A Hard Goodbye

Our visit Friday morning began with a banana. She practically inhaled it.

Then she took a bite of the banana peel. The little stinker.

What IS it with her and putting things in her mouth?

I honestly think she was relieved when we took the peel away from her.

She put up a minimal fight, but didn't argue about it.

The Housers were on the same playground with us and when they left,

they had left this punching balloon.

So what were we to do?

And then Vera dug out my chapstick and mirror...

and this kept her busy for quite some time.

She would put chapstick on herself, then me, then Jon.

Notice that whoever she was putting chapstick on had to hold the mirror.

Vera would position it just so in our hands.

Then she had to brush my hair.

We really need to work on the word 'gentle.'

I'm very thankful I still have some hair left after that. :)

And then it was back to the phone.

Our visit was soon over and we told Vera it was time for groupa. She knows what this means by now. While Jon was gathering our things, I followed Vera who had taken off towards the door. We knew that her group was still outside and I was leading her to where they were. On our way there, she started to cry and whine. "No groupa. No groupa." I told her I didn't want to take her back but I had to. We rounded the corner and saw that her group was walking towards us. Poor little Vera completely lost it and dropped to the ground. She was screaming, "No groupa! No groupa!" and shaking her head. I would try to pick her up and she would flail around. She's very strong. Then she started sobbing. We hadn't seen her sob until then. Oh, break my heart. I was fighting back tears. If I could have, I would have snatched her up and run out of there. One of the caregivers (one who is not our favorite...she never smiles and she doesn't seem to enjoy the children) made her way to us and was obviously out of patience. To give her a little credit, it was very hot outside and she was walking with 6 little ones. When she let go of their hands to deal with Vera, they scattered. 2 of them wrapped themselves around my legs while another 2 kept trying to take my camera. While I was trying to comfort Vera who was crumpled up on the ground sobbing. The caregiver grabbed Vera by the chin (not very gently) and got right in her face. If I knew how to say it eloquently in Russian I would've said, "Hey! Hands off my girl!" But I was helpless. Vera was still crying and yelling "No groupa! No groupa!" Finally, Alla, one of the nice caregivers (she had a big stroller with 5 children in it) came over. She put her arm around Vera and very gently talked to her. It took a few minutes but Vera calmed down. Alla told her to say goodbye to Mama. Apparently she thought it best to say goodbye there instead of have us bring Vera up to the room. Jon missed this whole thing. It had taken him a few minutes to gather our things and he hadn't seen where we had gone. He thought we had gone to Vera's room. He found us just as we were saying goodbye.

Sasha told us that the goodbyes would get harder from here on out. I wonder if part of Vera's problem on Friday was that she knew she wouldn't see us that afternoon because we had court. She didn't meltdown like that yesterday for either of our goodbyes. I guess some things will remain a mystery.