May 27, 2008 (Tuesday)

It was a regular day in the land of Romania – at least for the most part.
The events at the orphanage were pretty routine. I played with Constantine for a while. He was a sad boy today for some reason. I probably would be too if I had to lay in a chair all day. Then Valentina and I practiced jumping again. I don’t know how to get her to understand that in order to jump you have to bend your legs. She can’t jump on her own – only with my help. I did get Valentina to repeat the word “pup” which means kiss. Then I’d point to my cheek and she’d give me a kiss. So cute….I just had to watch out for her hands and mouth because she occasionally bites and pulls hair. Yesterday when I was holding her she bit my neck and my arm. I have lovely marks left by her.

Sera found me again today. Every time he sees me he gets this huge smile. He came and sat down and put his arm around me and I pulled away like normal. One of his superiors was in the room and she scolded him for not doing his work. She wasn’t really mad, but she definitely gave him a hard time. Elisa and Teo were trying to ask him some serious questions about buying new wheel chairs for the orphanage with the money that some of the girls in our group have raised. He kept trying to talk to me and they kept saying his name. I think he was pretty cranky by the end of his visit. Then when they were done I asked Sera if he could show me some exercises I could do with Constantine in order to get his mind off talking about “us.” He showed me some. Poor Constantine is so mangled. Then Sera started talking to me about what I was doing this weekend. I told him we had a branch picnic on Saturday if he wanted to come. The girls wanted me to invite him – we are secretly attempting to convert him. They think the situation is hilarious. I don’t think it will happen but it’s worth a try. He said to remind him and that he would join us….

In the other room my kids are Maria, Andrei and Iulia. Maria keeps surprising me with how much she can do and how much she actually understands. We threw the ball back and forth a few times. I didn’t think she even understood the concept, but apparently she does. Then she would scoot herself across the floor to get the ball. While we were playing I would periodically tickle her and she laughed for the first time since I’ve been here. She is normally pretty expressionless. This girl never laughs – so hearing a giggle from her is huge. Her stomach and feet are sooo ticklish. If I barely touch the bottom of her foot she will freak out.

Andrei was being a little rambunctious today so they put him in his crib for most of the time I was there. Sad. Mario came and found me to tell me about Andrei’s history. I had asked her to do some investigating. Apparently Andrei was brought to the orphanage a few months ago because his parents didn’t want him since he was deaf. Sadly, they won’t let anyone adopt him. It makes me sooo angry. If you’re going to give your kid up because you don’t want them you shouldn’t try and halt any chance they have at a better life. SO SELFISH. I was seriously so agitated. I was surprised at how hurt and angry I was about the news…She also said that Andrei’s brother and sister had been killed in a fire a few months earlier because the parents left them at home by themselves. I wish I could meet his parents and tell them what I think of them. I would seriously go off – I know it’s not very Christ like but they need a good kick in the butt! The only good news Mario had for me was that Andrei is supposed to be getting surgery sometime over the next couple of months so he can hear! I’m excited about that. He has a hearing aid and they are trying to turn it up a little bit each day so he gets used to sound. She also said that even though he can’t be adopted that he can be housed by a foster family. She said he could actually live with them his entire life if they wanted. Apparently foster care is different in the states than it is here. In Romania children can stay with foster parents for a long time. I guess I’m going to have to pray that he finds a good family. I feel so helpless. I can’t do anything else to help him….All I can do is pray that he will be taken care of and love him! I wish there were more that I could do though…I’ll have to contemplate about what else I can do…
Sera came into our room again to find one of the kids for physical therapy. It was so funny though because he didn’t look at me or say hi – he NEVER does that. The girls were like – he must be mad at you! I just laughed…I have no idea why he would be. Then we think we figured out the reason for his sudden lack of interest. Apparently he had been flirting with one of the other workers earlier that day. She was in a different room earlier, but when he came in the second time we were both in the same room. He didn’t say anything to either of us…so busted haha…not that I care – but we were all cracking up. Players, players….what are we gonna do with them?

On our way walking to the hospital we were honked at several times. It gets old after a while, but today the situation was especially funny. After these guys honked at us MacKenzie turned to us and made the comment that Romanian guys think they are so cool and they drive these teeny little cars that go “beep beep.” It’s so true though. They act like they are hot stuff and they are in cars the size of my first play toy car when I was one. We were rolling after that one for a while. It’s great when things are randomly funny…that’s probably one that you had to be there to think it was funny – but we thought it was hilarious.

The hospital was a lot of fun today. MacKenzie and I brought the laptop so Alex could watch a movie. Alex and his friend Andrei chose Spiderman 3 to watch. His little friend Andrei was so cute. He kept making sure MacKenzie and I was comfortable. Then MacKenzie sat on the ground and he went and got her a pillow to sit on. Not all the boys in Romania are disrespectful to women. It was refreshing to see him act so nice towards us…the parents must of taught him well.

While we were watching the movie in Alex’s room Florine came in to say hi to us. Mindy taught him to to say “I love you baby” in English and then he added a wink to finalize the combination. We were cracking up. He is such a little ladies man. He leaves on Thursday. I’m happy for him – but sad at the same time. All these kids come and go. We love them and then they leave us…so sad. After Florine left I could tell Alex was a little bothered by his visit. The kids get really jealous if our attention goes anywhere else but to them. Unfortunately, we have to be shared! We are quite desirable here.

MacKenzie and I also went to the intensive care area – they had several babies in there. A ton of them were soaked through. Poor things. There was one little baby who could barely breathe. The inside of her entire mouth was snot. I haven’t seen anything like it before. It was disgusting –the poor thing was screaming. MacKenzie said everytime she goes in there she is screaming…I just caressed her head and smiled at her. She quickly calmed down, but then the second we left she cried again.

When Annie and I arrived home our apartment was in ruins. We got a new door on our apartment today. Apparently it is supposed to be a lot more sturdy than the last one. Our apartment is always breaking. Then while the maintenance guy was working on putting our door in the fuse blew out and now only one room in our entire apartment has electricity. Then when Mary asked if he could fix it he didn’t tell us when…great.

This evening all us girls got together and made cookies for the workers in our rooms at the orphanage. We figured some treats will soften anyone’s heart. We’ll do anything to get them to like us…They tasted amazing thanks to Annie and Melissa. Hopefully they will do some good for us tomorrow. On the way home we were trying to make it as fast as we could to the cross walk in front of our apartment. If you miss the cross walk it is about a 2 minutes wait. (The cross walks here take forever) Anyways, we all decided to make a run for the cross walk and Mary yelled “Come on guys we can make it!” Then the next thing I know I see MacKenzie almost fall flat on her bumb but she steadied herself so she didn’t completely biff it. Then Mary followed MacKenzie’s path and she definitely biffed it right on her toosh. We were laughing hysterically. Annie and I had taken the steps and MacKenzie and Mary decided to try and run down the handicap ramp that was like a mini slide. Needless to say none of us will be walking down that again. The best part of the domino fall was when some Romanian guy yelled out the window in English as he passed by if we were okay. I don’t know how people know we are American right off the back. We must look the part….