Lockdown- the World Turned Upside Down

Overwhelmed. When I think of how I felt during lockdown, that's the one word that comes to mind. I was completely overwhelmed. My job had been urging anyone who could work from home to make that transition. Mine went fairly smoothly with Brent's IT help. 

It was when the schools closed down, the tsunami of emails, trying to sift through what was redundant and what was up-to-date news, that was part of what was overwhelming. I'll be forever grateful to the teachers and administrators who kept a positive attitude in the face of some fierce criticism. This was from Sydney's class:

 

 I'm also grateful that by and large the girls were dedicated to their schoolwork when school resumed online. They carved out places in (and out of) the house to meet, read and work. I know a lot of parents and kids just gave up. They declared summer break had started early and withdrew from school altogether, assuming it would be back in full swing in the fall. Even so, we received the inevitable emails from teachers letting us know there were missing assignments, one of the girls skipped a Zoom meeting, they were falling behind. We couldn't stay on top of all 4 of them all day long and it was overwhelming.

Thanks to Brent's finely honed practice of economizing the groceries, we were well stocked for a lockdown. We never had to worry about running out of toilet paper or panic buying. Our financial situation actually improved by leaps and bounds during lockdown. Brent found out about his yearly bonus on March 10th and it was paid out just before lockdown started. Aside from the government stimulus, we began getting refunds for tickets to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cubs vs Red Sox game, Girls on the Run, among others. Everyone and their dog decided to refinance their house so I wasn't just busy at work, I was insanely busy and raking in the overtime. Interest rates dropped so low we decided to refinance ourselves from a 30 year to 15 year mortgage. We paid down debt so quickly it became like a drug, like an addiction. As good as this was for our family, the guilt of motherhood seeped in. I had to ban the girls from the office completely because I simply couldn't be effective at work and attend to their constant needs. One day I heard a knock on the door and I turned around and they had put up these sticky notes, reminding me that they loved me. 

I'm so grateful they cheered me on, but I was definitely overwhelmed.

Even with the demands of work, I made sure to take a solid hour for lunch. If the weather was nice, we went for a bike ride. If it was rainy, we played a game. Sometimes it was an oldie but goodie like Tensie or Nerts and sometimes we tried something new like Iowaopoly which had never even been opened. Turns out Brigitta was particularly good at this game. She dubbed herself a "hundredair" and whenever she had to pay rent to anyone she'd nonchalantly say, "That's ALL? That's nothing!" We've always prided ourselves on not having any gaming equipment in our home but as the days and weeks of lockdown stretched into months, entertainment from the Disney+ subscription was wearing thin. We realized our home had limits when it comes to keeping the girls happy and occupied. It was so overwhelming. 

It was fun to reminisce about all those places in Iowa City that we have all come to love and adore.

We did have an Amazon Echo and the girls used Alexa and her music catalogue quite a bit. I love these photos of Brigitta dancing in front of the tent the girls made and slept in for a few weeks. 

At the end of those few weeks, I discovered to my horror, all the girls had lice. I've never dealt with lice in my life and I was waaay out of my depth. To this day, I have no idea how they got it- we were in lockdown and they had no contact with anyone. Literally NO ONE! I heard lots of moms across the country complaining of the same thing- kids in lockdown suddenly getting lice. There is no way lice are only spread through person to person contact, there must be a connection to all the time the girls were spending outside. The fort came down and each girl had to sleep in her own bed, use her own bed and have her own hairbrush. They lived in braids. I nearly went blind and my hands hurt all the time. 

Nitpicking took on a completely different meaning to me as it took me 6 hours to check all of the girls and their long, long hair. I would do it every other day until they were clean and then I moved to once a week. Once they had 3 clean checks in a row, I moved to once a month. In spite of my diligence, we had 3 rounds of lice sweep through the girls. At the same time, our dryer broke. To properly wash and sanitize everything, Brent had to go to a laundromat. Speaking of Brent, he was paranoid he would get lice in his beard. The ironic thing about that is that he could easily have shaven his face clean and had a nice, thick beard back by the end of lockdown. Even so, he became very protective of his beard, looking far, far away every time the girls hugged him. As soon as salons opened again I booked appointments for all the girls and had 4 inches of hair cut off. The lice didn't just overwhelm me, it flat-out broke my spirit and I don't think I've recovered even to this day. Doing the girls' hair used to give me joy and it no longer does.

