July 15, 2008 (Tuesday)
The Lord’s Hand in my Life: Insight into what it’s like to be a mother.

It was quite the rainy morning. When we walked into the orphanage we figured we would all be staying inside for the day. The kids are never allowed outside when it’s raining. However, today was a different day for some reason. Dr. Pantezescu came in and asked us to take the kids outside, and whatever she says goes even if it doesn’t make sense to anyone else. When she left we looked at the worker in the room like “is she serious?’ She shook her head “yes” and started laughing. It’s so interesting the way things work around here. There is absolutely no rhyme and reason for the logic they have. Oh well.

So we all headed outside to the rain. The BYU girls, workers and kids were all squashed under a plastic pavilion. We sat outside there for a few hours. Maria was being really grabby today. Every time I turned away from her to talk to someone or say hello to another kid she would grab my arm, hair, etc. to get my attention. She was really wanting attention. Then she started trying to grab everyone that walked by. I ended up having to scoot her away from me while I played with the other kids.

I played with Vali for a while outside. Today he randomly started freaking out, and he started to hit and bite himself. I guess he does that on a regular basis. You have to hold his hands down so he doesn’t hurt himself. As I said yesterday you can definitely tell he has been abused. To calm him down I sang primary songs to him for a while and rocked him. He was really well behaved. He just sat on my lap and listened.

The little baby girl that I adore named Andrea has tuberculosis. After talking with the girls about it, it sounds like it is a pretty serious thing. I guess it never completely goes away. I’m going to have to do some more research on what it is and the effects it has…

At the orphanage we had an extremely awkward situation happen. Almost worst than the puberty talk we got the week before. Today the workers in our room had a pile of clothes they were going through and on the top there was a lacy thong. I don’t know if someone gave them the pile of clothes or what, but the workers went in the kid’s room while the kids were in another room playing and tried on all the items – including the thong. Whitney S. and I asked Maria if it was for her and all the workers started laughing. Then we were like “you’re husband would like it.” That’s when the situation turned awkward. We should have kept our mouths shut. She quickly said that she was finished with sex and that her husband’s equipment no longer worked in that department. She gave us a lovely visual with her finger. We all about died….wow wow wow is all any of us could say. I think Maria just loves making things awkward, and she pulls it off very well.

I think it was misbehave day for all the kids at the apartments. Sergiu and Alina were on one. Sergiu got a hold of this little book I have that all the kids at the hospital love. He tore the front page off. I knew he liked to tear things, but this book is really thick. I didn’t think he’d be able to get a hold of it without me noticing and have the strength to rip it. Oh he did. Then Alina went and got the same book off the high shelf we put it on and ripped it some more. She laughed when we got upset with her. Elyse held her in time out for a few minutes on the couch. They were such stinkers.

Then at the 7th floor Elyse and I tried to teach them to play Memory with a deck of cards. That was a bust. The second I turned them all in an orderly fashion face down and was about to start playing with them Mirel started turning each one right side up, Costica started flinging his arms across the floor so the cards went everywhere, Viorel was trying to get my attention my blowing bubbles in my face, Catalina was getting bored and Laura kept anxiously telling me she wanted to color. I just looked at Elyse helplessly and smiled. I was like “gata cu cart” (finished with cards). We just laughed. What else can you do…I felt like I was in the middle of complete chaos. Moms must feel like that all the time. Oh what I have to look forward to…

For the rest of the night I did homework and wrote in my journal. Boring.