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Day 8 - a quiet party - Hospital F | Puppet Portal Project phase 2
2010-12-10

Day 8 - a quiet party - Hospital F

Today the theme was an `International Party` and I made a nice big castle to start off imaginations about who might come to visit this party. I also felt after last week that this focused stage will help focus the play in the playroom. I also talked to Kevin and Caoimhe at music alive and we made a plan to start with some music making for the party after some initial introduction to the puppets. Quite tight previous planning became necessary for the morning as I found out that from now on, I only get to spend two hours in there (from 10-12.)

The hospital was very quiet today with only three children in the playroom all morning. One little girl made a puppet and was starting to really enjoy decorating the puppet`s dress (who came from Ireland) but had to go back to her bed. It was lovely to see the way she warmed to the puppet as she was so shy when she first entered the playroom. When I left in the afternoon I could see her and her brother playing with the puppet in her bed. This was the highlight of the day.

The other two children didn`t really have much interest to play with the puppets. Kevin and Caoimhe played some lovely music for the two and my puppet danced along to it which amused the little two year old girl and inspired the seven year old boy to join the music making along with his dinosours.

I also made a puppet for both of them and that caused a bit of amusement for the little girl whose dad played with the puppet for her for a bit. The seven year old boy was sort of too cool to make a puppet but when I presented him with a monter/dinasour puppet he got very happy and started to play with the puppet and even invented a voice for it. He was discharged at this stage so had to go home but I saw him go past the door and he had the puppet still in his hand as he was going home with his family.

So the two hours I had in the playroom was about little moments and friendships with puppets rather than playing with or the making of puppets. This way we also missed the linkup at 11.30 with Fionnuala.

This also gave me a chance to finish four packets of puppet makig kits. I felt that probably those can prolongate my presence in the hospital. Finally to the suggestion of one of the teachers we put the packets with a flyer into the school (it is generally open for longer than the playroom) so children can take them from there.

After lunch I worked with two boys in isolation. One 8 year old boy whose mum asked me if I could go in to make puppets with her son and who was very shy. We made a puppet witha really cool hair (from Cork) and played hide and seek. Fionnuala was also due to link-up with us and the little boy was curious about the internet link-up but once Fionnuala`s voice came through he got really shy. So I introduced his puppet to Fionnuala and translated his nods to Fionnuala`s questions.

At the end of the day I made a puppet with a 10 year old boy. He made an Angry-woman-thing with long blond hair, sunglasses and a moustache. he was initially too cool to actually play with the puppet but as the puppet gained more and more personality he grew more interested in her and made her walk around a bit or talk to his family who arrived in the meantime.