Life is in the Moments....

Life is in the moments, so I'll share 1 bitter moment, and 5 sweet.

Bitter:  A cleaning lady on one orphan's floor got really mad at me for stepping across her newly mopped still wet floor (I had to to go onto the floor) and said they didn't have any copii fara mama, even though we're pretty sure a certain boy was there... and on another boy's floor, the nurses weren't in their nursing headquarters, but we saw the orphan boy through a window into a room playing with another kid, and the boy saw us and ran out to play with us, but a lady at the very end of the hall called “Nu avem copii fara mama” (We don't have any children without mothers) and waved her hand back and forth. We just said “Multumim” (Thank you) and turned to go- there were other kids on other floors who weren't playing with other kids like this boy was, but then the boy came running out into the hall wanting to play with us, and we just had to say, “Pa! Pa! Imi pare rau”, (Goodbye, I'm sorry) because the nurses had said he didn't exist, and we just had to walk away, with him standing right in the middle of the hall, watching us go. We kept looking back, and wondering why the nurse didn't want us to see him. It was really hard to do, and really sad.

Sweet: Another day was more successful at the hospital- I feel like I did a lot of good because when we picked up the babies, we calmed them down and the only one we left crying was a small girl. I held Sumo for a good hour and changed her poor diaper- she has a really bad rash- and Hannah got the burn baby victim to smile for the first time. :) And the 3 boys upstairs all loved the playdough and coloring books. The two youngest boys kissed each other on the lips twice- it was so cute! And I had a blast coloring with the youngest one and having him be frustrated when I colored on his side of the page and telling me “Nu aici! Aici!” (Don't color there! Color here!) :) So cute. The highlight of the day was being in the room with the babies, Sumo and the burn baby, and another baby with a mom that just wasn't there at the moment, and picking up Sumo and having her be so calm and enjoying being held, and simultaneously putting a pacifier in the mouth of the other baby, and having that baby to go sleep. I felt so useful. And peaceful. I loved when Hannah started singing “Sing Sweet Nightengale” and “Baby Mine”. The spirit just filled the room and it was a little bit of heaven. Ah...

Sweet: A fetal alcohol toddler from the orphanage is really improving! Today for a good 15 minutes I held a little red tractor thing with colorful buttons just barely too high for him to teach in any way except standing, and I made him figure out how to stand up on his own, using me for support, and then hold on to the toy, and the toy alone, not leaning on anything, while standing up. Of course I am also holding the toy, because that kid is so wobbly. And he fell down a lot. But he kept wanting to get back up, over and over and over. He was so persistent and so resilient. With that kind of attitude I really think he could walk soon. 

Sweet: all the kids that used to be content to be alone sometimes look at me and cry, which I count as a success, because that means they want to be held by me, loved by me, given attention, and before I came, they didn't crave that- because they didn't know the difference between being alone and being loved.

Sweet: So a week ago, a girl we will call little princess came back from school with a green and purple clip in her hair and saw me and I said she looked so beautiful, and she immediately pulled it out of her hair and proceeded to struggle to put it in mine- taking about 7 minutes. I thought that was so... interesting, and sweet. That in a place where everything is communal, where you wear a shirt one day and the next day it's on another kid, where blankets are switched, toys are all on the same shelf, teddy bears are on the same windowsill, where the only thing unique that she has to make herself her and beautiful is her hair clips, once she knew I liked them, and she liked me, she pulled those clips right out and tried for 7 whole minutes to attach them in my hair so they would look nice. That is so selfless. The scripture about becoming as a child has taken on so much more meaning, knowing the orphans- submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

Sweet: Then today I brought the little princess her own new hairclips- she chose pink and orange, and I let her use my smelly hand-sanitizer that she loves, and use a little mirror to see what she looked like with her new clips in, and she played with a slinky. She struggled to say slinky right- and it was so cute- “Seenkee”. And she wanted to show everyone, all the workers, her new hair clips. And when I left while she was going to the table for lunch, she called me back, “Hei!” and said, “Hai pentru pop”- come here for a kiss! And she gave me a big kiss on the cheek with her hands around my neck, and then let me go home. I felt like the most special person in the world.

