considering his end of life (again). They fed him by IV drip to give his pancreas a rest from digesting solids. We were there for 4 nights. For those 4 nights, 5 days, the ward was very quiet. The nurses insisted on changing his nappies. So- if Luca was fed via IV, had nappies changed and was chilling in bed with his toys and watching tv….. this could almost count as a holiday for this mama during lockdown! Almost.

My daughter was very sad that her brother was in hospital (although, felt better once she received a toy when he got back!). She acknowledged that if/when her brother dies, she at least spent the most amount of time with him this year. Before this year, it was easy for her to ignore her brother. He doesn’t talk, or steal her toys, or throw things at her, or eat her food or challenge her tv show choices. She is so heavily engaged with him now. Seeing them hang out on the couch together- is such a simple, small thing- but absolutely makes my heart explode with love. I didn’t think the bond could happen. But it has and continues to do so.

Lockdown is hard. It can make or break relationships. I’m thankful that the relationship between my kids has been made. Unbreakable bond.

Stay strong Melbourne/Victoria.