Friday With The Girls-Part One

I waited with anticipation to be assigned my girls. These girls are with World Help's "Children of the World." We were given two girls from Uganda, age 8 and 10. I'm not sure if I can use their real names here, as some of this information may be considered sensitive. So I will call them Hope and Happy.

As we drove home, we all asked the usual questions to get acquainted.

Happy asked, "Do you have children?" and "Do you have Disney channel?"

Hope mostly just sat there, quiet and small. Hard to know what had happened in her life to bring her to this point. We were not told their backgrounds, and were instructed not to ask because it might be too painful for them to talk about.

We asked them if they liked dogs, because we needed to introduce them to our 6-month old Boston Terrier, Jazzy. Happy said, "I like dogs. But NO kisses. Happy doesn't like dogs, though."

We didn't know what would happen this weekend, but Jazzy would have to be second fiddle to these girls, for sure.

We showed the girls their room, and their bathroom. They asked if they could change out of their traveling clothes (windsuits with their logo and name on it so we could learn their names quickly). Hope pulled out a cute skooter skirt and top. It was a brand new outfit-she wore it Friday night and all day Saturday. She was so tickled to get it. And it was in her favorite color-YELLOW. What a perfect color to represent this precious child.

I fixed a picnic meal for dinner-only we decided to eat it at the house and THEN go to the park. While preparing deviled eggs, Happy asked me, "What are you doing?" I explained that I was making deviled eggs. She asked, "Auntie, what do you put in it?" I told her it would have the egg yolk, mixed with mustard and mayonnaise and seasonings. She said, "Please, Auntie, no mustard."

As we talked she helped me take the eggshell off of one egg. She noticed her egg was pockmarked, rather than smooth. I have to wonder if she sabotaged it on purpose so she could ask the next question. "Auntie, I'm hungry. May I eat this egg now?" I told her she could. Then she asked, "Heat it?"

"No baby, we can't heat it now."

"Why not? Put it in the microwave."

"It will explode."

"What is eggsplode?"

"It means the egg might go boom, and fly into many pieces."

"No boom. No eggsplode. I show you." Happy took the egg and put it in the microwave and started to program it to cook. I told her we could try it for just 20 seconds on half power.

In spite of my precautions, guess what? The egg went BOOM! Happy thought this was great fun; better than television. We had a big laugh as she said, "eggsplode, eggsplode!" Russ tried to clean up the mess, but Happy kept grabbing the big pieces as he tidied up. But then she had one last question. "Salt?" It would not be the last time to ask for extra salt this weekend.