Real Life Injustice

You know the musical Les Miserables? About people that try and try and try to have good lives, but ultimately, they're just always miserable, because they are poor, and hungry, and starving, and it's because life was just unfair to them?

Well- that's reality. For lots of people here in Romania. In America we can rationalize suffering of others away with, "Oh, well they probably don't work hard enough" or "They could have more money if they actually saved some." And with the American Dream as a reality, sometimes, sometimes, those rationalizations can have some truth. 

But here in Romania, I'm just not so sure. Is it someone's fault if their life is just really, really, really hard?

Case in Point #1

An orphanage worker talked to me about how when Romania was overtaken by Russia, her grandfather got sent off to Siberia to the Gulash work camps for 8 years- and it really tore him apart, as well as their entire family. It's crazy that things that we learn about in our history textbooks that seem too bad to be true- actually happened, to real live people, that are still alive. 

#2

My Romanian teacher at BYU lived in Romania when communism fell in 1989, and there was no government. Her little brother looked outside to see "Fireworks", but then her mom said they were gunshots, and they had to hide in the bathtub for a few days while the streets were getting shot up outside. I only hid in a bathtub in Amarillo when there were tornados- not because the streets were getting shot up. Crazy.

#3

I finally found out what the problem is with all my kids. Most have fetal alcohol syndrome, and heart problems. It just makes me angry at the mothers. Did they know when they were high and laughing and having the time of their life at a club late one night that as a result, an innocent child would live in an orphanage because they, the mother, wouldn't be able to afford or be able to take care of their child, and that child would struggle to ever be adopted, because they'd struggle to walk, to talk, to eat, to sit up, to reach all the regular child milestones, because that child's entire body system failed to develop properly because of the alcohol. Talk about injustice. That child did nothing, and yet they suffer every day physically and emotionally- because families don't want to adopt kids that can't say "I love you." Was the mom thinking about that? And, was she punished at all? If she had hit someone with a car and given them a broken leg she would have had to pay some type of legal price I'm sure. What about it she gave multiple disabilities to her own child? Doesn't justice demand that she is punished? And yet- she's not. 

#4

At the hospital we leave diapers for the orphans, but we're not allowed to give them out. Gypsies ask, but if they really need diapers, they seem to have plenty of clothes, beautiful scarves, dangly earrings that they could sell to buy their child diapers. Or use cloth diapers. Not ideal- but there are options. But today, in a room that we visit a child in, there was another girl- she looks out age, who is a friend of the mother of a baby in the hospital and is staying there with the baby. She's been fine the past two days, but the mom hasn't come back for 3 days and she's out of diapers. She asked us for some today, and we're not allowed to through BYU, and it's a good thing Madeline told her no-, because I don't know that I would have been able to. It's crazy to think that some people really don't have the ability to provide in that way- and they can't call their family, because neither does their family. They really don't have enough. Or babies that are crying because they only get milk twice a day and the other is a meal they don't like- so they just don't eat. Even just the phenomenon that 8 children in that hospital legitimately do not have parents or caregivers. Just the state and the nurses. That's the family they have. 

#5

A lady that speaks English in the first room we visit in the hospital told us about her friend that has 6 children, but who did prostitution because she didn't have enough money to pay for her children because her husband left her, but in the process she became pregnant with another several children that were miscarried, and then the last had multiple disabilities.

Unfair lives really do exist. For real people. Why do they struggle with that, and not me? I wish there were clear answers.

The Hospital Experience

So... the hospital.

      1.It smells like a shady gas station. Smoking is allowed in all the lounges, but not in the rooms.

2. It's... cleanish. Most rooms aren't swept and haven't been in a while, but you'll always see people mopping. Yesterday I saw a cleaning lady come and do a very poor mopping job of a very unswept floor and just push around cookie crumbs and leave the floor really wet. So- I'm not sure how much good that really did.
3. The clothes. In America nurses wear clean scrubs of unassuming colors- blue, green, purple, etc. Here the nurses wear bright red scrubs- also clean, and you can see them coming from a mile away. :) Everyone else, EVERYONE ELSE is in pajamas. People look way more classy on the street than in the hospital- even the professionals. In America doctors wear scrubs with lab coats, or nice slacks with a button up shirt and tie. Here- they wear legit bathrobes- dirty bathrobes, and pajama bottoms. They are obviously pajamas because they have that random print of cats or something silly- and they're flannel. I was trying to get creative for a while and rationalize how the robes could be some sorts of lab coats- not bathrobes. I can't do it. They are way too obviously bathrobes, with stains. And- all the patients wear pajamas too- the hospital doesn't provide any gowns or anything- and people just want to be comfortable.
4. Everything is very very ghetto. The drawers in rooms are these metal things with paint seriously peeling. I was looking at the walls- and the very tops of them by the ceiling were all nice and white, but the rest look like how walls might look... in one of those outside bathrooms of a shady gas station where you have to ask for the key from the cashier- tons of paint peeling with a yellow color underneath, lots of darker marks everywhere. The beds and cribs are all made of metal that was once painted white... probably 50 years ago, and are now half white, half dark brown in patches where the paint has come off. They look the same as the little cupboards. I thought to myself, “Prisons in America are better kept up than this specialized hospital for children in the heart of Romania's second largest and most industrialized city.” The cribs really do look like cages with rusted metal bars- sometimes there is even metal netting- also with paint peeling.
5. Privacy. Non-existant. In America each patient usually gets their own room, and if not- at least a nice curtain. And the doctors and nurses aren't allowed by law to tell one patient who the patient is on the other side of the curtain without that patient's consent. In Romania, there are 3-4 beds to a room, as many as they can pack in there- and there's one bed to each patient (so, each child at this children's hospital), and at least one parent will often stay with their children during their time in the hospital- but the family doesn't get extra beds- so it is very common to have three parents with their three children in the same teeny room, and the parents are sleeping with their children in their cribs. There's not seats either, so when you first walk into a room, usually you see three parents all sitting in their cribs with their babies. Just chillin. On top of that- for all the rooms on the same side of the same wing of the hospital, instead of solid walls between all the rooms, there are big windows between them all- so you can look down and see all 10 rooms on that side of that wing with all of 3 families in each room. And- they all look at you when you walk into a room and eye the free diapers you are giving the orphans. Mothers nursing their babies don't care about modesty- and they don't use blankets or coats to try and cover up. Exposure doesn't seem to bother them. All 30 families down the wing can see them- but they seem to neither try and flaunt their breasts nor try and cover them up. It's like it's nothing. Just another body part like your hand or your nose. So crazy.
6. In America, once you're healthy enough to run around- you can go home. Here, parents with unexplained conditions for their children come in with enough clothes and food to last a week, and they end up staying for anywhere from 3 days to multiple weeks. There's no assurance that the doctor will get to them every day, so some have been mutiple days in the hospital with a kid that seems all better, but they're not quite sure because the doctor hasn't gotten to them yet. It's not uncommon to see the hallways lined with parents standing at their doors, asking why they haven't been visited yet. They just keep staying, even though it might just be an unexplained wheezy cough. Some children are severe, but many are not. It seems sometimes like a bunch of out-patients that just like staying the night. I wonder if it costs them money.
7. Records. In America- it's all computerized, and just admission into the hospital takes a good 40 minutes to get a history down. And it's probably gotten longer with Obamacare. And if you want a detailed record of your health history, you can go down to a hospital's records department and request them to pull your file out of an organized file cabinet from a shelf. In Romania, there's a Secretary's room on every floor- that makes me stressed just looking at it. There's shelves alright- with stacks and stacks and stacks of white printer paper with information written on it at one point or another, stacked horizontally and rubber banded when the stack got about 2 inches thick. Then laid horizontally, flat on a shelf, and other stacks are stacked on top of that. I couldn't see any labeling. And the entire room is shelves of these papers. I never want to be asked to find a paper in there.
8. Sanitation. In America, even if you are just delivering 3 cups of water to 3 patients 2 rooms in a row, you have to sanitize your hands when you enter every room and when you leave it- so 6 hand sanitations. Here- well- with 3 sick babies in the same room they're bound to get what the other has. And then the shared bathrooms are splattered with water from a disfunctioning shower, smell like urine, and don't have any soap at the sink. Bottle nipples are exchanged a lot- and they try to wipe it off in between kids. It's just so different.

