Feliz Cumpleanõs, J.!

Today we celebrated J.'s birthday! She turned 6 years old, although she told everyone who asked her that it was her 2nd birthday… just a few years off! We normally celebrate with a cake and yummy lunch or dinner, but several of the girls have recently had a piñata at their birthday celebrations, and I'm not sure how many times I was asked why I didn't bring a piñata, too. There's always next year though! I think J. was happy with her chicken lunch and chocolate cake, and that's what counts.

Trip to the Park

We're fortunate to have several parks within walking distance of our house. One of them is just across the street! This morning, the tías wanted to take the kids over to play, so we loaded them up (we have a lot of non-walkers right now!) and headed over. We stayed for about an hour, and the kids had so much fun playing! We arrived back home right before lunch, and they were exhausted, so we'd call that a successful morning!

Tea Party

This morning, S. found a little backpack of tea party supplies, so she set up a tea party for some of the little girls!

An Hour with O.

Twice a week, I pick up four of our girls from school. The younger two, O. and J., are dismissed at 4:30pm because they're in pre-school and kindergarten, respectively. At 5:30pm, S. is dismissed, so we have an hour to keep ourselves busy while waiting for S. Then, we have to race across town to pick up A.M. from her school at 5:45pm. It can be a bit of a rush to get everyone, but I always enjoy the time I get to spend with them.

Today, J. didn't go to school, so I just had to entertain O. for an hour. In an effort to keep her from running around her school and disturbing other classes, I took her on a walk. Right down the street from her school is an abandoned school bus, which neither of us knew about. It was too cute! O. LOVED climbing aboard and pretending she was riding the bus (school buses don't really exist here, so she thought it was pretty cool that a school would have a bus to pick up and drop off the kids).

Happy Mother's Day!

Mother's Day in Bolivia is celebrated later this month, but because it's Mother's Day in the USA, Baby C. and I would like to wish our favorite mom (and grandma!) a very happy Mother's Day! We're counting down the days until you're in Bolivia!!

Isolation Station

About a week and a half ago, Lindsey and I noticed that Baby C. and Baby A. had started coughing again. They both had runny noses too, so that wasn't a good sign… We ended up taking them to the doctor, and both were sick again. They both had the same thing they had last time (last time being 3 weeks ago for C. and a week and a half for A.) but much worse, so understandably, their pediatrician wasn't too thrilled to see us again. She had told us to isolate the sick kids, but it's such a hard thing to do when you're a part of an orphanage. We don't have any extra rooms to isolate kids, but when she told us again how important isolating would be for them to get better, we knew we'd have to find a way. We decided the only way to truly isolate them was for me to care for both of them in my room. Our volunteer bedroom isn't exactly the ideal place for that, so we finally got the room switch we've asked about! We switched our room with the physical therapy room, and it's worked out SO well! The physical therapy room is inside (our room is outside behind the house) and a bit larger. It was originally a temporary switch, but administration told us it can be a permanent switch!

Although both babies look like they've been having lots of fun in isolation, I can't exactly say the same for myself… Being with them all day has put me in isolation as well. Of course I really do enjoy caring for them, but I am so so so ready to go back upstairs and spend time with the other kids and tías. The only time I've really been coming out of the room is to eat. We've had another pretty rigorous medicine schedule, but they are doing a lot better, and I do think that a lot of that has to do with them being isolated. Neither of them have left the room in a week. They get fed and bathed in the room. I brought in some toys too, so there's really no need for us to leave. We've been careful to keep the other kids out, and the tías aren't coming in either. 

Because we've been stuck in the room for a week, I've been able to work with them a lot on different milestones. Baby A. is still not rolling over, but he's putting more weight on his arms when laying on his stomach. He's also been a lot less fussy! Baby C. learned how to get from a sitting position to laying on her stomach and is trying really hard to army crawl! Every once in awhile if she tries super hard, she can drag herself just a tiny bit forward. I've noticed that they're both sitting up straighter too, and I think it might have something to do with the fact that they're having to eat their meals on the floor (I don't have any high chairs in the room), so it's taking a bit more work to sit up nice and tall in order to eat. 

Tomorrow we start the transition back upstairs with the other kids. It's going to be a bit slow (although they're a whole lot better, they're still not 100% and we're trying to prevent them from getting sick again), but by Monday, I'm sure they'll be doing great!