Lockdown Files - Week 5

Day 29: Another Friday, another fire. We had some fresh homemade donuts and I played my fiddle while I waited for the food to be ready. I’ve been taking requests from the kids, which is a never-boring way to work on playing from ear. “Play the Veggie Tales theme song!”

I’m pretty out of practice and hit quite a few wrong notes, but they don’t care. I spent so much time while I was learning music in my teen years (and somewhat into adulthood) feeling really insecure about my abilities and wanting to be as good as people who were more skilled than me. Now, I’m learning that music can be something that can be used for others’ enjoyment, not just so that I can feel good about myself. So that’s kind of neat. 

Also, today Little T referred to the new WiFi satellite as “the roof wife” so that was pretty hilarious. 

Day 30: As you can see, we are all hungry for a bit of freedom! We heard a friend was on her way to the shops and all went up to wave at her. Poor Babybear didn’t understand why Auntie Gigi couldn’t come and give him a hug. It was good to say hi, though.

They watched Winnie the Pooh in the evening. Apparently that name is hilarious if you’re 3 and 4, and they couldn’t stop giggling once I explained that it was not, indeed, Winnie the POOL. With all of the conversation going on in there, I thought one of the toddlers needed a nappy change.

Me: KK, come here, I need to change you.

KK: *comes and is clean*

Me: Guys! Why did you tell me she stinks when she doesn’t?
Little T: Maybe it was the neighbors. What do you want to be when you grow up? Would you rather fly or run super fast/become invisible/etc.? What superhero would you want to be? What is your favorite animal? What are you thankful for? What is your favorite food? What is your favorite song? Little T: Yes I can. One...two...(continues counting)...nineteen, twenty! There are twenty stars!x

You know, we live in the city, so whenever we hear a sound or smell food and we don’t know where it’s coming from, we say “must be the neighbors.” This is the first time we’ve blamed this particular smell on them though. 

Last picture is by a friend who’s been illustrating random things I say, as art practice.  It’s a plattyrplaguapocalypse. (An apocalyptic plague of platypuses and platters.) I love it so much.

Day 31: We had Sunday school this morning and then tea and cookies outside on the patio. It’s becoming a bit of a routine to have tea every week (at least with the 2Ts - the little ones have been joining us during lockdown). We practice asking each other questions and making conversation. Everyone who is old enough to vaguely understand what’s going on gets a chance to ask everyone else a question. Everyone gets a chance to answer even if they just repeat what the big kids said. If any of you have good suggestions for questions to ask a 3 and 4 year old, hit me up with them in the comments! Some of the ones we have asked so far:

What made you happy (or sad) this week?
What super power would you like to have?
What is your favorite food?
Where would you like to go?
What is your favorite movie?

The kids are working on “what is a question?” Little T “asks” things like “When I grow up, I want to take the apples out of the tree.” Big T does a bit better...”What do you like?”

After we put the kids down for a nap, we all were able to watch the sermon (hooray for WiFi!) and we had this super yummy mint chocolate cream cheese cake (made by our house dad). I’ve picked my lockdown buddies well!

In the evening, Morongwa and I made beef stew and she showed me how to make steamed dumplings. We enjoyed them while we watched the new(ish) animated Pilgrim’s Progress movie. I’ve seen it before but it was definitely worth a second watch. It’s free to watch online right now (or at least it was when I posted this – you can check: www.watchpilgrims.com/FB

The animation quality may not be Disney/Pixar, but the story is classic and I think they interpreted it well. I would highly recommend it!

Day 32: I’m reading this book, and it’s a good one. It’s painful in all the right ways, especially on the days when it’s so hard to trust God.

There are certain words and phrases that are used a lot right now, that I hate. One of those is “new normal.” I don’t want a new normal. I would like my old normal back, thank you very much.

I was chatting with a friend today and she mentioned this phrase. After I realized I couldn’t throw my pencil through the computer screen at her (like I would have if she was sitting next to me), I thought about it a little bit more.