But- at least they have a hospital. Americans are so spoiled. :) I couldn't help but be so grateful I'll be giving birth to my children... not here. But in a clean, private, hospital room. I'm really looking forward to the clean part. :) And the baby part. More on that in a few years.....

Guide us with Your Grace...

My Dad shared this song with me, and I love it. When you watch it, pretend like it's you singing, and you are talking to God. It makes it so much better.

Joy and Mental Walls

My roommate Carley and I had a really good conversation today. It came about because I found an old blog from a girl that came to Romania previously and loved it.  And- all of her posts were about these deep spiritual insights she was receiving about her kids lives and how much Christ loves them, but also about how hard it is for her emotionally to keep doing the work. It sounds like she had several emotional breakdowns.

At first, I thought, “Hey- how come I'm not having these deep spiritual insights about how much Christ loves these children and how much they deserve to be in families? Maybe I need to start searching a little bit deeper into the meaning of life and such during my work.” But then, I realized, “Well- I haven't had any emotional breakdowns either. I like going to work, and I like coming home. And when I come home to the apartment, I really come home. I leave it all at the orphanage and come home to delicious meals of Romanian bread and cheese and adventuring in a town where we don't speak the langauge. It's awesome."

So- which is right? And, which is better?

Well, here's the thing- if I let myself, I could come home every day and keep thinking about the kids. It's human nature to not be okay with their situation. Carley said, “There were kids we saw in the hospital today that had bruises covering their bodies. There's a lot of reasons for that- but not very many are reasons that are okay with me. It is likely abuse- not okay. It could be negligence- not okay. It could be an honest mistake- but if you got in a car crash because you were drunk- that's not okay either. And I could dwell on that. I could come home and cry and cry. I could sit in the hospital room and cry and cry. I could hold the orphans and cry and cry and cry. But what good would that do?

“Anyone can pity an orphan. I'm pretty sure everyone in the world does.” Just watch Annie and see if you don't get a little emotional when she sings, Won't you please come get your baby, maybe.... Everyone pities orphans. I know I do. That's why I came to Romania.

But Carley continued- “But not everyone does something about it. Not everyone leaves their home, their life plans with college and school and work, their families, their comforts, their favorite jar of late night Jif peanut butter, to come to a dumpy apartment with a showerhead that doesn't attach and lightbulbs all burnt out and sketchy elevators to actually bring some light into these kids' lives.”

And- if I set all that aside, not to mention paid quite a bit of money to BYU to do it- what good am I to go in to an orphan and cry on their bed? Orphans already have sorrow- but they're surviving. Orphans are tough. Somehow- they still laugh and smile, because they have learned to live with pain, and it no longer bothers them. Mental and emotional and physical. They don't cry when they are man-handled because they're rarely cuddled and gently stroked. They don't cry when someone they have attached to leaves them, because that's all they've ever known. They don't miss people, because they've never known anyone long enough or grown close enough to miss. Pain is their life. And they're good at it. So- they don't need a foreign girl that doesn't speak their language to come to their hospital bed and cry. Why re-introduce sorrow when there's nothing you can do about it?

What can we do? What can I do? Why did I come here? To bring joy. JOY. Joy. Happiness. And light. And sitting on a bed crying isn't joyful at all. Not for the orphans. Not for me.

I'll tell you what joy is.

Joy is smiling and being so excited to see the kids and seeing their faces light up when they see you, smiling their biggest smiles, and their little legs come running up into your arms, and you wonder if that is the first time they have ever run, because they just learned how to walk last week.

Joy is being a “calul”- a horse, and making trotting noises and neighing and whinnying in a room with other adults, and not caring what they think, and having two kids on your back at the same time riding you and your arms and hands getting sore.

