5:45am: My alarm goes off. I quickly hit snooze because it’s way to early for anyone to be awake.
5:54am: My alarm goes off again. That 9 minutes ‘snooze’ always goes by too fast. Hit the snooze button again.
6:03am: Shoot. How has 9 minutes already passed??? I turn off my alarm but decide that I’ll just close my eyes for a couple minutes…
6:15am: OH NO!!! I have to be ready to go in 15 minutes. I roll out of bed…eyes still half closed.
6:16-6:30am: Frantically find some pants & the same orange polo I’ve been wearing for 2 weeks strait. Run to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. Grab my bible, journal, phone, nook, and (most importantly) snacks.
6:32am: Realize that I’m late for our morning meeting. Whoops.
6:33am: Show up for our morning team meeting. Remember that I forgot to brush my hair this morning…again…oh well.
6:34-6:40am: Team Bloom talks about all the weird dreams we had the night before.
6:41am: Someone reads Isaiah 35 (our team’s bible passage focus) & prays for the day ahead of us.
6:45am: Commence our daily walk to the daycare.
6:48am: I’ve almost been run into by 5 motos in the past 3 minutes. Welcome to HCMC.
6:58am: Arrive at ministry. Somehow all the teachers & 7 children are already here.
7:00-8:00am: Welcome kids to daycare. Eat breakfast in shifts. Try to feed the kids breakfast. If no one throws up it is the start to a good day!
8:00am: Start to clean up from breakfast. This means sweeping & mopping the floor while trying to keep 8-10 toddlers sitting still in their chairs against the wall.
8:03am: Doesn’t take long for a fight to break out. Take a break from cleaning to separate the two troublemakers.
8:05am: Okay back to cleaning.
8:15am: Start English lessons with the small children. Normally this consists of flash cards with animals and transportation methods.
8:20am: The kids’ attention spans are approx. 30 seconds so I’m losing many of them.
8:30am: Decide that it’s been a good English lesson so I let the kids go play.
8:30-9:10am: The kids run around like crazy people. Mostly this time consists of doing damage control from a kid being hit, kicked, or bitten in the classic playground disagreements. Seriously though, they have so. much. energy.
9:11am: Take kids upstairs for their first bath of the day. End up getting a bath of my own because of the rogue sprayer.
9:30am: All kids are squeaky clean & in new outfits.
9:30-10:30am: Random YouTube videos are playing on the TV. Some of the kids are watching intently while others are playing with blocks. The 3 older boys are playing what looks like some version of Power Rangers. Do you say ‘boys will be boys’ and let them hit each other or try to break it up? Hmmmmm.
10:30am: Start the preparations for lunch.
10:53am: Taking bets on who will be the first kid to throw up from holding too much rice in their mouth before swallowing.
11:10am: Wow. I never knew eating one small bowl of rice could take so long.
11:15am: Time to start cleaning up. Pretty sure more rice ended up on the floor than in the kids’ mouths.
11:20am: NAP TIME!!!
11:30am-2:30pm: The kids are asleep so the adults get to take a break! This means lunch, bible reading, and sometimes a little siesta of our own!
2:30pm: Kids start to wake up & eagerly look over the balcony to see if you’re coming upstairs.
2:31pm: Walk upstairs and immediately get 3 kids fighting over who gets to sit in my lap. At least I know they love me, right?
2:32pm: The fight is over. Now all 3 of them are just lined up on my legs. No problem.
2:35-4:30pm: Play so many games with the kids. Sometimes tag, sometimes puzzles, sometimes flashcards, sometimes rock paper scissors. The list is getting longer as the weeks pass. Don’t forget to bring your book!! Watching weird cartoons in Vietnamese can get pretty boring.
4:30-5:00pm: Parents start arriving to pick up their kids. This is a fun time because we get to meet the parents of all our favorite kids!
5:05pm: Eat dinner!!
6:00-7:00pm: MC & I teach our English class (M/W/F). They are so awesome!
7:05pm: Start the 10 minute walk home.
7:20pm: Get into my room and immediately get into bed.
9:00pm: Already falling asleep. Getting rested to repeat all things tomorrow!
On the real though I love these kids!! It has been so fun getting to know them this month. I don’t think my body will miss the 5:45am wakeup calls, but I will sure miss the smiling faces once this month is over.
