Happy Birthday Times Five

After baking cupcakes in the morning, the kids were really excited about celebrating the birthdays of five of the children.

In order to give each child their 'moment in the sun' we called them up one at a time to the front of the room and let them hold their own cupcake with a candle. After we sang Happy Birthday and they blew out their candle, they got a special present. 

First up, Chola! He was one of our very first children that came to live here, and in October he turned six!

Beauty turned four years old in October. 

She just couldn't wait to taste the delicious cupcake.

Sandra also turned four in November. I love her lopsided grin.

Nathan turned 3 in November. This is probably one of my favorite photos of him.

Your eyes do not  deceive you.....I didn't get a photo of Moriah yet from our photographer. I'll post her birthday photo when I can. 

Everyone knows icing tastes so much better when licked off your hands.

After eating, the kids had playtime with balloons. You haven't really seen crazy until you've seen sixteen children all running around batting balloons at once. 

One really wonderful thing was when inevitably a balloon would pop, the child would cry and immediately 3-4 children would run to their rescue, offering either their own balloon or getting a grown up to blow up a new one. It was so sweet.

Once the balloon game had wound down a bit, Esther and Christina set up face painting. The kids went outside to run off the sugar and two by two they came in to get their faces painted. 

The girls did a great job doing everything from giraffes, lions & dogs, to super heroes, to flowers and butterflies. It was a wonderful afternoon! 

Once again, many thanks to Gray for taking such beautiful photos.

Exactly One Year Ago: My Heart Just Broke a Little More

Sundays--The Three Stooges Edition

Yesterday I was still down for the count. So I stayed in bed almost completely still. One of the problems with malaria is you feel a bit better during the day and so you get up and move around and then relapse so recovery takes longer. 

Anyway, that little tidbit of information is my way of stating that I had nothing to do with what went down yesterday.....

Every day our kids have a 30-45 minute video viewing time right after their afternoon nap and snack. Yesterday, Tom was excited to share one of his favorites with them--The Three Stooges.

It was met with decidedly mixed reviews.

The nannies enjoyed the fishing episode because Kazembe is very much a fishing area.

Jennifer, however, started weeping the moment the video began playing. She eventually had to be taken from the room.

Chola sat with his eyes covered the entire time. He really didn't want to watch it.

In the middle of the video, the electricity went off, but came back on after just a few minutes. Tom cheered, "hooray, now we can watch the video again"!

Chola was not happy and did not want it turned back on again.

Johnny was really impressed by the cannibals who had bones in their noses and wanted to eat Larry, Curly and Moe. He talked abut them all afternoon and wanted to know if they were the 'bad guys'.

I think it's safe to say that The Three Stooges will not be in the regular selection of afternoon videos.

This is what was happening in my 'city'. Join Unknown Mami by clicking on that button above and see how others are spending their Sundays.

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Please continue to pray for my full recovery. I'm moving around a bit more today but it still leaves me breathless and in a cold sweat. I have to force myself to rest completely today so that I can try to get work done tomorrow. Tomorrow morning will mean 9 working days only before we leave for the U.S.

Exactly One Year Ago (yesterday): Fab Friday Foto

Battling Boredom

Chola has recovered well from his surgery. He had a little birth defect that involved something not being in it's right place--otherwise known as 'undescended'. While it was getting descended, we decided to do a Junior nip and tuck otherwise known as circumcision. This is one of the big HIV/AIDS preventions that are being touted so we want to set a good example for the community by having this taken care of for all the kids. I understand this isn't the choice each person would make but it was/is the best for here.

We took Chola to a private missionary hospital which, while miles ahead in standard from a government hospital, was still pretty bare bones. I felt sorry for Chola as he had very little to do for the 2 days he had to stay there.

He had his coloring, painting, puzzles, books, and flashcards to keep him busy plus an Alphabet Go Fish game but when you're four years old your attention span is pretty small. He spent a lot of time sighing and staring at the walls. Poor kid.

I was oh, so grateful for mealtime because eating kept him occupied for at least 45 minutes even though (or perhaps because) the food was awful. The only color on the dinner plate was a dried out orange. White bread with sour cream(?), boiled potatoes with mayonnaise but no seasoning, a boiled egg, rice pudding and milk. It would take me hours to force that stuff down too.