Joy is dancing to Stevie Wonder's “I just called to say I love you” (more than half of music on the radio is from America) with a kid in your arms, and 2 other kids hanging onto your scrub bottoms, waiting in line for their turn to be danced with, and having to switch which kid you are holding every 15 seconds because they all want multiple turns.

Joy is hovering over three kids- a crying baby, a handicapped older kid, and an attention-thirtsy toddler, and getting them all to lay on the ground at the same time so you can make funny faces at them and switch where your eyes rest constantly so you can be looking at all of them, and then tickling all of them, and hearing all three of them laugh at the same time. It's like music.

Joy is when a kid that usually runs back and forth aimlessly and can't ever focus on anything- focuses on you, because you imitate the funny buzzing noises they make, and they get a taste of human-to-human communication.

Joy is bouncing kids on giant rubber balls, with 4 of them all in line, ready for their turn and squealing in pure ecstasy when they finally get their turn.

Joy is taking kids content to sit, blank faced and alone all day every day, and giving them attention, and discovering they own a smile, and a laugh.

Joy is standing by a window with a kid on your hip, and letting him touch the window- feel how cold it is, and point to cars, real cars, bigger than the ones he zooms around on the floor, and see birds fly, and snow, and big, beautiful trees, and bright sunshine, and seeing their faces completely mesmerized by the beauty of it all.

Joy is not crying by a bedside. That's called sorrow.

Joy is hard. Sometimes. But usually it's easy. Sorrow is hard. It wears you down. Joy builds you up.

Joy comes with a price. You have to build mental walls. Some things, you just can't do.

When you are all alone with a kid in a room, hugging him, and he is smiling a smile you didn't know he had, and he loves it, and he is nestling his nose close to yours, you can't sing I am a Child of God. You just can't. Or else the tears come. Sometimes you just have to sing Adelle instead. Or not sing at all. And that's okay.

When foster parents come to look for your kids, or social workers start going into the social histories of the children's families and why they were placed in the orphanage, you have to shut your mind off and for once, try not to translate everything in Romanian, and convince yourself that those unfortunate circumstances did not exist. All that exists is here and now- and we are coloring pictures of cars with yellow and red crayons.

You have to, unfortunately, desensitize yourself to pain. When in Romania, do as the Romanians. And- as the orphans. Don't cringe when the nurses slam kids on the bed or hit their head with the top of their pen when the kids are naughty. Don't cringe or think bad thoughts about the workers. The workers are good people. Extremely good people. They are all taking pay cuts and refusing other jobs to work here with the kids, because they love the kids. You see tenderness from them all the time- tenderness, and patience, and love. It just might not be in the way you are used to seeing love expressed. So- force yourself to think that being rough isn't wrong. You can change your mind when you get back to America.

When you hear sobs coming from the bathroom where a 2-year old has been sitting on their potty chair for an hour waiting for poop or pee to come out, and they can't leave until they do, just sing a little louder to the kid you're with, and white noise it out. It is not your place to interrupt the very well-tried system of these workers who have worked here 17 years, and honestly, know more than you do. WAY more than you do. Don't let your ignorance get the best of you. And don't try to change their ways until you can successfully spoon-feed kids as quickly and cleanly and happily as they do. And if you still disagree, hey- at least someone is potty training those kids.

When nurses come to put feeding tubes up the noses of children who can eat with a spoon when someone sits down and spends a good 30 minutes working through a meal with them, you just have to turn your back and look away. The staff is not heartless. There just isn't enough of them- and they don't have time to give each child all the attention they deserve. But the children need to be fed. And so, tube feeding is okay.

When you go home, you have to leave it all at work, forget that your kids are still there at the orphanage without you, and have fun. Try new recipes. Eat all the chocolate and donor kebabs and gogosi that you can. Look at silly you-tube videos. Explore the city. Play card games. Order pizza and watch Daddy Day care. Go shopping for beautiful Romanian scarves. Joy people, joy.

So- I'm okay not having big spiritual insights. I just want to be happy. And I want my kids to be happy. And we're pretty good at doing that.

And so we continue...

