Oh the Brain is Swimming

We are down to 2 sleeps until Daddy gets back, and we’re excited. Today Olivia saw the picture of Chris and I on my desktop and said, “Daddy!” We then went around the house and she showed me all the places where she saw Daddy (pictures). It was really cute. I need to take a picture of her talking to him on the phone because she gets the best look on her face. It’s very concentrated and attentive.

One of the things that’s been hard for me this week is seeing how much Olivia is changing and feeling like Chris has missed it. I know he hasn’t because she’ll do all the things she’s doing with me after he gets back, but I feel like he’s missed a ton of fun this week. She’s figured out how to climb onto her chair and strap herself into her booster seat. She’s using a ton more words and it’s fun to see her connect things, like when she says “outside” and points to the window because she can see outside. By far my favorite is a new game that’s developed between the two of us this week. They say kids will be like a mirror, and one thing that I’m happy to see her reflecting back is “I love you”. She hears us say it all the time to her and to each other, so it was actually her first multi-word sentence. This week we’ve had a lot of fun with her saying “I yuv yew!” and me yelling “I love you too!” back from wherever I hear it from. We got back and forth like this, and the volume escalates until we’re both yelling “I LOVE YOU!” It’s also absolutely fabulous to have Olivia say “I yuv yew” and run and give me a hug. *Melt*

Yesterday we went up to Canaan for the day so I could help out with their Medika Manba program. This is going to be my new Tuesday. There’s a medical team in up at Canaan now so yesterday there were about 110 patients seen, on top of the 55 families we saw in the MM program. It was crazy, but the kind of crazy that leaves you exhausted and feeling like you may have just done something worthwhile with some great people that day. I worked the entire day without a translator which was a nice boost for my ego. My favorite part of the day was seeing the mothers that had kids who had gained well. It was great to be able to encourage them and tell them they were doing a great job and to see their faces light up. Seriously fabulous. It was equally hard to see those parents that still just don’t get it. There are so many issues around death here and the general acceptance that it’s a part of life on a regular basis that it can be so hard to have parents truly understand that they can stop it. Education is such a major issue here. Such a major issue. There were two mothers that I saw yesterday who were still breast feeding their kids and the kids were 10 & 12 months. I loved that I was able to tell them they had made a great choice and to encourage them to continue as long as the kids were interested. There are so many myths and superstitions here around things like that – again where education is a key thing.

I know I mentioned that Bobi and I have some ideas to get our two organizations working together to help people get healthy on a broader scale. Yesterday after spending the day at the clinic I came home and couldn’t sleep because my brain was swimming. I’m just really excited about the ideas that we have because they’re all so simple and so doable. It’ll be fun to share as things develop.

Now, now I need to sleep. I didn’t get much shut eye last night for various reasons and I feel it hitting me now. I’m going to give in and hopefully enjoy a good nights rest.

~leslie