We have been visiting the orphanage almost every day, and sometimes in the morning and afternoon. I think we are getting to know most of the children and they are getting to know us, and our visits there are feeling a little less chaotic. A little! If I had ever thought it would be a good idea to have 15 children of my own, let alone with about a five year span between them, spending time with these children will have disabused me of that notion. I am so aware of my own inadequacy to give everyone the basic acknowledgement and affection that they require.
There are about 14 or 15 children who are usually clustered around me. In the mornings, Hibiscus and Hosta are at school, and sometimes some of the younger children are distracted or inside with the nannies. There are also about five more older babies or very young toddlers, who sometimes are out with us or nearby, but aren't so active and insistent. When I come in the gate, if the children are out several of them come running up and grab me and cry "mommy!" They are eager first of all for hugs and greetings, and then they are curious what I have brought with me. Usually I bring a few books and one activity. I try to balance bringing the novel and the familiar, and not so much that it gets overwhelming or I lose track of it. I wish I could leave some toys and books with them, but things get ruined. They love looking at the books so much, once I left a few sturdy little board books when we were coming back in the afternoon -- and already one was ripped to pieces and destroyed.
They are starting to understand my patterns. For instance, if I'm playing some game with each child in turn, their tendency is to all crowd around and push each other out of the way and demand their own turn, and as soon as they finish they are pushing and yelling for another chance. They are starting to understand that I give each child a turn before starting over, and I've started to put my hand on the head of the next several children to indicate how the "line" stands, so they know they've been heard. The older children, especially, are understanding this system, and after I acknowledge them they are more content to stand quietly to the side, knowing that they will get their turn. Some of them are also very "helpful" insofar that they will grab away the children who have already had their turn and so are not in line any more, or slap at them if they try and get close. Slapping and yelling and the occasional kick seems to be the way that the older children keep the younger ones in check, and it is constant.
Anything that I bring to play with or look at totally engages the whole group of children, in their various and lively ways. They are so eager to see anything new and figure out any challenge -- which is how things get ruined, when their own experiments turn towards the ripping and chewing side.
Sometimes when we arrive before the nap time is over, one of the nannies will go and bring out out Hibiscus and Buttercup for us (other times no one is around whatsoever, and we just have to leave). The other day I had started a game of Memory with Hibiscus and Emerson. They both understood the game and got the pairs quickly, so I got out a larger group of cards, but at that time the wind was picking up and blowing away all the cards, so we moved our game inside. The other children were just getting up, and two or three more joined our game. The rest of them were soon crowded all around, watching attentively. They actually did a very good job of watching the players and not interfering (of course, because some of the older children enforced the peace!). The funny thing was that a couple of the new players had no idea what the game was. They love taking turns -- or rather, they love getting their turn -- so they were very eager to play, but turned over cards at random, until someone slapped them for turning over too many cards. Tulip is an older boy with a gentle temperment, and he kept turning over two random cards, putting them back, and giving me an angelic smile. After that game finished, all the children wanted to play. I hoped that I could set up two games, and leave the original bunch of children -- including Emerson and Hibiscus, who understood what was going on -- in the first circle and start a new game with several more children, but this was overly optimistic of me. First of all, Hibiscus mostly wanted to be close to me and prevent anyone else from being close to me, so she prowled around between games and demanded things go her way. Emerson, on the other hand, decided to play the game in a different way, which he explained in his cheerful monologue, of course totally confusing the children who could have imitated what they had seen but had no idea what he was talking about. He was left with his one special friend, Daffodil, and pretty soon they ran off outside anyways.
Meanwhile, I was trying to make something joyful for a group of children who included rule-enforcing early elementary schoolers, as well as preschoolers who just wanted a turn to touch the lovely cards. Most of the older ones quickly picked up the idea that you were trying to turn over two cards and make a pair. What was a great deal more confusing was the idea that you went in a circle and everyone got a turn. As soon as someone saw a pair, they wanted to go immediately and pick it up. Luckily for these greedy pair-getters, half the time the interim children were the ones who had no idea about the pairs and happily turned the one or two cards closest to them over, and then back again, so the first child got the pair anyways. The most complicated rule was whether, when you get a pair, then your turn continues until you miss a pair, or whether everyone gets one chance to turn over cards, period. I had been playing with the former rule with the small group, but with the confusion over basic turns the game had turned into everyone getting one turn, period. Except for one child who had clearly observed that he ought to get as many turns as he could keep getting pairs, and firmly insisted on it. Then there was Hibiscus, who know how to play perfectly well, but had gotten grumpy about the chaos (and less attention from me) so she kept grabbing cards out of turn, trying to prevent other people from turning over cards, and wandering away when it was her turn. For a while she took an entire row of cards for her own, and brooded over them intently before putting them back. Despite all this, the game went on, and the children were having fun more often than they weren't.
Several times I have brought a set of small colored stacking cups. This morning the group of children sat around me playing with them for well over an hour. They are a very simple toy but there is quite a bit that one can do with them: I started today by handing them out when a child asked for a color, and then letting them play with their group, but demonstrating myself several different things to do. For the younger ones, it is quite a challenge just to stack the little cups into towers, and they were mostly content to stack a few until they fell over, and then re-do it. Some of the little ones held them in their hands and experimented with how they slid together and apart in their fingers. Some of the older ones started sorting them by color or lining them up other ways. Mostly, they understood that the blocks that they had were their own to play with, and were defensive about anyone else getting them but willing to hand spilled ones back to the correct child. Except for Dandelion. Most of the older children ended up with lot of blocks and the younger ones had a few, which suited the games they were trying to play very well, but Dandelion had amassed a huge pile. I'm not even sure he had figured out what to do with them, but he had the strong idea that it was better to GET them. I kept hearing squalls when he grabbed a handful from the nearest little child, or then yells from Dandelion when one of the other children tried to actually play with his blocks. On the other hand, Tulip showed the first generosity that I have seen among the children. Like the other older children, he had a large stache, and I repeatedly saw him giving a few blocks to little ones whose blocks had mysteriously vanished.
And now, it is 5 o'clock. The children will be up from their afternoon rest and we should head back up there to see what kind of joyful chaos awaits us!
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