No, the monkeys are NOT cute!

For any of you who think they are, well, they're just NOT!

At 8 am this morning I had had a good run, made breakfast, sent my honey out the door, and thought to myself that it would be a slow day. Maybe I'd manage to sit with my little boy and help him learn some of his alphabet letters. "I'll just start some laundry first," I told him. Then I realized just how much laundry I needed to do today - since our little princess is super picky about what clothes she puts on these days, and she changes her mind every half-hour and helps herself to a clean set of clothes... but even if she didn't change her mind, she still can't be bothered to use the toilet all the time and very very often wets her pants - or more likely, poops in them. Nasty.

By 10AM I figured I'd already had quite the morning- I counted about 6 loads of laundry I had ahead of me, smashed a nasty centipede on my bedroom floor, and then I got soaking pillows and scrubbing pillowcases (because Annie is still scratching her nose and getting blood all over them at naps and bedtime). Then a panicked Annie cried out to me and come to find out that this time she'd pooped all over the coir matting that covers our floors (terrible mess to try to scrub out of the coconut fibres!). After cleaning her up and the floor, I sent the kids outside. I put the soap outside to dry in the sunshine along with the soap holder because they get so nasty with little kids using them all day long. Our weather has been beautiful, by the way- 70-80 and sunny all day long. It's probably even hotter in the sun.

So the kids played outside until they were fighting so much that I had them come in. Both kinds of monkeys (rhesus and langours) were in the trees and walking on the roof, and I felt nervous as I always do, that they were going to steal my laundry. I tried to scare them away a few times, but they didn't really care. Then, while we were all inside, I looked out the bathroom door and saw a big langour holding our nice bar of soap! HEY! I shouted at him and opened the door to come at him, and so he jumped on the roof - WITH MY BAR OF SOAP!

Needless to say, I was mad! I shouted at him some more and Annie asked me if I needed Pappa - yes indeeed! But he's at work.

I looked out again to check the laundry- and the monkey was back- but no bar of soap, only my soap holder was in his hand this time! GRRRRR! I shouted at him again and this time he hopped up on my roof -WITH MY SOAP HOLDER!

Now I was really mad- and again, Annie asked me if I needed Pappa! :) Too true, but he's at work.

Well, I recovered, prayed so hard that God would send the monkeys away and protect us and our laundry. Pretty soon, the monkeys headed elsewhere. They didn't take any of my laundry and I had come to accept the fact that my soap and soap holder were gone for good. Then I stepped outside to bring in the dry clothes, and suddenly, the soap holder dropped from above just in front of me! NO WAY! (If the monkeys take stuff, they usually leave it in impossible places and we never find the things again). I looked up and thought that maybe God had dropped it from heaven just then. I saw up in the trees a little baby monkey just above where it had come from- ah ha! Well, it's still a God-thing. Every monkey-encounter leaves me feeling protected by my Father in Heaven. I don't like the monkeys and they are certainly not cute and stealing my soap was not funny. A verse that Will has learned recently came to mind several times this morning:
Psalm 32:7
"You [God] are my hiding place; You will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance."