All the girls are on a rotating schedule for the over night shift in the toddler room. My third overnight experience happened last night and it was the most eventful by far.
I walk over at 9:45p, the shift starts at 10 but I’m tired so I went a little early. Every time I walk into the toddler side of the building in the back of my mind the Jaws, Duh-Dum-Duh-Dum-Duh-Dum, is playing in my head like my death is near.
My bed is already set up on the floor in the babies’ room both are sleeping soundly. So I proceed to lie down and situate my belongings on the floor, my home for the night. About that time Bing is coming in the front door. So I get up and say hello to her, see if she needs help setting up the ‘fort’ in the kitchen. (Her and Caleb, the child with cerebral palsy, her ‘baby’, sleep there every night, so she’s got the routine down, lays down play tiles, lays down 4 mattresses, situated the chairs in a line to cut off access to half of the kitchen, the whole shebang.) She’s got it all taken care of so I proceed to go back to my room. About that time Caleb hears Bings voice and starts crying for her. So now her ‘fort’ building just got more complicated because she now has to hold a child while doing her building, still she refuses help so I go back to bed.
All the while, Kenneth, one of the babies in my room is flipping and flopping and can’t get comfortable, but I’m used to this, he does it ALL NIGHT LONG. I’ve been lying down for 5 minutes when I start hearing furniture scraping the floor because Bing is rearranging. I’m thinking ‘for the love, woman’. So I go in and she’s dragging Hannah Leah’s crib in from house mom’s room. I help her pick it up and move it to the proper place. I grab Hannah Leah from my room and move her to the living room and go lay back down.
So Bing is still setting up camp about 1040 she comes into my room has me switch out pillows I guess she had laid out the wrong ones for me. 10 minutes later she comes in, wakes up Kenneth, and gives him a bottle. I’m grateful for that, I know I won’t have to make a bottle in the middle of the night now. I hear her in the living room waking up Hannah Leah for her bottle. Finally, about 1115 Bing settles into bed and the house is quiet…..
1230 Kenneth wakes up crying, really distraught, totally uncommon in my experience with him. This kid is a handful during the day but at night he’s a relatively quiet sleeper minus the tossing and turning. So I grab him and bounce him back into comfort and he quiets down. There is a rocker in our room so I sit and rock in for about 20 minutes. I’m just about to put him back into his crib when I see this black thing crawling inside his crib. So sleeping baby in hand, I grab my head lamp shine it into the crib and wait…..that’s when I see it… A massive cockroach crawling in baby Kenneth’s crib, barf-me-running(Deaton slang). No wonder he freaked, I would’ve done the same. I grab his blanket shake it out, grab his mattress shake it out, can’t see the cockroach anymore, which dawns on me, now it’s loose in the room where I’m sleeping on the floor, neat.
I put Kenneth down about that moment I see the devil cockroach on the floor of our room I grab my headlamp and some tissue and proceed to chase this thing around the room for about 5 minutes. Finally, it landed on it’s back and I was able to victoriously end its life. And get back to bed, but unable to sleep knowing I just killed an 1inch ½ long cockroach from the floor I’m laying on.
About 230a Hannah Leah starts crying. I go in to calm her down before she wakes up Caleb and Bing who are just a couple feet from her situated in the kitchen. Bing’s awake so she makes Hannah Leah some water and we put her back to sleep.
Other than Kenneth flipping and flopping every 5 seconds and Hannah Leah’s occasional sympathy cry in the middle of the night, I get to stay in bed until morning.
I look at my clock, 430a….”Why is this shift creeping along so slowly? Why can I not find sleep?? Why does it smell like nasty poop in here??” all the thoughts I can conjure up at 430a. I investigate for poop. “Where is this coming from?!” Kenneth is poop-free from what I can tell, it’s not from the ‘kitchen crew’ I do a self breath check, “nope not me. Geez that stinks…” put it in the back of my mind and try to find sleep.
5a someone turns the light off outside.
515a pretty sure Kenneth is awake but I don’t want to get him out of his crib he’s still content and I want to lay as long as possible.
530a toddlers start emerging from their room. I see JoyJoy stumble into the kitchen/livingroom area but she spots me first. I sit up and motion for her to come in. She plops onto my bed and is smiling the sweetest JoyJoy smile, melts my heart.
Shortly after, Glen Mark stumbles into the living room; of course he’s looking at a book already. He spots me and Joy Joy and starts jabbering and pointing to his book. I grab my headlamp and turn it on it was a hit. I started making hand shadow animals on the wall, they ate it up, about that time Cris Cris comes from her room sucking on her fingers, she finds the party and jumps on my bed too….
That’s when we see it, cockroach from last night’s dad running along the base of the wall. Glen Mark starts chasing it and Joy Joy and Cris Cris start pointing ‘bug, bug’. I do the first thing I can think of the terminate the situation as fast as possible before they wake up the entire house with their squeals, I grab Glen Mark’s book, my head lamp, and proceed to chase this thing around the room while 3 toddlers are trailing chasing me. It was all very comical. Finally killed it with Glen Mark’s book and they just stared at the huge smashed bug awestruck. I wipe it up before they get close enough to start poking at it.
About that time all the commotion has woken Andrew up. He comes into our room and Cris Cris goes back into their room. She comes out saying ‘Lou Lou, Lou Lou’ and pointing. I’m thinking “oh geez, I really hope this doesn’t mean what I think it mean’s” I’ve heard horror stories about LouLou in the morning from the other girls night shifts. I slowly walk in, he’s got one leg on the bed one leg off laying on his stomach and is just sorta whimpering, I smell it, but can’t see anything yet. Well Cris Cris has my headlamp still from playing with it earlier, she flips it on and points it directly so I can see….yep….Lou Lou had pooped his pants…and because of his un-under wearing body, it had slid down his leg and was now in a nice little pile down by his foot.
I just stand there. Sorting through options of what to do next. I go into the baby room where the toddlers are now jumping on my mattress and grab some baby wipes. Back to Lou Lou, he isn’t moving, poor baby. I remove his pants but while doing so, I’ve worsened the poop smear on his legs. Lovely. I put the poop pants on the floor next to the poop pile, “the house moms can take care of that mess, I’ll take care of Lou Lou”, my thoughts, I wipe as much poo from his body using the wipes as I can so he’s comfortable enough to stand. I remove his shirt and now I have a naked poop jay bird on my hands, and 4 toddlers running a muck in the house, while sleeping Bing and Caleb are still passed out in the kitchen, I’m still convinced she was playing opossum, she knew Lou Lou pooped his pants.
Anyway, I refuse to walk into the toddler bathroom, I’ve seen Andrew stand at the door and pee directly on the floor multiple times, it’s not sanitary in there. I take Lou Lou to the infant bathroom and hose him off in there as best as I could. Get him dressed and reunite him with the other toddlers.
It’s about 550a at this time and the sun is starting to rise. I walk the toddlers outside to the dining hall. Drop them off and head back to care for Kenneth who was in his crib watching all the commotion all morning.
He has poop pants and is soaked. I change him and re-clothe him and take him into the living room, plop him on the couch, Bing and Caleb are awake now, I grab Hannah Leah, she had peeped through her diaper too so her clothes were soaked as well. Change and re-clothe her and go into the living room. About that time my replacement walks in the door.
945p-6a, the life of a missionary at an orphanage, you never know might happen.
I’m rethinking the whole wanting 4 kids now.
