Happy St. Patricks Day! We celebrated our Irish heritage much like we would at in the states… among friends and a lot of beer.
This spring break we decided to stay local in Shanghai… I wanted to share with the kids something that I have been doing this year that was very meaningful to me. And also show them that not every school break is going to take us to some exotic Asian resort. So on their second day off they each sat in an orientation for a local orphanage called The Healing Home. This is an orphanage about 20 minutes from our apartment that houses over 50 children from various provinces around China. The children are brought to this orphanage because they suffer from some sort of correctable medical condition. (Varying heart conditions, cleft lip/palate, hydrocephalus etc.) I was not totally sure how the kids were going to respond to some of the physical deformities some of the children in the orphanage had… Prior to our visit, we spent a lot of time looking at pictures online and discussing why children are born with defects… I am not going to lie when I admit that my kids definitely needed a large dose of “you should be grateful serum” but, what we got out of it was SO much more!!!!
At first seeing so many children was very overwhelming for them. Particularly when they all spoke only Chinese! It was a bit slow at first getting the kids to warm up to them… I found it surprising to see that the children in the orphanage opened up to Jordan, Garrett & Ayden much more quickly then they did to me!
I also found it surprising that never once did any of my kids ever make the connection that a place like this is where we got them… Garrett spent his time with a little boy named Henry… He was obsessed with cars and used the sign language for car constantly!
Jordan immediately made a bond with a little boy named Johnny. Without a doubt this kid was the most energetic and demanded the most attention. The connection was made over a ball. (Of course) and they were fast friends playing catch.
Ayden gravitated to the girls and was juggling the attention of two… They spent considerable time taking on and off their shoes and collecting any shoes that were laying around… It is amazing what the kids can find to play with when there aren’t a lot of toys.
When it was finally time to leave… the kids begged me to return the next day to play. I never thought that they would embrace going as much as I do and I think they appreciate what they do have a little more…
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