In a moment of desperation to get the girls out of the office so I could work, I told them I would pay them $100 if they could get their jump splits down. Liesel got to work right away and I have to say I'm insanely impressed. When she hits that split mid-air, she looks so graceful I could cry.

Ireland came up with this on her own- she played tic tac toe with the mailman! Outside interaction was so severely limited and it began to have it's effect on the girls. By and large they were kinder to each other than normal, but they missed their friends. Ireland came to watch for that mail truck and even now she has deemed it her job to bring in the mail everyday.

We had some working bikes but during lockdown but a friend gave us her daughter's old bike for Ireland and we bought Liesel and Sydney a new one. Since we couldn't go anywhere, riding bikes helped save our sanity.

At the bottom of a gentle hill, Sydney panicked when she went into a ditch and ended up crashing her bike. She got a fat lip and skinned her knee and vowed never to ride again. I made her get back on a couple of days later. As the lockdown was stretching on and on, we weren't about to coddle her on this one. 

As it looked like restrictions would loosen but only if everyone was properly masked, I pulled out the sewing machine, my fabric stash, and helped the girls sew their own. They loved it- Liesel and Ireland made two just for fun! 

These masks were heavy duty with 3 layers including a pocket to put a filter if needed. There's a pipe cleaner sewn into the top seam so it pinches their nose. 

I always thought I would use this fabric for a quilt but ended up making our own BYU masks.

I didn't just look forward to John Krasinki's Some Good News, I came to live for it. Each episode made me laugh and cry. This was one of my favorite Office throwback things he shared. 

Never in my life did I think I would go to Target looking like this. 

We slowly emerged from lockdown hopeful for the future but knowing some things would never be the same again. It was so overwhelming, but I'm also so grateful we got through it okay.

Tidbits

On one of our bike rides Ireland spotted this puddle she just couldn't resist jumping in. While the rest of the girls rode home, we pulled over so I could snap some photos. 

This one is my favorite. Reminds me of Super Mario.

Like many families during lockdown, our friends got a dog- a shitzu named Benny. Gita was in love when she finally got to meet him.

I'm an executor of my parent's estate and so I get emails from the funeral home they've chosen. I received this one right in the middle of lockdown. Someone needs to talk to their marketing department because this was a little disturbing to find among my emails. 

Sydney asked to try on my glasses and then said, "Do I look good? Or do I look awesome?"

We've done some sacrament meetings at home and the girls created their own lectern to give talks. 

Eventually they added a microphone as well.

We always put Sydney in charge of the music and Liesel helped her play the songs from her Chromebook.

Ireland's Greek Mythology puppet assignment was Hestia. She was a beautiful woman who maintained fire everywhere so Ireland gave her a shimmery aluminum dress and a torch. 

With so many schools going remote, there was a lot of advice from parents who homeschool. This one cracked me up- it was an article with kid's reactions to that advice.

At the end of the school year we had to stop by the school to pick up items from the girls lockers and desks. We were supposed to drive up with our trunk open but I knew the girls would want to see their teachers, not try and yell out the car behind tinted windows. I decided to take the Mustang instead and the girls were delighted to wave to everyone. Supplies could easily be dropped in the front seat- as contactless as you can get these days!

Vanessa brought these huge bubbles to my attention and I got the wand and powder for the girls for Easter. One day when work was particularly demanding and I just needed the girls off my hands I mixed it up and then had a hard time concentrating as they made wonderous bubble creations.

So pretty!

Sydney has been losing teeth like mad lately and one was lost in the backyard. The Tooth Fairy found it and paid her accordingly which made Sydney wonder how she knew it was her tooth. This led to a conversation about DNA and how reading her DNA can tell someone that she's a girl and that she has blue eyes. Sydney interrupted, "And that I'm beautiful?" Yes Sydney, your DNA tells us that you are beautiful- haha!

The girls built forts and made up puppet shows. This one really cracks me up because that whole kissing thing is just so foreign and ridiculous to the girls.

Preparing Brigitta (and her quilt) for Baptism

I cannot even begin to tell you how happy I was when we found out we were again getting sisters in our ward! Sisters Anderson and Hansen were so wonderful and they came up with the cutest ways to teach Brigitta the gospel. Like a hop scotch to teach her the principles and ordinances.

When she hopped on a square, she turned over the paper which had a simple explanation for each.

They made a puzzle to demonstrate how Christ established his church and then how it broke up.

