The smell of Target

Everybody do us a favorite and take a nice, deep breath in the next time you go shopping at Target. Do it right when you walk in the door so you get the mixture of the scent of popcorn from the food court, the crispness of the air conditioner that hangs right above the entrance and that hint of new plastic. We bought our stroller and car seat for the baby the other day and at one point i had to close my eyes and pretend we were standing in the baby aisle at target under the bright florescent lights surrounded by dozens of styles and options for strollers and not in the middle of Bolivia's open air market with very little to choose from, store clerks trying to sell us things we don't need, all the while trying to ignore the smell of fried chicken, incense, and sewer. After three hours we were standing on the curb empty handed and trying to get a taxi home when Braeden decided that we weren't leaving without what we had come for, that this is what we had to work with and not a Target around the corner. By some miracle we found a car seat and stroller at the very next shop, completely different from anything else we had seen that day and we almost cried when he told us that we could have both for less than 100 dollars. i guess i can deal with the smell of chicken and sewer rather than popcorn and air conditioning if it means 100 dollars.

Baby blankets

Today was a very difficult baby washing. For the past few weeks we have been struggling to find clothes in the right sizes in all of the donations that we have packed in tubs at our house. Every week we go through what we have left from last week and try to refill it with what is left from donations. Bigger sizes for ages 7-10 have been the hardest to find and specifically boys shirts. Today i spent a long time going through every tub we had to find enough boy clothes so that no one would be sent away without at least one piece of a new outfit.

i could tell as soon as we began that we were not going to have enough of the bigger clothes for all the kids. Our volunteers were scrambling inside the tent to search through the clothes for the right sizes and i had to turn away so many little boys, explaining that we just didn't have their size this week. We have a few twelve year old girls that get their hair washed each week and they are so sweet, waiting to the side and not getting in anyone's way just to see if we might have a top for them. We had to turn them away as well.

Towards the end of the evening we were completely out of older boys clothes and their was a very slim selection for the younger ones. A mother brought her eight month old baby in and we were all relieved it was a baby because we have a ton of little clothes and to make it better, she was a girl. The baby got a diaper this week, which is an extra treat, and a pair of pink pants with a teddy bear t-shirt. She was also given a baby blanket, something we don't have every week but decided to bring since we were short on clothes. The baby was handed back to the mother and we were all happy that we were finally able to give an entire matching outfit complete with diaper and blanket to a child.

The mother wasn't satisfied, however, first saying that she didn't want her daughter in pants but wanted a dress. She sat in front of the tent for a good fifteen minutes trying to get the volunteers to give her a dress instead while i explained to her that we didn't have time to undress her baby and put an outfit on that she liked better but that maybe next week she could have a dress. Once she realized we weren't changing our minds she asked for a sweater for the baby. i again explained that we didn't have enough clothing to give mothers everything that they wanted, that these clothes had to last from Saturday to Saturday and she had already gotten an extra diaper and blanket. But the mother was insistent and refused to move until finally one of the volunteers tossed her a boys' sweater, one of the very few we had left. i was very stern with the mother then, telling her that she couldn't do this every saturday, that we had to make sure that every child at least got something but she didn't care to listen.

i had to step away from everything for a few minutes because i was so upset about the situation. it was so frustrating having to turn away all of those kids today without anything and this mother was walking away with extra things and a sweater that was desperately needed for a boy for next week. But at the same time i was angry with myself for being upset with her. if my baby was cold and there was an entire suitcase of clothes sitting right there, i am sure i would do the same thing. At home i had a whole crib overflowing with baby clothes for our new baby and i was frustrated with a mother who just wanted a clean sweater. We are surrounded here by mothers who don't care about their children, who abandon them, beat them, take the fruit we give to their children and eat it themselves. This was an example of a good mother, in a way, who wouldn't take no for an answer. Braeden and i saw this week that, like this ministry, parenting isn't always black and white. While she certainly shouldn't have demanded extra when she was one of the lucky ones today with a whole outfit and a dry diaper, maybe it was still right that she did try to demand more.