Photos, Snacks and Dustbusters

Another day with two posts. I had a killer headache yesterday (still do) and just couldn't do it. I posted about yesterday earlier today. Now we're on to this morning's visit.

I told you how upset Vera gets when we arrive in the mornings. She just hates to miss out on her morning activities. We understand. We remember when the kids were little and we had to give them plenty of warning time before we changed activities. "In twenty minutes, we're going to do such and such." "In 15 minutes, it's time to be done." "You have 10 more minutes and then we're going to leave." "5 more minutes." We get it. Kids need warning time before they detach from one activity and go on to the next. So Jon and I decided that we would not come for our morning visit until after snack time. That way we knew Vera would be inside and we wouldn't be pulling her away from her outdoor time with her group. It would shorten our morning visit to an hour, but at this point we're focusing on quality time.

Well, we arrived this morning and most of Vera's group was outside playing. What? They should be inside finishing up their snack. The caregivers motioned to us that Vera was upstairs. Okay, good. We got upstairs to discover Vera, Allie and the nice girl sitting at a table with Olya (the caregiver) doing some sort of activity. Vera saw us and...tears. She did not want to leave what she was doing. Olya said a few things to Vera and before we knew it, she stood up, smiled and came over to us. Olya said we couldn't take her outside because she was seeing the doctor soon. Okay.

We got out the photo album again so Vera could see Jacob, Caleb and Abbi.

We reminded her of their names.

She loves looking at their pictures.

I think she's excited to meet her brothers and sister.

She wasn't sure what to think about the photos of the house.

We didn't get that far yesterday. She just wanted to look at the kids.

She seemed confused when we told her "Vera's room."

She shook her head and said Nyet.

I sure hope she likes it when we get home!

I think she will.

She ventured back into her group room and came back with an apple slice.

She kept trying to give Jon a bite and he wouldn't take one.

He kept telling her it's Vera's apple.

She found this to be humorous.

She went back into her group room and told Olya something about Papa.

She came back with another apple slice and tried to give it to Jon.

Sweetness.

Jon told her that he had his own snack and got his granola bar out of the backpack to show Vera.

Vera took it to her locker and tried to open it. Jon kept offering to help and she would just peek at us as she tried to get it open. She eventually put it in her purse and shut her locker.

It's fun to see what they do to Vera's hair each time we come.

Vera went in to her group room one more time and came out with this.

A loud, obnoxious toy dustbuster.

Remember my headache?

Yeah. I still have it.

I got a video of the singing dustbuster.

When you see it, you'll understand.

But what fun she had with it!

Caleb and Abbi, I think your chore of dustbusting

will soon be handed off to your little sister.

We can't wait to see Vera's reaction with a dustbuster that actually sucks things up!

We think she will be thrilled and that dustbusting will be a favorite activity for her.

Then again, our dustbuster doesn't sing like this one.