In the meantime, you might be wondering what kept me from climbing the walls. I'm so glad you asked. I brought plenty to keep me occupied as well because, I'm a bit embarrassed to mention, that I don't have a much longer attention span than a four-year-old. My mom once said that I must think a lot. "Oh, because I'm smart?" "Well, because you talk so much." Oh, Mom, you don't have to think to talk.....  But I digress!

For my entertainment I brought:

Crossstiching! I've been an avid crosssticher for 6 years now. I've done large and small projects and it is one of the things that keeps me sane. Focusing on tiny stitches gives me a sense of control and the opportunity to create beauty in a mad, uncontrollable, and sometimes ugly world. Wow! that was a negative statement. Look at the pretty flowers!

Next, I brought a book. Ok, I brought three (and one of those was actually four in one). I was scared of running out of reading material. I obsess that way.

Alright, you've forced the confession out of me! I also brought eight books on computer! A friend introduced me to Kindle for PCs and I love it! Can't you tell by the unnecessary exclamatory marks! It was a good thing that I had all those things to read because I did finish all my books and one computer one and started on another on computer.

A new toy for me was my phone. I'm a little bit addicted to Diner Dash. And! I got internet access on my phone this past week! I was able to check in with Facebook and also access Google for important things like 'what is Eggs Benedict?'. Tom just had to have that for breakfast so he called me up and I looked it up on Google. Whatever did we do in the dark ages of the 1990's without our friend Google?

What would you pack as essential for getting through 2 days of boredom?

Chola in the Big City

Last week we took Chola down to Lusaka with us as we took some volunteers back to the airport. The last time we took him down with us, he had a terrible abcess on his upper leg which needed to be 'taken care of'' (no details needed--very very painful) and so he was not enthusiastic about getting back in the car.

While this trip also meant visits to the doctor, we were determined to make the most of it for his sake.Tom was really good about taking pictures so that the memories would be saved and we can show Chola (and the other kids) that a trip to the city is tons of fun!

The first night in Lusaka we went to a new restaurant that had a trampoline, jumping castle and playstation area all set up for the kids. We sat in view of the play place so that we could watch Chola play. He had so much fun!

I'm not sure who enjoyed the video games more.

The reason we took Chola with us is that he has a minor birth defect that will require some surgery. We had to get an ultrasound down and then set up the surgery appointment. A very nice, Egyptian missionary, surgeon will be performing the surgery. He will need to stay for 2 nights in the hospital.

A highlight of the trip, for Chola, was visiting the airport when we dropped off our friends. He got to watch several small airplanes land or take off.

 It was really nice having a chance to spend one on one time with Chola. With the kids being with nannies all the time we tend to only see the surface. Having the five days with Chola meant that I could see his personality more and also see where there are some educational gaps. By the end of the trip Chola had come out of his shell much more and was more communicative and playful. We had a really enjoyable game of Go Fish where Chola giggled and trash-talked up a storm.

Nearly all our kids have sponsors who help with their daily expenses but when it comes to medical procedures, this is a new expense. The entire surgery with 2 days of hospital stay comes to just about $600. With traveling expenses added in, it is still under $1000. Not bad considering! If you would like to help with this extra and very necessary need please click on the button at the upper right side of this blog. Or you can email me at amymorrowinafricaATgmailDOTcom and I will give you instructions. When we reach this financial goal I will let you all know.

Thank you and God bless!

It's Their Party!

As promised yesterday, here are the pictures from Queenie and Theresa's birthday party. They both turned or are about to turn 4 years old.

Henry--2 years old

We started off the party with some fun balloon play. 

Elias--3 years old

Then the kids moved to the floor for cake and singing "Happy Birthday"

They did really well. I thought there would be jealousy about two out of fourteen kids being honored alone but there were no problems and the kids were just excited to be having a party. Even little baby Lizzie joined in. This was the first time I'd seen her sitting up by herself.

The Birthday Girls! Theresa (left) and Queenie (right)

Blowing out the candles was a new experience and took several tries.

It didn't help that Tom had picked out the kind that re-lit themselves over and over.

Moriah--20 months
Mmmm! Yummy cake!*

After cake we moved the party outside for playtime to help burn off the sugar high.

Silly string time!

Johnny (left)--3 years & Chola (right)--4 years

The kids tried their hands (and feet) at Twister but I think they need to grow a bit still.

After Twister they played Limbo (no pictures, sorry) and even the nannies joined in. 

It was a really fun afternoon and sure (definitely!) to be just the first of many.

*We do have tables and chairs for the kids but the dining room was being used that afternoon.