Joyful Rant: Reminiscing on my House Arrest with Toddler period

I’m reading all the posts from parents about how they’re coping with the pandemic, and I’m reminded of my life in 1989 in my first 6 months in England, with a toddler.

Ariel, my firstborn, was 9 months old on December 20, 1988 when we flew to live in England as a military family on Lakenheath Air Force Base, about an hour and a half north of London. My husband was assigned to a squadron that flew F-111’s there, and life was very exciting for him. For me, not so much.

First of all, it was the 80’s, hence no technology. No email, no Internet, no FaceTime, nothing. We didn’t even have TV because I couldn’t figure out how to make the plug situation work, and we heard there was a TV tax. I had a big green rotary dial phone that I could make extremely expensive overseas calls on, but obviously only did that about 3-4 times a year.

I knew no one when we first got there. We stayed in quarters on the base for about a month or so and I did meet someone who became a lifelong friend there. But mostly I remember being jet lagged and tired, and seriously cooped up in a small space with a cranky baby. This is when I started smoking cigarettes again (after quitting while pregnant).

Jet-lagged in Base quarters.

At first we only had one car. We bought a little Capri which I wrecked immediately (that’s a whole other fun story) and it took a while to get another. So mostly I sat around holding a baby, trying to read, and smoking (probably all at the same time, at times. It was the 80's). I don’t remember drinking at all. Maybe that would have helped. ;)

But the real isolation and depression set in when we moved into our house out in the middle of the woods. I finished unpacking in 2 days, there were no other houses or neighbors, I had no car and it rained constantly. I remember long, grey days on end with nothing to do and no human contact (unless you count a demanding toddler, which is debatable).

Our English Gatehouse

As Ariel grew into a toddler (she had started walking at 9 months) I did a lot of chasing after her to keep her from killing herself (another story). She could climb over a baby gate at 10 months old, and I thought this was normal. I also read all her books to her sixty thousand times each. I told her a million stories. I tried to keep her busy with her toys and turning all kinds of other things into new toys. I wrote another blog post about how Ariel craved input from the moment she was born, but this period in our lives probably contributed to her voracious thirst for knowledge because I was so attentive to feeding it. We didn’t have a lot of stuff - compared to my 2 younger kids who became overloaded with toys. Sometimes I would lock us up together in the guest room so I didn’t have to chase her around, and lay on the couch bed for hours feeling sad while she toddled innocently around the room. I took some pictures, but film and developing was expensive so not nearly as many as we take now. I remember interminable gatherings of stuffed animals.

I never told anyone I felt sad or depressed. Not that there was anyone to tell but my husband. He worked long hours and it was often dark when he left in the morning and dark when he got home at night. He was tired too, but energized and excited. He told me stories at night about his day, which was one of my main recreational outlets. The other 2 were reading and cross stitching. There was literally nothing else to do besides cooking and cleaning, and the house was only like 900 square feet. I probably did over a hundred cross stitch projects in our first year in England, and not much after that period. I have always been an avid reader though, and this is probably what kept me from losing my mind in those first few months in England. Much like in my childhood, reading was my savior during this period. Of course, as anyone with a toddler knows, it’s a struggle to read and still be attentive to them, but I persisted, as if my sanity depended on it.

It was winter and cold and rainy, so I hardly ever even got out at first. Ariel and I both got ear infections when we got to England that persisted for the first few months. She also had pretty much every other thing babies get, so I also spent a fair amount of time at the base hospital, mostly at night after my husband got home from work. Combine the fear of her getting sick with the fact that I hate the cold and wasn’t going to take a baby out in the endless rain, I was in a bit of self imposed House Arrest when it came to exploring the woods around our house. There was also the time I looked out my living room window to see a man with a scythe whacking away in my yard (another funny story). I was a 23 year old terrified new mother at this time (another thing I didn’t tell people) and although the young tend to think they are invincible, I was somewhat freaked out by strange men in the woods.

There’s a happy ending to this story though. After the first 6 months in England it got so much better. Eventually I got a job, started back in college, made friends and we started doing a lot of traveling all over the country and in Europe. I also think that all that reading to Ariel really grew her brain because she was a genius in school, and I never had to work that hard in my life again.

So, I feel for all the moms in quarantine these days. I totally know how you feel. I don’t recommend taking up smoking, but have you tried cross stitch?