I´m a Baby Hugger

A friend of a friend is doing something very similar to myself, but in Africa. She told me the people in the village call the volunteers at the orphanage "baby huggers". I laughed when I heard this, but this simple term is exactly what we are - constant huggers of the babies.

All the volunteers seem to share this constant urge to to pick the kids up, hug them, and carry them around. The volunteers working at the next door school are most likely each of the teachers´ worst nightmare and I most definitely am volunteer, Ruth´s.

Ruth is a cultured woman in her late 60´s. She was a foreign something-or-other which allowed her to spend nearly 20 years in Latin America, working and perfecting her Spanish. She returned to her hometown of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania maybe 15 years ago, retired, but has begun doing some volunteer work down in South America over the last year. Ruth entered the daycare room and on day one had the kids standing at attention. This lady means business and she has the Philly accent to back it up. I think she even had me standing a little straighter.

Ruth has been incredibly helpful as she can speak Spanish and explain the different activities to the kids so that we minimize chaos. However, I am pretty sure 'structure' is her middle name and we see a more frazzled Ruth when rules and sequence are not followed.

I must admit, I have seen some behaviors that I would love to try and correct, but without the right words, I end up resulting to the word 'no', but we are back to the same behavior 10 minutes later. For example, Tank seems to be a bit of a bully. I think he gets frustrated that he isn't as agile as the others and resorts to kiddie battery. Rosita isn't much of a sharer, usually with the bread in her hand that is larger than her entire head. Carmen wanders off and thinks it is fun to see how many times you will come running after her, dragging her back to the group.

I kid you not, minutes into play time outside, Tank found himself in the corner, most likely for konking someone on the head for beating him to the swing. Oh, and Ruth doesn't know I took this picture. Let's hope she doesn't find the blog.


You can imagine what happened next. Ruth walks away,Tank, of course, began to cry. I make it about 10 seconds before my baby hugger instinct gets the best of me. I am pretty sure the Super Nanny would not recommend this to be the most effective form of discipline. Oh well. I swoop him up and try and hide behind the swingset. No such luck, spotted by Ruth. I am now her student and she explains to me what a time-out is and that Tank is not allowed to come out until he apologizes for hitting Rosita.

I have since unravelled Ruth's efforts to discipline and correct the behaviors of the little kids... probably many times. I can't help it. I am on my final week at the orphanage (which I am sad to admit) so I am going to embrace what I am - a baby hugger. Don't be surprised if you find me crouched behind a tree when doing it though.

We have had a lot of fun over the past couple weeks. More painting (this time finger painting), Play-Doh (I had to get over my anal ways when the entire color palette was mixed into one and we now have brown Play-Doh), bubbles, Ring Around the Rosie, and of course swinging.

Here are some more of my favorite pictures from the week.

Rosita after finger painting. I am pretty sure she laid down on her paper.

Rosita couldn't quite get the hang of bubble blowing.

Tank made it about 2 seconds with his bubbles before pouring them onto the ground.



They LOVE the tire swing...

... so much so, they won't get out even when falling asleep.


Thinking of you all back at home and missing you still.

Love,

The Baby Hugger