I Hate Titles, I am not creative enough...

I went to work in the orphanage today, instead of Dancu apartments, so that I could play with and observe Maria (she is about 3 years old and has Down syndrome). Anyways, while I was there some of the kids were getting haircuts. There is something you need to know about the orphanage all the kids have short hair, like boy hair, and they do not dress them in gender clothes…so sometimes it is hard to determine if the baby or child is a boy or a girl. It is as if they do not have an identity. So as they were cutting Valentina’s hair and she was screaming and crying the whole time and I figured it was just because all kids hate haircuts, right? Oh and another side note I am not sure what Valentina suffers from but she has a hard time walking, cannot talk, and I am not sure if she is there cognitively at all. She responds to her name but not to much else. Moving on, after the haircut I noticed that right away Valentina went to a mirror, on a toy, looked at herself touched her hair and started to cry. I called her to my side and Kept saying, “Valentina, este foarte frumosa” which is “Valentina you are very beautiful”. I would play with her for a bit and help her get happy but again in a few moments she would go look at herself again, touch her hair and start to cry. Watching this behavior, even though Valentina is not really all “there”, she still knew that her identity is not there anymore and that she has once again become a part of the common group. It was so heartbreaking to see how much she missed her longer hair. Besides this sad lil girl the whole day was great. I got to play with all kinds of kids and hold so many cute babies! I got to go to the hospital and play with my favorite lil girl, and I finally found out her name, it is Pamela and I adore her! I wish I could just bring all of these kids home with me!