Thursday, September 6, 2007

Gregg's visit

When I got there they were already outside with the rest of the group. They were each on a riding toy so I tickled each one and then started to lead them away from the rest of the group so we would have time by ourselves.

When we got away from the group the first question Erik asked was "kur tete?" (where is auntie) and I paused before answering. So he asked again- this time "kur mamyte?"(where is mommy). So I told him mommy is working and he asked "kur"(where)? I told him in the university. That seemed to satisfy him but I'm not sure he really knew what a University was.

We looked at some apples growing there, they tried to shake some down from the tree and they found one low enough to shake a couple of apples down. Then they wanted to taste them and thought they tasted sour. I tried to tell them that they would not taste good from the tree because they aren't ready yet, but it did not matter to them-- it was just fun to knock the apples off the tree.

We played "chase me" so I chased them and then got them to chase me- Erik chased me and Eugenijus chased Erik :-). When I got tired I tried to change to another game.

Erik seems to be learning about how long our visits are. When it was about time to leave he did not want to walk anywhere near the door into the orphanage. As I started to go towards the door, he did not want me to hold his hand, saying I know how, I can walk by myself, but I knew if I left go, he would run the other direction. So, I held his hand as I walked toward the front door and he tried to pull another direction. I just kept walking toward the door and once he realized that he could not pull me another way, he started to walk with me crying loudly. All of the orphanage were open because it was a warm day. As we got to the door he started to say "nenoriu, nenoriu" (I don't want to), but we had to go in. It was loud enough that the caretaker met me half way down the steps to take the boys upstairs to their room. So I kissed them goodbye and left quickly.

The visit went well on the whole. At one point Erik felt a call to nature so I felt like a daddy as I helped him respond to that call. It was good to be with the boys myself for once. The language was not always easy, but we found a way to communicate. The hard part was leaving- it tugs on the heartstrings knowing that Erik was so upset about my leaving.

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