Her eyes look sunken and dull, not like her normal joyful smiling brown eyes. She doesn't want to eat, doesn't want to play, all she wants is to be held. She wraps herself around my body and burries her face into my chest. Her body is so hot that it makes me start to feel nauseous. I carry her around everywhere and spend as much time as I can cuddled up on the couch with her. When she's not on my hip she's burrying her face into my legs or holding onto the pockets of my clothing connected to me like an additional appendage, as I cook, as I wash dishes, as I fold laundry. Wednesday morning I felt so exhausted, I wanted nothing more than to sleep in. I tried to reason my way out of getting out of bed, but when the children waking up for school depends on you, there is no good enough reason. So I slipped into the dark of Esmerelda's room to wake her up at 5:20 and found Nancy laying in her bed awake. She had hardly slept the night before and when she saw me she immediately extended her arms for me to scoop her up. She was miserable. I snuggled her up on the couch with me and put on some Rugrats and continued on to make myself some coffee and straighten up the kitchen when I heard her little voice whimper "sam!" When I went to check on her blood was streaming down from her nose. My poor little baby is so sick!
Lately I've been so exhausted that I feel like sometimes I'm just existing. So staying up until 11 playing games with friends for my birthday did not help when I had to wake up at 5 the next morning. As I sat with my very sick baby on the couch I prayed to God, "Lord I don't know how I'm going to make it through this day." I stayed with the kids as they woke up and continued caring for Nancy until 6:30 when I had to leave to pick up the children for daycare. I have begun driving the school bus to bring the kids to the daycare Wednesday mornings. I really enjoy it because I enjoy seeing where the kids come from and seeing their bright smiles early in the morning. The roads however are not so enjoyable. All of the roads are gravel and extremely bumpy. I drive as slow as necessary and still the kids are getting thrown around. When I finally got back to the mission with them it was already time for Sala so I quickly returned to my house to gather my own children to go. After talking with the doctor we decided it necessary to take Nancy to the clinic so at 9 I once again scooped up my munchkin and carried her all the way to the clinic. None of my kids had school Wednesday and so after returning from the clinic I took a couple of the girls to run errands with me gathering stuff for Magai's birthday party. I couldn't believe how quickly the morning flew and before I knew it it was lunch time. I had been promising some of the children from the disabled class that I'd come play with them soon and so after lunch I took my girls to play with them. Each of the disabled children have a specially made bike for their condition, those who do not have any use of their legs pedal with their hands, some who do not have balance have straps to hold them on. It's so wonderful so we joined them as they played on their bikes. My girls and I decided to have races with them around the mission so my girls ran and the other girls biked. I noticed my girls kept winning and so I decided to pair them up, one of my girls with one of the others. It was so cute watching my girls hang on the backs of the other girls bikes pushing them so that they could move faster or jumping aboard and going along for the ride. Everyone laughed and really enjoyed themselves. Their differences didn't matter, they just had fun. When it was time for the children from the day home to return back to their classes I took my girls to lay out in the grass with our snacks. We relaxed a few minutes and then began playing tag. When we finally returned to the house I was pooped. The rest of the afternoon consisted mostly of caring for my sick little Nancy and then I went out for dinner with my dear friend Paulette and her husband and daughter who are here visiting this week. It was a great time of fellowship with them! When 8 oclock came around I could think of nothing but sleep but two of my girls who are really struggling in math had tests to study for so I ended up staying up until 10 studying with them. Do you know how hard it is to explain math you don't really know how to do yourself, in spanish, in a way that a child understands when you're so tired you cannot even think? It's not fun and my poor Esme probably didn't learn a thing but alas I went to bed with a very content heart. It was a good day.
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