*Whew* Week ONE is DONE 

See that poetry right there? 

Hey all!

So, like I said, I have finished week one of being here, doing physical therapy with the kids, eating my body weight in fruit, learning to love instant coffee, trying to understand Spanish, cuddling kids, and getting strange tan lines. It's been awesome so far! That said, I'm really glad it's Friday so I can be lazy for a little bit tomorrow. AAAAND, since I don't work on the weekends, all the time I spend at the house is strictly play-time. I asked Marcos if he knew what day tomorrow was, and  he responded with "You play?" HA. Never calling it Saturday again!

I'll give you guys a quick run-down on what a typical day looks like in case you're bored and need something to read.

7:00 my alarm goes off. I get up, walk to the other side of the apartment, hit the snooze button, and return to bed, after turning my light on to the dimmest setting. Nine minutes of glorious sleep later, the alarm goes off again. I get up, hit the snooze, turn my light up a little higher, then hit the sack once more. At 7:45 my light is all the way on and I'm up for reals. (Mom, I can hear you disowning me from here). What can I say? Some things don't change. At 8 I'm up at the house putting braces and shoes on the kids and drinking the Mexican favorite: Instant coffee. And they call people who are burned at the stake martyrs! 9-12ish I do therapy with some of the kids. This usually involves some kid in a walker with me 3 feet in front of them wheedling them forward. Other times it's me sitting on the floor listening to music and helping Javier roll himself over. For lunch, I come home, make myself some form of food, and hole myself up in my lair for an hour. 1-3 pm is quiet; most of the kids are down for naps. We drink more coffee, practice walking with Luis, and wait for the zoo to wake back up. At 4 Joanna and I talk a couple of kids for a walk (one of my favorite times of the day!) as part of their therapy. It's pretty much the best job ever. Then at 5 I'm done playing PT, so I help feed a couple kids, then I head back to the apartment to feed myself. The evening consists of video chatting with people back home, writing blog posts (Sometimes), stalking people on facebook, taking cold showers, reading La Biblia and praying with the boys (I call it "Spiritual Chaos"), eating goldfish crackers, and watching House, M.D. I've probably seen enough of that show to become a doctor haha. I go to bed before 12 almost every night! (I'll give you all a few minutes to pick your jaws up off the floor). Rinse and repeat.

So that's that! Oh, and I finally took some pictures so here you go: Remember when I told you about Uziel, the cutest baby ever? This is him. I rest my case.

Good news...and bad news

The good news: I have earned the trust and love of our newest kid, a little 8 year old named Luis.

The bad news: I can't go about my job without him following me around and spurting out questions in rapid, mumbled Spanish.

The good news: Jaime has learned my name. 

The bad news: During our entire devotional time this afternoon; "Maddie!"..."Maddie!"

The good news: I love it down here.

The bad news: I don't think I'll be able to leave.

My sustenance 

We've got one kid, Raul (AKA Gabriel. As in, namesake of the Gabriel House. Their first kid, I believe), who is severely autistic with some other health and mental problems. This morning I realized I had never seen him smile. It made me sad, and confused, and I told God I didn't get it. I didn't know if he even COULD smile.
But God decided to show me a little something. While walking with him this afternoon, not only did I see him SMILE, but I saw him LAUGH.

Sustained by the little-big things.

Day 3-5

                I've spent the past couple of days taking kids to the beach, getting a crash-course in physical therapy, and failing epically at Spanish. Allow me to expand a little more:

Beach time:

Monday we took the boys (Jose, Alex, Antonio, Teddy, Sergio, Marcos, and Jaime [more on ALL of them later]) to the beach for the afternoon. It was a blast, but exhausting. My charge was Jaime, so I spent most of the trip sprinting around the beach pushing him in his heavy-duty (And I mean heavy. My arms still hurt.) wheelchair or sitting with him in the sand as he threw seaweed at me and laughed. The boys had a secret contest to see who could get the most sandy, and they all won, so they all got showers after we hauled them back to the beach house. We also tried to get the sand off and out of the wheelchairs, with limited success. To complete the day, we grilled hamburgers and roasted marshmallows in the fireplace. Happy kids? Check. Tuesday we took the "higher maintenance" kids to the beach. It was super windy and a little too cold, so we only stayed for an hour, but that was still plenty of time for Ezme to get sand in her mouth and eyes. But on the plus side, we gave only two showers and cleaned two wheelchairs, so it was a little bit of an easier clean-up.

Fun fact about the beach: There are hot springs ON the beach, so if you go during low tide, you can just dig yourself your own personal hot-tub! Guess what I'll be doing in my free time ...

Physical Therapy:

Sooo ... I told most of you know that I'd just be down here helping wherever help was needed, and that's still somewhat true. Only it turns out that they need help in the physical therapy department, so that's actually what I'll be doing. Too bad I have no idea what I'm doing, but, you know, I'm sure it'll be fine. Actually, I've been working with 3 physical therapists that are here for the week, and I'll do a little more training as the weeks progress. I'm responsible for 10 kids, and I'm super excited to help them. Some of the therapy involves just me sitting on the floor playing games with Oziel or cuddling Luis. So I'm set for life.

Spanish:

We have a team from Cabo San Lucas here with us for the week, so I'm surrounded by Spanish speakers. I understand less than I thought I would but more than a few days ago, so I guess you could say I am making SOME progress. I also learned all the important words and phrases needed to work at the Gabriel House. Things like "What are you doing?" and "What do you want?" and "Why are you so cute?" That last one is really important. On my arm I have a list of useful words I just learned today: horario (schedule), tragar (swallow) te dueles? (Do you hurt?), and ayuda (help). So we're getting there, slowly but surely. At least the kids understand what I'm saying most of the time as I stumble around in a poorly-spoken mix of the languages. The current house supervisor has an 8-year old daughter named Lupita. Living proof that language is not a barrier for children. From the first say she 's been running up and giving me giant hugs and walking around holding my hand.

Peace.

Day 2 (For lack of a better title):

So I'm finally at the Gabriel House! Back with my kids! And I've already been to the taco stand for dinner, so really, life is pretty good right now! I'm in a constant state of happy exhaustion, but I can't complain considering I can sit down and hold an kid every now and then. The kids are just as I remembered them: wonderful. I told the boys that I'll be living there for 7 weeks (seven weeks) and Antonio (more on him later) spent the rest of the day coming up and holding up 7 fingers with a smile on his face, so I guess could you say I'm not the only one who's excited about this. 

We have a new kid (Oziel, pronounced "oo-see-el"), a little boy about 2 years old with Down syndrome. He's probably the cutest baby I've ever seen. I spend most of my free time sneaking him out of his crib so he can speed-crawl around the courtyard. It's wonderful J

We're here with a wheel-chair specialist named Dana, so he's been teaching some of the boys and I how to fix wheelchairs and adjust them to fit each kid's specific needs. Not a skill I had been expecting to learn, but hey, the more I learn, the better ... right? Right.

Until next time ... 

Day 1.

First off, I think you should all applaud me for writing a blog post on my very first day already! However, don't expect there to be a 'Day 2', 'Day 3', and so on and so forth for the rest of my time here. Ain't nobody got time for that! I arrived in San Diego around 8:30 this morning, after a 2 hour plane flight that I slept through. It's amazing how many comfortable positions you can find when you're running on two days of almost no sleep! My only regret is that I fell asleep before the flight attendants handed out mini-pretzels. Plane flights just aren't the same without mini-pretzels. 

Along those lines, a big shout-out and thanks to the 5 people who woke up at 4 this morning to see me off! You're the best.

Anyways, today Jan and I ran errands and planned some Easter crafts for the kids and hung around the office of Mexican Medical. Tomorrow we'll meet up with a group of 35 (Yes, THIRTY-FIVE) and head down to Mexico!

That's all, folks!

Except for this picture, that is. Just a boar head. All dressed up for Easter. In the bathroom. No big deal.

Before I leave, in the midst of the stress, the fear, the sadness, the excitement, God wanted to show me this:

"Behold,

God is my SALVATION;

I will TRUST, and will not be afraid;

for the Lord God is my STRENGTH

and my SONG, and HE has become my

SALVATION."

~Isaiah 12:2 (ESV)