Day 15 - Baby Time Galore

Today's P90X session was arms and shoulders if you are keeping track. For all the other normal routine stuff, it has been 2 weeks now and I have continued doing the same thing so I will not bore you with a detail of my mornings. After I got to work today, I waited for the team to get there and then started baby time. I got lucky today and got to hang with Eddison and I cannot remember for the life of me the other kids name. They were both three and Eddison was great. He was content doing anything but the other one was not. He only wanted to be held in an upright position while I stood. If I even started to sit down, he would throw a fit.

So I stood, and stood, and stood until finally he went to sleep. Even then I was unsure if I could sit down but he was heavy and I had already worked out my arms that morning so it was tiring holding him for the hour and a half that I did. Fortunately, I was able to sit down without him waking up so we just sat outside in a chair for about 30 minutes while he slept. When he finally woke up, he quickly noticed that I was sitting down and immediately got frustrated kicking off both of his shoes. I stood up again. 

Then, all the other 3 year olds came out and the tias took them down the hill to the basketball court to run and play. He finally decided that he wanted to join them on a walk but I assumed he wouldn't want to get down and play because up until this point he hadn't wanted to. So I walked all the way down to the court slowly while holding him with one arm and holding someone else's hand with another. It was a long walk and then he told me without words that he wanted to play so I had to walk with him all the way back to Casa to put shoes on. He let me sit down to put his shoes on. How nice of him right? Immediately after the shoes were on though, the fit started. So I hopped up again and started walking some more. By this time, I was long past my baby time allotment and ready to get to the much needed weed eating. My plan was to walk him down to the others and leave. This did not go as planned. 

As I was leaving, Samuel who is a 4 year old with the huge tummy and cheeks had stayed back too so I took him as well. At first I tried to carry both but I was so tired at that point that I let Samuel walk. He is very short, under 2 feet so it was a slow march holding his hand with one hand and holding the other guy with my other. It was a beautiful day though. It was sunny all day with no rain in sight. Today for the first time, I actually got a little sun burned. Not bad for two weeks down here. 

Once we made it to the others, I let them down and tried to turn to leave but upon arrival, 3 other boys came and jumped on me to play. I weighed out my options, noticed the tias were way outnumbered and decided to stay and play. I spent another hour and a half throwing kids in the air, chasing them around, and twirling them over my head. I learned a lesson too. If you do it to one, you will have to do it to all. I got even more tired playing with kids than I would have doing construction. It was fun though and I got to see a lot of little kids laugh which is such a blessing. John Paul and Samual were probably the ones I played with the most. I also spent some good time with Boris, a new 7 year old and Johnny, a 3 year old. Mainly though, Samuel did not leave my side. He is the one that started the twirling over my head which brought John Paul and others too.

Samuel and I had a great time though and I didn't have any problem entertaining him because he is easily entertained. He can talk a lot and understands what I say so that was fun too. In fact, on the way down, he kept pointing out all the water he saw. He would point and say 'es agua'. We were walking right next to a stream the whole way so he pointed a lot. As we played and hugged and made funny noises, I really got a satisfaction and payback for what I am doing down here. All the long days and hard work are worth it to play with the kids. Samuel is so loving and sweet and a lot of the time just likes to be held and squeezed which I can do well. He is so trusting of me too. When I swung him over my head, he would return to a step that was taller than he was, climb up and then jump off into my bent over hands. He would jump sometimes before I was there with this total and complete trust that I would catch him. I always did and he loved it. The only kid more trusting than him that I know is my baby sister Jordan who I miss along with all the rest of my family.

After about an hour of play time, I walked with the tias and the rest of the children back to La Casa carrying Samuel in one arm and the other guy in my other arm. By the end of the morning, I think I had gained more muscle in my arms than the P90X workout that morning. We finished about 1140 and I ran up to the construction site to help before lunch. It was a quick 20 minutes and then I headed to Alexanders for lunch again. For a drink today, I got this yogurt drink that was made with Mora berries. It was huge and had a ton of sugar in it but was soo good. It was like a really yogurty thick smoothie. Yummy. No where near as good as Hannah's smoothies which I also miss greatly. I don't miss her smoothies near as much as I miss her though. :)

After lunch, I headed back for some inside work then took the younger kids back down to the basketball court for PE. Today we did kickball which went over really well. We had boys vs girls at their choice and the girls won. I played both ways and may have helped the girls out some. : / Javier and Wilson weren't too happy about that but they got over it. Finally, school was over. After saying bye to all the kids and workers, I took off for the long walk home, plopped down on the couch, played a little minesweeper then typed this blog. I took a shower too in case you were wondering. I do that from time to time down here. haha. 

I am now heading to Melissa's and Kelsey's to help them bake for the Art Show tomorrow at La Casa. We are going to bake some stuff then head to Puyo for that really good authentic Italian restaurant. I went there with the girls the first week I was here but I had already eaten so all I got was a salad and smoothie. This time, I am excited to get something really good. And yes, we are skipping dance to eat. That sounds horrible but I don't care, I am worn out.

All in all, today was really tiring, I am pooped, and I had a blast. Different sugar drinks, kids smiles, and texts from Hannah keep the day fresh and exciting no matter how tired I am. I am so blessed to be here and today, I got to see a lot of that as I got to positively impact a lot of kids lives by just playing with them. I couldn't ask for anything from God because he has blessed me more than I can even comprehend. Thanks God! Thanks for the opportunity to be here and see all these beautiful children. And thank you for the beautiful people that support me and pray for me back home (that's you). I am so blessed. Thank you. Amen


I just remembered. The other kids name is Antony.