Pictures from the Children's Hospital

Spencer and I go to the hospital each afternoon for 3 hours to hold and play with the children who don't have any parents. (I go there Mon.-Wed., and Spencer goes Thurs and Friday). Sometimes these children have been abandoned, some live in orphanages, and some have parents but they live too far away to be able to come visit their children in the hospital very often. So, we spend time with them each day to help them pass the time and get the stimulation and attention they need. Here are a few pictures one of the girls in our group took for us.
This little Selina. She just turned one yesterday. She is one of our favorite little girls and has been at the hospital for a long months. She has club feet and has had her feet operated on and in casts. She now only has one cast on. Selina is a very happy, smiley baby. She loves to be held and played with. We think her mom is in France working- we don't really know since we can't understand the language very well. This is Mihaela with her son Paul (11 months old). She was in the hospital room with a little baby (Vladuti was his name) who had been abandoned that I would go visit and hold. Since then, his mom came back to the hospital and took him home with her. Mihaela and another mom, Monica, were trying to speak with me in Romanian on my first day at the hospital. We were all laughing so hard since we were together for about an hour and understood only a handful of things. A sense of humor is essential here! : ) The rooms here are very crowded with 3-4 twin beds and 1-2 cribs in each room. I have really enjoyed being able to get to know some of the moms in the rooms I work in.This is Spencer with a girl in our group (Melissa) and an 11-year old girl at the hospital (Andrea). She is a very cute girl who we play card games with sometimes. Melissa visited her a lot when she was here last year.

Me visiting Paul, a boy from the orphanage we work at in the mornings. He was in the hospital for a little while when we started and is now back at the orphanage. He can't talk, but he loved getting his back scratched while we visited him. He has the cutest freckles and smile.
Marie and I visiting Paul.

I hope this gives you an idea of what we do each day. Hopefully I can post more pictures soon!