Ugandan Trip Journal, May 8, 2013
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
The day felt like perhaps one of the longest since our arrival here. After breakfast, Scott and Mike saw Rashid outside, and went out to talk with him. He took them on a walk around the property. And then Mike came back to tell us that they were going to Kampala together. I was disappointed that Scott didn't come to talk to me about it, but I sent a water bottle and Trio bar for Mike to take to Scott as they headed to town.
W-- and Bridget played with play dough for a while, before W-- started getting nasty with her about not wanting to share his play knife. That should have been my first indication that a nap was necessary. By the time I got him into a nap a little later, he was screaming and fighting it. He did, finally, get some much needed sleep -- after many tears -- and woke up in time for lunch. After lunch, I was the tired one, and wondered just how I was going to keep the little guy entertained until Scott returned.
We watched an episode of "Jack's Big Music Show." We "read" books. But W-- doesn't quite get the reading a book concept. It's mostly flipping through them upside-down at this point. He made a game of bringing me the books, taking them away, organizing them in a stack... Anything to use up the time. :)
And then I pressed my luck to see if I could get him to take a second nap. By the grace of God, he did (as did I!), and he was awake in time to Skype Adrianna and Abel before Adrianna headed out to school.
After that, I again wondered what to do to occupy W--. These Ugandan children are quite brilliant at being content with very little entertainment, which is an enormous blessing. The things we have to play with are only the things we brought with us. So some days, it feels like we have gone through all of our toys within a few hours, and we three moms are left wondering what is next.
Thankfully, the three of us moms and our three kids went out onto the front patio, where the children played ball with each other (sending the moms fetching all the fly balls that went over the edge of the patio far down the hill) for the next couple of hours. By 6:30, the men came home, after having spent the day running errands around Kampala with Rashid. They explained that, because of traffic, it took them two hours to get back to the guest house from the city. Boy, were we glad to see them! And Lisa and I declared that whatever we were doing the next day, we wanted to go, too.
The day felt like perhaps one of the longest since our arrival here. After breakfast, Scott and Mike saw Rashid outside, and went out to talk with him. He took them on a walk around the property. And then Mike came back to tell us that they were going to Kampala together. I was disappointed that Scott didn't come to talk to me about it, but I sent a water bottle and Trio bar for Mike to take to Scott as they headed to town.
W-- and Bridget played with play dough for a while, before W-- started getting nasty with her about not wanting to share his play knife. That should have been my first indication that a nap was necessary. By the time I got him into a nap a little later, he was screaming and fighting it. He did, finally, get some much needed sleep -- after many tears -- and woke up in time for lunch. After lunch, I was the tired one, and wondered just how I was going to keep the little guy entertained until Scott returned.
We watched an episode of "Jack's Big Music Show." We "read" books. But W-- doesn't quite get the reading a book concept. It's mostly flipping through them upside-down at this point. He made a game of bringing me the books, taking them away, organizing them in a stack... Anything to use up the time. :)
And then I pressed my luck to see if I could get him to take a second nap. By the grace of God, he did (as did I!), and he was awake in time to Skype Adrianna and Abel before Adrianna headed out to school.
After that, I again wondered what to do to occupy W--. These Ugandan children are quite brilliant at being content with very little entertainment, which is an enormous blessing. The things we have to play with are only the things we brought with us. So some days, it feels like we have gone through all of our toys within a few hours, and we three moms are left wondering what is next.
Thankfully, the three of us moms and our three kids went out onto the front patio, where the children played ball with each other (sending the moms fetching all the fly balls that went over the edge of the patio far down the hill) for the next couple of hours. By 6:30, the men came home, after having spent the day running errands around Kampala with Rashid. They explained that, because of traffic, it took them two hours to get back to the guest house from the city. Boy, were we glad to see them! And Lisa and I declared that whatever we were doing the next day, we wanted to go, too.
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