It almost always begins as a normal evening, but before you know it a child is throwing up on your porch.
I had thought that these children not actually being mine could prevent me from the encounter with bodily fluids of any kind. But this event–as well as the children urinating behind our house daily–proves this inaccurate.
I took some disinfectant (or at least I think so; it says 99.9% something…) and paper towels out to clean it up. In simply seeing the paper towels, the kids starting yelling, “One! One!”
I wasn’t really sure why they wanted them, but in the grand scheme of picking your battles, I thought I could afford to give away a few paper towels. So I gave each child one.
But they didn’t know why they wanted them either. This was immediately apparent as they stood around each other, holding their paper towel out in front of them, and speaking a few words between themselves.
They stood there for quite awhile before they ran home, presumably to find something to wipe up or wrap up.
Yuh Meh Oo came back a couple hours later for a hug. She comes by most nights–she just likes to get a couple extra hugs and smiles, then we say our goodbyes and blow kisses to each other as she walks home for bed. This time she came back with her paper towel in tow, folded into quarters and held to her chest, as if it meant the world to her.