Loving These Kids

Highlights from my Romanian journal:

Today D walked 21 steps! Last Friday they walked 3, so today we got them out of their walker and I would scoot away and say “Hai!”(come here!) and they'd stand up and totter over. They got to 8 steps, then 16, and then I really wanted to get them to 20, and we got to 21! I was so proud of them. 

Now D just likes to stay up and cruise around. They can be stable for forever, 25+ steps, and they're good at staying balanced because other kids bump into them all the time when they don't watch where they're going, and D's good at stabilizing themself. Mostly they likes to walk about 1 foot away from me, and then turn around and come back and fall into me so I'll catch them. D loves when I catch them and say “Bravo D!” and wrap them in my arms. That's when D smiles the sweetest little smile- they are so happy and proud of themself.

FHE: With some older guys in the ward, and the missionaries, and us. I got really into pictionary, and I got the older guys laughing. After I tried to illustrate “ambition” by drawing a guy trying to jump over a cliff and then falling down, Brother L straight up told me, “I could not tell what you were drawing. You need to be more clear. You should have made the arrow over the cliffs longer. You are not a good drawer. I could not understand you.” I said I was sorry, and then just laughed. He wasn't laughing. He was serious. I kept laughing in my heart. I love the Romanian bluntness. It's the best.

The kindergarten is going good. I like doing it, which is good, because I'm signed up to be a teacher. Discipline is the hardest part, especially when the kids are so wild. Luckily the other teachers help us with that. The kids love to sing songs- 5 Little Monkeys, Wheels on the Bus, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, and the Itsy Bitsy Spider. They also love the Little People barn with the farm animals. That will be our Friday treat. I will keep doing the kindergarten the next week and the week after that. And of course, the best part is getting big hot pretzels on our way home for 60 bani (18 cents). Oh man- those things are so good.

Dinner tonight was good too- smoked cheese with rice and broccoli and carrots and chicken and a German Chocolate bar with creamy coconut centers for dessert. We eat like kings over here. We go through bread and chocolate and juice like no other. And it's all so cheap! A nice big loaf of bread is the equivalent of 30 cents in the US. We went shopping last Saturday, and we'll have to go again tomorrow (Thursday) for another 3 loaves and 3 bars and 3 juice cartons. Yeah baby. My favorite is the cherry juice, the bread that has chocolate in it and tastes like licorice, and the kinder chocolate. I could probably die on that stuff.

Today was another wonderful, but very very very cold day. As soon as we went outside my nose hairs froze and my boogers froze and my chin started hurting. Luckily the sun was shining, I guess. :)

My kids are doing wonderfully! A is standing up well and holding onto that little play counter by the bookshelf full of toys now, but only if I am sitting on the same counter. I don't even have to be holding them or even that close- as long as I am within 2 feet, and in their peripheral vision, and they feel like they have their safety net where they are free to explore and use their feet- as if they feel like I am watching over them or something. I can even be preoccupied doing something else or playing with another kid on my lap, but if I stand up and leave from sitting on that counter, ther feet crumple and they start whining. Kids need to feel safe before they will adventure. Otherwise they will be inhibited. Textbook from human development. Makes me feel special in A's life.

 

Today in the middle of the day, all of a sudden a group of 12 prospective foster parents came into the room to try out all the children- talking to them, playing with them. I told the parents their different names so they could call the kids by name. It was a very emotional experience for me. Because 1) I love these kids, and I know these kids need families. But 2) I want these kids to be in my family. A selfish part of me came out- why do these parents get to be the lucky ones to take these kids home? I would take 2 specific ones of them home in a heartbeat. I love them so much. With all those parents in the room, with all the kids, I felt outnumbered, and kind of just stood back and watched it all. I even got a little teary, but I put on a smile and held back the tears. I want these kids to have a mom and a dad- but I want them to have a good one- not smokers or someone who isn't going to have time for them. If so- let the kids stay here and play with me! Or- maybe they can have foster parents, as long as they come back to the orphanage from 8-12 Monday through Friday so I can still love them too. :) It was a very emotional experience. Fortunately, or unfortunately, there were so many loud parents all talking simultaneously and asking questions that the kids all got really inhibited and scared- they didn't smile, they didn't talk. They all pulled into their bubble. I wanted the kids to smile so the parents would know what happy and content kids they are, but I also didn't want them to be too attractive that the parents would take them away too quickly. :) Even M wouldn't say anything.  For a minute, I thought, “This isn't fair- why do they get to be foster parents and I don't get to?” Probably because they have jobs and can take care of foster kids, and I'm a freshman in college, and the have like 15 years on me. How I wish I could take some of those kids home with me- or at least to Marlene or Sunny or someone who would really love them and take good care of them- not a smokey family who is considering foster care because the state will pay them to do it, and they need another income.

