“Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles!”

            So sang Motel, the tailor, on the day he became engaged to Tzeitel, from Fiddler on the Roof.  I haven’t gotten engaged (for heaven’s sake, I’m still underage!) BUT some of the problems we were having look like they are going to be healing themselves!  Well, we still need to do some work solving them, but, things have definitely taken a turn for the better.  Last week, we were worrying about one very enthusiastic kid who managed to scare off the other children.  Well, the new child in our class (I wrote about him last week as well) LOVES it!  Those two were chasing each other around and playing with each other and not scaring each other off!  It is still a very good idea for them both to learn some boundaries and body language, but now they both have someone who is at their social level to interact with!  It’s amazing that that happened right when we needed it!  We will be monitoring their interaction, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.

            Big step in gracious professionalism on Thursday – I had stayed up ridiculously late on Wednesday night to finish some homework.  As a result, I was equally as ridiculously tired on Thursday.  I had to concentrate on every word that was spoken during the meeting to keep myself from falling asleep, but I had a commitment, and I had already missed far too many days at my internship because of my weak stomach, and I stayed.  I was uncomfortable, but I kept my commitment.

            One thing that did make me feel better on Thursday was my interaction with the twin boy.  Wendy had him in her lap and instructed me to sit a few feet in front of them and roll the ball to him.  He would grab the ball and roll it back (and in the process whacking Wendy in the face every time he lifted the ball over his head to generate the power to send it back my way!).  We continued this over and over again, and it was so uplifting to see the boy smiling and throwing a ball almost like other boys his age because of our teamwork.

At this point, I was sitting near the end of the slide in the motor room.  When Wendy took the twin boy away, I looked up to see his sister perched at the top of the slide.  She caught my gaze and slid down, then ran to me and gave me a big hug and proceeded to lead me around the room, passing balls back and forth and pushing carts around.  I suppose that at that moment, I understood how far I had come since the beginning of the year that I was able to work with this girl, and how much more I could learn.  If I were in a book or a movie, some literary analyst would say that this was a “turning point,” or at least a “defining moment” for my character, I think.  I love working with these kids more than I can ever write, and I am so grateful that I was given the opportunity to form a bond with the twin girl.

My goals now are to see what I can learn from the interactions between the two sociable boys and the twin girl, and (long term) to make a lasting difference in these children’s lives, if I can.