in hospital workshop

I visited CHLA tonight for an in-hospital workshop. It was an evening session, which for me, are always more quiet and usually filled with siblings and family members, rather than patients. It is for this reason that I really like evening sessions. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE doing the morning and afternoon sessions and working with the kids are are patients is always incredible, but sometimes I think that it is the other kids -- the brothers, sisters, cousins, and family friends who are overlooked. They are the ones that have to sit around and wait and not get the "attention" and sometimes I think that the in-hospital workshops are as much for them as they are for the patients. Tonight we painted CoachArt t-shirts -- lots of paint, lots of stencils, lots of MESS! The kids really loved it. The best part was that each of those kids, after having a full day at school and then sitting around in a hospital for hours chose to make their t-shirt for their sick brother or sister or cousin or friend. They used their free time to give to their loved one. I took away some very valuable things from my CoachArt experience tonight:

1) I am finally clear on the difference between Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana (This only happened after a very in-depth conversation with three 12 year old girls, who, with all their energy, took the time to explain to me the important details on the subject. It was also during this very serious conversation that one of the girls confided in me that she really didn't think that the Jonas Brothers were that cute {gasp!} and that this was very concerning to her friends).

2) It is important to tape the stencil down before you start painting with it on a t-shirt, otherwise, it gets all over the place and your cute little bunny turns into one big blob!

3) No matter how long and hard my day has been, there is always someone else who's day has been longer and harder. That was the case with the kids I hung out with tonight, and despite that fact, each of them was so excited to make something for someone else. A lot of BIG smiles left the playroom tonight and my only hope is that they were met with equally BIG smiles when they returned with gifts to each of their separate corners of CHLA.

I leave you now with these thoughts as I get ready to call it a night while humming a Miley Cyrus song that I can not, for the life of me, get out of my head... or wait, is it a Hannah Montana song? Ugh, I'm hopeless :D!! ---jenn