Baby Therapy...HIGHLY recommended!

When experiencing a high-stress week at work or a particularly sad experience or worrisome circumstance, nothing renews and lifts your spirit like...Baby Therapy!!! Cuddling and playing with little kids is highly effective and has been shown, in my own observations, to be highly effective in controlled doses. (Of course, an overdose of this therapy can lead to high stress levels and homicidal tendancies, and has even been known to be near lethal in some). Also, they do pose a serious risk to your heart--it may be quite easily lost beginning with your first dose of therapy! Whether you prefer the quiet and cuddly, the active and curious, or the hyper-active, bouncing off the walls, easily excitable types,...orphanages are certainly an excellent source for this particular therapy! They never run out of little specialists more than willing to administer this course of treatment! Whether you simply sit on the ground and provide the one-man obstacle course or end up with a lap full of little wiggling bodies or actively sing, dance, and run after them or lay down on a bench with a little one asleep on your chest, they are delighted at your presence and couldn't be more thrilled with your choice of therapy. However, once again, too much of a good thing is just too much! And those with sensitive ear drums may need to come prepared with protection. But for the usual and unusual stresses in life, nothing refocuses or relaxes you like Baby Therapy!

I have had a healthy dose of baby therapy this week! I visited the Foundation Regarde de Amour ("Foundation of love" or something close) on Tuesday afternoon and spent all 3-1/2 hours holding babies ages 1mo-3yr. This morning (Wednesday), I was back out to the Missionaries of Charity Orphanage (one of the organizations started by Mother Theresa) for 1mo-7yr, spending about 4 hours with them. Many of these children will be or are being adopted by families in Benin, France, and Italy. Some, however, have illnesses or disabilities that prevent them from being adopted. Most of them were abandoned or abused. Charity Orphanage also has a small clinic for sick children and their mothers (if they can come) to stay in and be fed and treated.

The first orphanage was smaller and we arrived at the end of nap time, beginning of bath time--a good time, seeing as you avoid the amount of urine from soiled diapers that you might otherwise be wearing, though some still manage to find a way to oblige you! Now that naps are over and children are waking up, they are bathed and changed. It is the most adorable sight in the world to see a large plastic baby tub with 3 little round naked babies in it!!! The only thing cuter is to see 2-3 of these tubs, containing about 3 babies each, all sitting together waiting to be dried and dressed by the house mamas!!! Way too much cuteness in one place!

The second orphanage is a bit more structured. Since there are not enough aunties to comfort them when we leave, we are not allowed to carry most of them around, unless of course one of the aunties hands us one who is too sick or too young to walk yet! Instead, as soon as you sit down, your lap fills up. We sang songs and danced in a circle for awhile then broke up to play and cuddle. And some of them really have the energy, let me tell you! After that comes lunch...we helped get 17 squiggling little bottoms into 17 little plastic chairs and then helped 17 grabby little hands eat their own lunch and no one's but their own! After lunch comes potty time--17 little potty chairs lined up around a room with 17 little bottoms sitting in them!!!! Another very adorable site!!! We were able to take pictures at the first orphanage but not at the second. We have pictures of the tubs of babies but not of the line of potty chairs! As soon as I figure out what's wrong with my slideshow this time, I will add them to it!

But my Baby Therapy for today was not yet complete! There is an adorable (I know I keep on using that word but it applies!!!) little giggling screaming mimi with hair in little braids sticking out from all side of her head in the hospital ward here on board ship! She loves to give hugs (your legs, back, neck, anything she can!) and to scream/squeal with joy (about three octaves above anything you've ever heard and about 5 decibles louder)! And she was my patient! I wasn't too busy tonight so we had a lot of fun. However, at one point she did come running up, bounced onto my back and gave me a big hug just as I was about to poke an IV into a patient!!! I told her that I love her hugs but her timing needs some work!

All in all, it's been a very good week so far. I would highly recommend Baby Therapy to one and all! (Except maybe Susan T. and Beth B., ......you may be at the overdose stage by now!!! So, if I were closer right now, I would be glad to let you detox while I get my therapy!) Hope all is well with you and yours!

By the way, the little girl I mentioned in my last post that needed prayer, went home this week! Praise the Lord!