Anticipatory Behaviors & Haiti: Where The Good Toys Go

They boys are en route to Haiti. I just talked to Mark and Jafta. They are all settled in to their hotel in the Miami Airport. Yes – in the airport, as in right next door to the gate where they landed. Pretty cool, huh? I’m not sure why we’ve never done that before. It’s so much smarter to show up to Haiti showered and rested, instead of on the tail-end of a long red eye flight.

Today was a hard day for me. I’ve been so consumed with getting them ready for this trip and collecting donations that I think I was in totally denial that I wasn’t actually going. As I dropped them off at the airport, I was so, so sad. I think it didn’t hit Jafta that I wasn’t going until just then, either. He was giddy with excitement all morning at then after I said goodbye to him, Mark said he was really quiet and sad for about a half hour. Which is a pretty sharp contrast to how he has acted for the past 24 hours.

Jafta has what I like to call an “anticipatory behavior” issue. (Actually, I completely stole this descriptor from Christine – one very smart mama). When he is excited about something, he acts like a total and complete spaz until it happens. He basically becomes the Tasmanian devil. Only louder. It is really, really annoying because he ends up driving us nuts AND getting in trouble over and over again. So much so, that I typically don’t even tell him things in advance anymore. If he has a playdate, I tell him 5 minutes prior. If we have a birthday party to go to, I announce it on the way there. I didn’t even tell him when it was Christmas Eve – he just woke up one morning, and BAM, it was Christmas. This may sound mean, but trust me. It is better for everyone involved, including him.

Anyways, we couldn’t really hide the Haiti trip. So last night, he was a whirling dervish of energy. We put him to bed at 8pm and he was up until 11!! This is despite numerous stern lectures from us about his need to sleep. Luckily he got a decent nap on the plane today, but I feel sorry for the people sitting in front of him. I have a feeling they got some decent kicks in their seat backs from my over-excited four-year-old.

Meanwhile, on the homefront, India is completely and totally bitter that she is not going to Haiti. She was angry with me all night. She has been watching the donations come in all week, too. All she knows is that there has been a pile of bubbles, balloons, tricycles, and toys that she has not been allowed to play with because they are going to Haiti. In her mind Haiti is just an island where all the “good toys” are going, and she can’t go with them. All night tonight, she has been showing me a toy and saying, “this toy is from Haiti”. She’s also been asking about the bubbles in Haiti, and if Kembert (Keanan) is playing with the balloons. Such a humanitarian, that one.

By the way, here’s a picture of their luggage. Thank you SO MUCH to all of you who dropped donations off this weekend. We fit an unbelievable amount of stuff to take for the orphanage, women’s program, and sewing program. Mark and Jafta have all their personal stuff in backpacks. We bought these big duffle bags last year just for this purpose, because they carry so much and then we can fold them up and bring them home until the next trip. Each bag was exactly 50 pounds – lots of weighing and redistributing last night to fit it all in without having to pay the heavy bag penalty. It’s fun to play “mules” for the missionaries who work so hard in Haiti.