Almost Perfect

Mama Yoldine caring for her baby

What a wonderfully perfect last Sunday morning.  The girls started out playing quietly with their baby dolls.  Feeding them, bathing them, pretending to hand wash their clothes as they've seen the ladies do every day.

Policeman Wilson stopping traffic

Then the 3 boys arrived.  And suddenly everything changed.  The boys became police and soldiers and security guards.  The girls squealed.  The boys shouted orders.  The girls squealed.  The boys made the chairs into cars.  The girls ran away and squealed.  The boys took some of them to jail.  The same scene I saw played over and over on playgrounds while teaching.

Wilson, Valery, and Fequiere in their security vehicle

They finally figured out how to play together.  Vanessa became the doctor and started writing notes as the mothers brought their children to the hospital.  The boys rose to the occasion and provided security for the mothers and their children.  No one was admitted to the hospital without permission of the security.  Dr. Vanessa called for security to let others in.  She continued writing notes about the children as she took their ages and the various maladies of the children.  Danika walked around the hospital talking on her cell phone, and Francia and Mirdjinah-Florentina-Bo-Bam-Bina (younger than the others) played with a deck of War cards and Go Fish cards mixed together.  Wilson named letters he saw on my screen as I typed.

Dr. Vanessa taking vital statistics on Fabienne's baby

I love watching their imaginations emerge when their only cares are who has the prettiest baby doll (two of them are strangely ugly) or  whether they would continue to be able to use their stick weapons (they were confiscated by a nanny...she said no more batons). 

I love this family.  I love the normalcy of this.  Of having 13 children playing around, moving from one thing to the next.  Coming to add decorations to my hair.  Holding their babies for me to kiss.  I am soaking all of this up, because I realize that, like all families, these moments are few and far between.  And they may not last long.  So for now, I treasure them.  And enjoy them.  And file them away in that little box of wonderful times.