Another high for the day was snuggling with D. I got them out of their play pen and snuggled with them on the mattress on the ground. They loved it. They were laying on their belly and I laid over them on the ground and held their hands so they didn't do weird things with their hands like bending their fingers back so far or biting theirself (they do stuff like that because that's the only cause and effect they has any control over in life- so they does things to their body that they can feel- even if they don't feel good. At least they never draw blood when they bite theirself.) And I put D's face right up against mine, talked to them. They smiled and liked it, and when I moved, they moved towards me again and put their nose up against mine. Oh- how I love that kid.

On the way home from kindergarten, we tried our first Gogosi. It will not be out last! We're in the habit of getting pretzels- but I think it might be the gogosi across the street now. It tastes like a scone- with powdered sugar all over it. Like a dream. And it's huge- for only one leu, or 28 US cents. Divinity baby. 

I love my kids. I miss them on the weekends. I love Bradley. I love my Lord.

Reasons to Laugh

In life, there are two types of moments worth living for: heart-touching moments that want to make you cry, and moments when you laugh so hard, you cry, and you almost pee your pants.

The following are the latter.

1. On the airplane to Bucharest talking to Catalin, the Romanian guy. 

Catalin: (finishes talking about his work, his family, his life) "So what about you? What are you?" (Grab my hand) "Besides white?"

2. At the kindergarten reviewing animals in English and discussing whether or not the kids had seen certain animals.

Hannah: Has anyone here seen a dog?

Kids: (most raise their hand)

Hannah: Has anyone seen a hamster?

Kids: (two raise their hand)

Hannah: Has anyone seen a tiger?

Kids: (no one raises their hand) No! You no see a tiger!

Hannah: I did! I did see a tiger- at the zoo! Has anyone here been to the zoo?

Kids: (obviously not knowing what a zoo was) No!

Hannah: I did! I saw a orange tiger, and a white tiger!

Kid: No. Tigers are only orange.

3. Carley talking to orphanage worker about how we have to be home by 8 at night.

Worker: What? You're adults? Are you going to Catholic school?

Carley: Pretty much. It's called BYU.

4. Chloe bought this neon pink tulle at a thrift store.

5. We went out to eat some traditional Romanian ciorba (soup) and we all ordered mystery soup pretty much, because it was in a different language. Mine was good with chicken and veggies. Carley's tasted like warm sour cream with tasteless grey floaties that had the consistency of way overdone shrimp. We all leerily tried a little, but Carley was afraid to keep going, so we left the bowl mostly full and went home and googled it. Google translate goes directly to "belly soup" and the restaurant menu went to "tripe soup"- from the stomach linings in a sheep or cow. We kept laughing. Classic language barrier.

6. Sunday dinner. Madeline and I were frying delicious bread for bruchetta with fancy olives, and I had a little too much fun bringing out the warm bread, so we played up the waitressing role with a napkin on the head. :)

7. Elevator. Because squishing 5 girls in a 2.5 by 3 foot sketchy Romanian elevator with doors that open inwards and you have to hold shut so the elevator doesn't get stuck was the funniest thing that happened all day.

8. Kinder surprises. Chocolate so smooth you die, with little toys inside. Enough to make college girls excited about plastic robots. :)

 9. Scented toilet paper. That's right. Our butts smell like peaches.

10. Mentioning you are interested in Romanian dancing, and having a Relief Society sister stand up and teach you right then and there on the spot by singing the traditional music herself. :)

11. Delicious options in the meat section.

Turkey Kidneys: 

 Turkey... make a guess:

 And turkey hearts:

It's a good time. :)