I loved feeling the Spirit they brought into our home. And I had to smile when I saw one backing the other out. Oh memories!

As much of a joy as Brigitta's lessons with the sisters were, her quilt was a different story. After Ireland's quilt came down to hours before her baptism, I decided to start Brigitta's nice and early. I had the border, the 8 and all the symbols measured and marked out, ready to go. Then in October the church announced they were going to change the Young Women program and I didn't know if the symbol would change. I decided to do as much of the quilt as I could. I finished the RS symbol and CTR shield:

I decided to quilt the angel Moroni while listening to General Conference. I had it all done when they announced they were changing the symbol of the church from that to the Christus under an arch. My heart broke a little- even though I could never quilt that silhouette. It's just way, way too complicated so I probably would have stuck with the angel Moroni anyway but it was still demoralizing to immediately have your hard work outdated. 

News of the new symbol was promised, but with no information, I wanted to work on Brigitta's name. However, I had no fabric for it and since they are considered a non-essential business, all of the fabric stores around here were closed. I called Katrina in desperation. She took a look at what I had and dug into her stash. Mercifully, she mailed me several different options of peach (to counter-balance the massive purple border) and I found one that worked. Of course, it was the polka-dot one and being a perfectionist, those dots had to line up perfectly with the edges of the letters sooo there was a fair amount of trial and error. Brigitta Katrina has sooo many letters in her name! I started with the straight letters like I, T and N first and then moved on to the more complicated and curvy B, G and Rs.

Finally news of the new symbol came out and once we were allowed to go to the Office Depot again, I had it printed up. It was still too small for the space so I had to go back and have it blown up even more. 

Then I had to try and figure out which shades of the rainbow fabric would look best with the colors that were already there. 

This is what I ended up with.

The new symbol is actually much easier to quilt than the old face within the flame. This is all straight lines but the symbol is much wider. The old symbol paired nicely with the angel Moroni because they were both long and slim. Now that angel Moroni looked off balance, but I couldn't do anything about it. I started in on the finishing touches. 

Brigitta's symbol is the forget-me-not and since she is our 3rd child, she needed to have 3 in each corner. Again, Katrina had sent a variety of fabrics and I did a mix of 3 to give it a little more depth. 

Once those were done, I went the rounds about the dove. Should it face in towards the quilt or away? No matter how I tried, it just looked off facing in and so it landed facing out. As I was finished everything up, I again called Katrina in desperation- I still had no way to get fabric and I needed yards and yards of it for a backing. It happened to be her sons birthday but no matter, Katrina marched right over to a fabric store and pulled several options for Brigitta to choose from. She selected a colorful hot air balloon fabric I never, EVER would have even glanced at and Brigitta was in love. I managed to talk Katrina into matching it up and mailing it to the quilter for me to take just one thing off my plate. 

The social distancing signs made me laugh. If only they knew I was perfectly willing to stand at the door and throw the dang quilt at them! I was sooo DONE with working on that thing.

I hadn't been out anywhere in a couple of months and it was like there had been a zombie apocalypse.

The markings on the floor weren't a big deal to me, but it was so strange to push my package through the plastic sheet. 

I can't remember the last time I've been so happy to be rid of something! As arduous a project as Gita's quilt ended up being, she was thrilled to watch the progress and so, so, SO excited to finally have one of her own. 

Canvas Shoe Art

During a family Zoom my nephew Eli presented the girls with a challenge- what can you do with a pair of plain, white canvas shoes? The girls were all about it. They harangued Brent to within an inch of his sanity to pick up $5 shoes from Walmart so they could get started. When the family had their next Zoom, the girls were ready. 

Sydney's shoes are a unicorn and rainbow theme. Liesel helped her add the pink for just a bit more color.

Gita's shoes are decked in rainbow colors and dogs on the vamp. The silver and gold dots add just a little more bling to the whole look.

Ireland's shoes were a galaxy look. She tried out a sharpie and rubbing alcohol technique Liesel told her about that she ultimately wasn't terribly happy with but I think they look great!

Liesel's "Starbucks Sneakers" featured the logo on the sides, a frappuccino on the vamp and cake pops throughout.

In the end they all won. My parents quietly slipped me some money so they would all feel good about their creations. As much as I was wary of the project and the inevitable mess: 

...those shoes ended up being perfect for all the time they're spending outside. I didn't mind if these come back muddy or wrecked. They're all so dang proud of their work too!