Update from the past few days

Our internet has been finicky again, and life has been busy as always...sorry for not posting! Honestly, the past few days are kind of a blur of play for me. With all the school aged kids home all day, I NEVER get a second to myself. When I do finally sneak away for a moment of rest, I can hear the kids scouring the house looking for me.

So, I will just try to write about some highlights from the past few days:

Sunday, the kids invented their own goofy chant for me. It all started when I lead them down to one of the sidewalks by the house and they stared chanting, “Miss Katie anba kay la.” Translation: Miss Katie is under the house. The chant changed several times after Chacha started shouting out new lines. After about half an hour, I finally ended them when they started singing “Miss Katie under the toilet. Miss Katie under the poopoo.” What do you expect from a six year old boy?

Sunday afternoon, Brenda and I were doing laundry outside. Claudine and Rosa managed to sneak up behind us totally undetected and scare the living daylights out of both of us. I thought that Brenda was going to jump right into my arms! The girls were so proud of themselves for starling us so badly, but they forgot that I was in control of the hose!

Yesterday, I brought Gerdeline upstairs to spend some one on one time with me. She will be two in February. Because we are such a full house right now, she spends most of her time downstairs with the older kids, mostly two and three year olds. Besides Rosa and Claudine, she is the only girl downstairs. So, I think she is lacking on TLC and girl time. I grabbed a couple of the Addidas track suits and a little pink dress that were donated last week and brought her into my room. We played dress up. The fun thing about living with so many little ones is that you don't have to use dolls to play dress up. You can use real kids, ha! Johnny felt left out of the fun and asked to try on the dress, too. It was TOO funny! I have pictures, but the internet is VERY slow so I will have to post them later.

Last night, Dorothy cut an avocado in half to have with our dinner. We left it sitting on a plate in the kitchen while we were in another room. When we eventually sat down to eat, Dorothy noticed something strange about it. It looked as if something had been nibbling on it. We examined it for a while trying to figure out who or what had been eating at it. Our first instinct was that a mouse had been after it (not uncommon here). It looked too big to be a mouse but too small to be a child. We forgot about it until the end of dinner when Chacha walked into them room smiling. Dorothy gasped and said, “Look at his teeth!” Sure enough, I realized what she was getting at. Since he lost a tooth last week, he only had one front tooth that looked a lot like the bite marks in our avacado. When she asked him about it, his face told all! He was the mysterious creature eating our food!

Today, when I woke up Dorothy informed me of the status of the tropical storm Tomas. We have been tracking it online for a few days now. She told me that from the looks of it, it will probably hit Gonaive (hour hours North where we have friends there) in the middle of the night on Friday. We will probably also be affected by it Saturday. From the looks of it, we don't think that it will hit us directly, but we will probably get the outer winds and rains from it. So, we sat down and discussed a quick game plan for gathering large Rubbermaid storage containers to box and move valuables. Tomorrow, we plan to go to run lots of errands stocking up on bottled water, food, and diesel fuel. Dorothy said if we get any part of the storm, we may be out of electricity for as long as a month. If the hurricane hits Gonaives, which is prone to severe flooding, that could mean shortages of water and fuel here in PAP. It is hard to tell what exactly will happen since storms like this can be so unpredictable. We are just trying to be prepared. My mom was scheduled to fly in for a week long visit this Friday. Because of the uncertainty of the weather, she actually changed her ticket to a day sooner just to be safe. So, lucky for me I get to see her a day sooner!

I have saved the best story for last. Tonight as Dorothy and I were eating dinner, we were watching Youvendjii in his crib. He will be 3 in February and has TB, sickle cell anemia, was severely malnourished, and cannot walk. We have been doing some physical therapy with him to strengthen his legs. As we were watching him, he pulled himself up into a standing position for the first time! I think he was as excited as we were! What a miracle! Praise God!