Like most parents during this strange time we’ve all been through extremely trying times. Its been an incredibly difficult time to manage childcare and work and it often led to me working odd hours. There is also the guilt that comes with thinking you’re not spending quality time with your kid and paradoxically that you’re putting 100% in to your own projects.
But at the same time it was still amazing to spend time with my son and I will cherish the time we got to spend together. During the summer of 2020, he would awaken with the sunrise and that meant some mornings we were up as early as 4.30am. I’d often wander downstairs in a complete haze drifting into the kitchen to gorge on coffee.
At this time my son was getting very fond of robots, in particular, Iron Giant, Iron Man and Cyborg from the Teen Titans.
We’d been playing with the Lego versions of Hulk Buster and coming up with even more creative to explode him into a million pieces when I decided to try reading some old iron man comics with him. I was a huge comic fan growing up and reading these comics again reminded me of how I used to sketch some of them. To my surprise, he wanted to draw some of these charters and we got some paper, card and pens and started doodling away.
A year on, he’s just started school, the house is quiet and I’ve been in the process of sorting through our ‘crafting’ cupboard. To be honest, what I remember of this time was that it was just really nice was to be able to just draw again, I haven’t probably sat and drawn anything for such a long time, it reminded me of being a kid again and just how fun it is to doodle away.
Anyway, although the pandemic has disrupted much about how we live our lives, for those of us who had children to care for, it allowed for a unique period where we could spend time with them we wouldn’t have usually been able to. Just a small thought but I’ll always be grateful for that.
See you next time.