court +7

You will have to use your imaginations today or refer back to other posts to get your ‘Ivanna picture’ fix today. Unfortunately, we forgot the camera on the kitchen table when we left. We got a wonderful phone call this morning from Tanis and Jonathan and perhaps I (sho) got a little distracted in packing the bag. Anyway, we missed some great pictures today :(, so I’ll try to be very descriptive so you can picture the scenes in your minds. Ivanna spent probably an hour or so on the swings today (we’ve mentioned she likes swinging, right?). At first she headed for one of the wooden swings closer to the back of the yard. One of the little girls from her group came over as I was putting Ivanna on the swing and made it quite clear she wanted on too. The caregivers often put two kids on these swings so I moved Ivanna over and put the other girl beside her. It was pretty darn cute. To hold on, they each had a wooden upright on one side and put their little arms around each other’s shoulders. Ivanna looked pretty pleased to be swinging with a buddy. They both were smiling and giggling when I tickled them. At one point the other little girl gave Ivanna a huge, smooshy faced hug – it was great! After about 15 minutes (or more?) of swinging together, the caregivers made the other little girl get off and told her she needed to run around (I’m guessing here, by the gestures that went along with the instructions) then told Ivanna she could stay and swing. Ivanna continued to swing for quite a while (and the other little girl kept trying to come over to swing too, but was continually called back by the nurses). Eventually, we stopped swinging her to see if she wanted to stop and asked her (along with signing) if she wanted ‘more’. She immediately repeated the sign and nodded but then hopped off and headed toward the front of the yard. Darren thought maybe she thought ‘more’ was related to food (we’ve probably used it more there), because our bag and snacks were in the direction she was heading, but she walked right on by the bag and headed straight for the other swing-set! She did indeed want ‘more’ swinging. She swung until close to 20 past 11, when another little boy who is somewhat demanding about getting our attention (and also likes to be a little too aggressive for my tastes with Ivanna). He proceeded to sit on the other swing and then promptly kicked Ivanna’s swing. Past experience has taught us that reprimanding him (even in Russian) just escalates his behaviour, so I picked Ivanna up and we went to look at the chickens for a while. We had a lovely snuggle as one of the caretakers was painting the fence, so I didn’t want to let her near it (we’ve already noticed green paint on some of her clothes - oops!) As some of the other groups came in with the strollers, we took one and took Ivanna for a little walk (she had spent much of her time swing watching with what looked like envy as the Italian and French couples took their boys for walks in a stroller). We had a brief little snack and drink and then headed back to her group. When we got there, the caregiver indicated that we could stay for a bit and watch the group. Yay! After playing outside the routine is to have all the kids sit on little potties before their lunch. So we watched as they sat and took off their shoes (some with a little help) and the nurse then checked their potties one by one. If they had done their ‘job’ they were led to a little rack (one at a time) where all their towels are and then led to a little sink where the nurse washed their hands and faces and then had them stand against the wall to wait for the others. Several of the children would try to get up and move on to the next step, without having done their ‘pissine’. The nurse would pick up their potty and say ‘pusta’ (empty), and tell them to sit down and ‘pissine’. One little boy is quite a handful and let’s just say he seems to have trouble staying on task and sitting or standing still. The nurse was very patient with him and just told him repeatedly to sit which he would do briefly (she also seems to have eyes on the back of her head as she seemed to know when he was getting up even if she wasn’t looking his way). She got through the kids one by one. Ivanna seemed pretty pleased we were there and kept looking up and smiling at us. The nurse eventually got all the kids washed and even though a few of them didn’t ‘go’ she led them all into the hall and then had all the kids say ‘paka’ to us (our cue to go). We thanked her profusely (how I wish I could let her know how much it means to us to get to see some of their routine) then headed back down the stairs. It was a great morning. Back at the train station, we managed to get some water and then Darren noticed the train was almost at the station so we sprinted up the stairs, over the overpass, back down and made it onto the train in time. It was the earlier train so we are back at our apartment a little earlier than we have been. It is still scorching here. Depending on what news we believe, this week is supposed to continue to have highs of over 30 all week - BBC is predicting as high as 35-36C. :( Darren has had his cold shower and now it’s my turn.
Later...we had a nap - I'm getting better at turning my brain off, then did some yoga (what does the temperature have to be for it to be considered 'hot yoga'?), and now are out for our usual supper at Mario's - yes, we are kind of predictable!
paka!