Last year, I studied Theology of Biblical Counseling for one of my school modules. One part of the book I read talked about how Jesus was the only normal human being who ever lived. This sounds a bit strange, but the author went on to explain that “normal” doesn’t mean “universal.” “Normal” means “conforming to the prescribed standard”, not “the same as everyone else.” It doesn’t mean that because everyone sins, that that is how things are supposed to be and how God designed human beings to live and function best. He does sovereignly control everything and even uses evil for good (like in the story of Joseph). But that doesn’t mean sin is “normal.” Of course it leads to chaos, pain, and entropy, because that’s just not how humans are supposed to work. Jesus was the only normal person, because He was the only One who fully and completely obeyed God.

So what if our time here on Earth is not “normal” either? Heaven (and, not at all to be forgotten, the new Earth and our glorified bodies) may be the REAL normal. I mean, think about it in two ways. One, only in eternity will everything be made right and will everyone follow God’s commands; only there will we experience His presence; only there will we be free from the effects of the curse of sin. And two, this will be “normal” in the more commonly understood sense of the word. Most people do understand “normal” to mean “what happens the majority of the time or with the majority of people.” Think in terms of time. How long has this earth been around? I know different people have different opinions on that - but that’s not my point. Even if you believe in millions of years (I don’t), even that is not even a drop in the bucket compared to the length of eternity. How long is eternity? 50 billion years? But then, it just keeps on going. There isn’t any end. So how can we possibly say our brief existence on this earth - and our hurt - are normal? Because the way things are here on earth, is NOT the way things are going to be for the majority of our existence.

Pain is real. Sadness hurts. Grief cuts us deep. But it’s not normal and I refuse to call it so. A better day is coming. THAT is the “new normal” and it’s the only one I’m going to accept as such.

Day 33: I discovered that if I play our church worship recordings on my speaker, they’re loud enough for me to practice along with them. This was a fun rainy-day activity, except for the part where the toddlers hit my knees with Lincoln Logs while I played. I will admit I have been playing on rainy days just to drown out their noise.

Yes, that is a music stand holder that I made out of what I think was my grandma’s jeans...many years ago.

Kid lingo quiz: What does “saymazz” mean? Bonus points for using it in context.

Day 34: Shopping for supplies for MBH to reopen on Friday. This isn’t even half of the stuff but I was close to cleaning off a few shelves...I felt like apologizing to everyone that I’m not a stockpiler or paranoid, I’m just shopping for work. At least the newly-mandated masks, although restricting my ability to breathe comfortably, do keep me from being able to tell if strangers are giving me dirty looks, so there’s that. I still can’t find a thermometer (for ear or forehead) anywhere, so if anyone knows of a place that’s still selling them, please let me know.

Day 35 (Thursday): Today was the last day before MBH opens again as an essential service provider, the ladies come back to work, and the kids go back to baby home instead of being in our care 24/7. It’s a bit of an adjustment and we’ve been sad to give them up, even though we are tired.

This was also the last day before we move from stage 5 lockdown to stage 4. What does this mean? Not a lot in terms of personal freedom, but there are a few perks. Some more stores will be allowed to open, including hardware stores - I can finally buy that weird lightbulb for my pantry and don’t have to use the rechargeable lantern anymore, so that’s nice. We are allowed to go on walks as long as it is in between 6-9 am, it’s close to home, and we don’t go with anyone we don’t live with. Also, fast food restaurants will open for delivery. There are some more industrial/economic things that are happening, I think, but nothing else that really affects us visibly.

This was a crazy stressful day as we were trying to get a bunch of things ready for baby home to open. We had to take the two smallest for immunizations and pick up a prescription. I left them in the car with my housemate while I ran into Checkers for “just a minute” to grab my groceries that I forgot there the day before...and grabbed a couple more things....and picked up the prescription we had been waiting for...anyway it ended up taking way too long and the babies were fussy and then I had to go pick up masks and a thermometer - which we found, thankfully, a friend is loaning it to us.

We decided to have one last fire with B and K before they went back to MBH and Morongwa before she went home on Friday, so that was nice, once I finally got home and got everything sorted.

Big T: There are so many stars you can’t count them.