mother's day

So it's been awhile since we blogged. Honestly it's been too hot to do anything except for sit around in as little clothing as possible (without creeping out my roommates) and try not to sweat to death. Attractive, I know. All that to say, there's not much motivation to blog when you're trying not to drown in a pool of your own sweat. There's greater issues at hand.

I wanted to share a bit about the orphanage, and luckily for you, I'm not going to delve too far into the quirky inner workings of my brain tonight. I thought instead I would give a brief rundown of what's new here.

Sarah had her birthday on Wednesday and acted like a little princess. It was miserable. Naseem and I tried as hard as we could to make it the shindig she was praying for (think a banner, cards, streamers, balloons, etc) and guess what happened. The balloons were popped, the cards strewn carelessly around her room, the streamers ignored, and the banner was crumpled in a sad little heap on the floor. It was sad...and annoying. She finally apologized for being such a prima donna (my words), so that was really good, but it made for a rough few days. Luckily now we seem to be on pretty good terms, but tomorrow is a new day...and the next minute is a new minute, really, so God only knows how we'll fare.

Shenice also had a mega-meltdown today. What began as a five minute time-out transformed over a span of fifteen minutes into a full-blown debacle. To make a long story short, she ended up in her room for a good chunk of time. At one point, I stuck my head into her room and promptly wanted to run far, far away: she was sitting on the floor, not sobbing, because to me, sobbing implies a racking of the body, a shaking of the shoulders, but instead she was howling, loud and low and guttural. It was unnatural. I was waiting for her to projectile vomit and have her head spin around, Exorcist-style. After a bit, I felt myself drawn by the howling to her room once again and this time she was curled up on a little low shelf in her room. I inched in quietly and silently began to rub her back, not knowing how she would respond to my presence (she had already told me that she had hated me for putting her in time-out...ouch). But almost as soon as I touched her, she lept into my arms, letting loose that inhuman cry; I rocked her and tried to whisper motherly kinds of things to her. I'm not sure how long we sat there, her long arms wrapped around my shoulders, her sweaty little cheek pressed against my chest: another picture of motherhood personified by an armful of a warm, whimpering weight on my lap. I thought then of what it must be like to be a mother; it must mean your heart is broken everyday and rebuilt sometimes slowly and barely noticeably and sometimes recreated through a feeling as vibrant and alive as an explosion of fireworks. How must God feel, then, when we scream and howl and tell him how much we hate him? And how beautiful it must be for him when we crawl into his lap and press our sweaty cheeks into his shoulder? Just a thought. Shenice and I ended up sitting in her room for dinner. It was lovely. I was so thankful. Interesting sidenote: Tonya thought maybe Shenice's meltdown spurred from her realization that the arrival of new faces (our new girls from Friendswood) meant the impending departure of familiar ones (i.e.mine). It broke my heart to think about that, so please, for those of our readers who pray, pray for me as I begin the long process of saying goodbye.

Missing you and will be seeing you all soon.
Peace,
Alison