Day Two (3/2)

Today was our first full day at the clinic. We had a breakfast of fried cheese and pate, which we mostly skipped, as well as cereal and eventually coffee. I had woken up for the day at one am, probably from jet-lag, so I was exhausted. We drove over to the clinic with Mihaela so we wouldn’t be late. When we got to the clinic we were welcomed with a mix of smiles and screams. Cathy and I are working in the non-mobile room, and Cindy and David are in the mobile room. There were a lot of aides at the clinic today, so there was not always a ton to do. In the non-mobile room we spent time teaching Alina to walk, talking with Lea-Celine, cleaning out runny noses, working on rolling over, and changing poopy diapers. We gave a milk bottle in the morning, then pureed fruit, then a milk bottle. Then we put the children to bed for their naps and walked back to the hotel for lunch. We were all exhausted, and frustrated that there wasn't much time to nap after lunch. I wasn't feeling well since I was so exhausted, so I ended up staying at the hotel during the afternoon. The non-mobiles enjoyed playing with Cathy on the exercise ball, and the mobiles played in the pre-school room. We are the first group to experiment with the night shift. We will be going every night to play with the kids between 7:30 and 8:30 and help put them to bed. The children have a surprising amount of energy at this time, and it was good for them to get more time out of their cribs to play. We also found out that the baby with hydrocephalus will not be getting a shunt.