i now know what a suppository looks like...

sonia and ely, the sisters, are wonderful girls. sonia's about 15, and ely is 19. they're always smiling and understand absolutely everything you say to them, in english or spanish. they are truly trapped in their bodies, and today i felt like i got just a tiny taste of what that's like. sonia has a stuffed animal that she's always holding, and today ivon was close to her and she took the stuffed animal from sonia. i heard sonia making noise, which she doesn't usually do, so i looked up and she was bawling. i mean just hysterically crying. one of the ladies knew right away it was because ivon took her stuffed animal, but for a minute i had no idea what to do. i had never seen sonia cry like that. once she got the animal back she was fine...but it was just so sad! this girl who i talk to as my friend had to act like a toddler to make herself heard. gahh. it was easy to make her smile again, though, which made both of us feel better.

so yesterday, i was holding jose manuel, a little baby who's about a year old. i checked his diaper and he had pooped so i told cristina, the lady in the baby room. she was feeding another baby so she had to put her down and then when she went to change jose manuel, his diaper was completely dry! apparently i was hallucinating. so whatever...i felt kind of bad. then today, i was holding him again, and this time he pooped for sure. i told cristina and she was feeding lidia, so i told her i could change his diaper. i took his diaper off and this little plastic thing was in his diaper too...and i was like what on earth is this? cristina had a cleft palate so she can be hard to understand sometimes...but i got the word suppository as i was taking a closer look at the thing in my hand, which i immediately realized was covered in poop. in the middle of all this, jose manuel peed on the changing table, and i told cristina i couldn't put the suppository back in, because, well i just couldn't. then when she went to put another diaper on him we couldn't find the suppository. i was looking for it all over...on the floor, in the closet, and as she was putting a new blanket on the changing table because jose manuel peed on it she said it didn't matter but still...it was so awkward and embarassing that it was funny. ay yi yi yi hahaha

after dinner jose, alex, tonio, and i were talking. they love pictures of any kind. when paco was at gabriel house on sunday they found out he plays in the worship band, and they asked why he didn't have any pictures. he told them i hadn't taken any because i was too busy clapping along to the music. i told them i wouldn't clap this sunday and would take pictures instead. then we made a deal out of it...jose doesn't always want to go to school, so paco made him promise that if he goes to school all week, every day, i'll take 5 pictures on sunday. we must have spent an hour talking about it today...one of the boys will sign - applause, no, guitar, picture, yes. i went along with it for about half an hour until i couldn't keep talking about the same thing...so then i pretended not to understand their signs and made up crazy stuff. i thought they might get upset but all three of them were laughing so hard they came close to falling out of their wheelchairs. so stinkin funny...their whole bodies light up when they smile. it's incredible.