Day 50

Petro was really happy today and kept breaking into random occasional giggles even when she was by herself.

Second day in a row that I have not been able to take A.U to the computer lab.. I think that he has a schedule change cause he is never back from school in time

Maria was working again as was the other angry worker. The two workers that I really like are Gabby and Lumi. They are both very good with the kids. Maria and Mihaela have tempers with the kids and do not work as much with their individual needs. They yell a lot, stomp feet a lot, and have really hard shells. The only time Maria and Mihaela talk to me is when they are reprimanding me. They watch me a lot too when I play with the kids which can be a little intimidating. Mihaela today though had a jar with this homemade spread. It was like a cooked pasta sauce almost.. tomatoes, vegetables, ground meat. They put it on bread and ate it.. she offered some to me and it was really tasty!

Maria was laughing a lot more today than yesterday.. still firm but would giggle here and there. The workers today were really ahhh frustrating but the kids were good so I am able to handle the stress from the workers.

At 'masa' or snacktime, they had this thing that looked like a sausage except it was light brown with a dark brown filling. It looked like it had a soft but solid consistency and I had no idea what it was. The kids seemed to love it though so I figured it could not be all that bad. Mihaela offered me some so I tentatively broke one piece in half and took a hesitant bite. It was absolutely delicious. It tasted like refrigerated cookie dough on the outside and brownie batter on the inside. I later asked Mario what it was and she said it was called salam de biscuiti cu ciocolata.. basically like chocolate cookie sausage.

Here is a link to some pictures and a recipe:

http://dobrinisabela.blogspot.com/2010/07/salam-de-biscuiti-si-ciocolata.html

High of the day: Darius can walk now!! Still a bit weak but he will walk on his own now. Today was the first day that he has walked around the room on his own! I was absolutely shocked and ecstatic. This is probably the biggest success I have seen so far and it is so encouraging! There are two more kids who are on the turning point that I really want to practice and work with so that they to can get to where Darius is.

I learned out to say clap from one of the workers today, să bată. I was teaching the kids to clap so that I could teach them pat-a-cake. Did not go over so well haha they just wanted to watch me clap. They thought my holding their hands and making them clap was hilarious so that is as far as we got but that was a little success in and of itself.

There is a girl from Kala's room, Missy, who has down syndrome and she is the cutest little girl. She can be a bit aggressive with the other kids but she is so fun to have around. She was in my room a lot of the day today and it was cool to see the creativity and interaction that she brought. My kids do not interact or play pretend much.. they mainly do their own thing. Today for example, Jello was sitting in a chair and Missy came up behind him with a big plastic spoon. She started to pretend to brush his hair with it and babbling little directions and commands to him when he would wiggle. She carried on for a good few minutes and he started to lose his patience. He tried to get down and she got feisty with him, hit his head with the spoon and he quickly sat back up. On his second attempt though, she grabbed him to put him back up and he clamped down on her arm. He has recently started biting which is really frustrating. Just this week I have been bitten twice by him already.