Friday: Week 2

October 13, 2006
We definitely were tired this morning, but got up, showered and were ready to go by 9:45, when Phillipich picks us up. Sometimes he has to wait for us a few minutes and sometimes we get outside before he is there. We always walk toward the road to meet up with him, quite often we find him at the spigot out by the road, washing his car, or maybe I should say dousing it! He washes off the mats in the car everyday, sometimes a couple times a day, if it is muddy out. That is where we found him today! Phillipich is such a careful driver! We never worry about his driving. To us, the driving seems normal, maybe if we had a different driver, we would be concerned more often. Phillipich used to be a police officer here, so he has connections… he doesn’t have to wear his seatbelt, although it is required by law here.

Today we had Aliya again! We gave her Alex’s book with all the questions in it; she started working on translating them. She also took a picture of the beds we are going to have made for the babyhouse. That way we can locate a woodworker to build them. We also got a list of some medicines that the doctor needs, winter is coming and they will have colds galore, I am sure.

When we got to the babyhouse there was a group of probably 3 years olds in the music room practicing a dance with their caregiver, of course when we went in they all quit paying attention to their teacher and kept staring at us. So Jerry was doing the hand motions with them and of course they love in. They smile and wave at us and stare! They are taught to call us momma and papas. So it is sad that we are not able to take them home with us, when they are already calling us momma and papa! They finished and left and in came our sweet baby. When the music teacher left, she turned on the tape player in the room with some English songs for us to listen to. So we danced around the room for a little while with Alex and he laughed and enjoyed it. Alex was all smiley today. We didn’t take as many pictures today for some reason… We brought him the car that we got yesterday at the “big market”; we realized that it is a lotto car. You pull it back on and let it go and it pops little balls up, all the balls have numbers on them, like the lottery games! It even has a little annoying song that it plays! He played with the fridge farm of course. Oh, we gave him his vitamins… We don’t understand this kid, he doesn’t really like the vitamins, but is so happy when I get them out, he bounces up and down and then leans back against my arm and opens up! He make yucky faces the whole time, too. It takes about 3 squirts and those are gone, then we get out the puffs! Which, of course, he is very happy to see. We gave him some more at the end of the visit too. When his caregiver came, she requested her picture taken with Murat/Alex. She said she was his Kazakh momma and is going to miss him. We will print off a few for her and take them to her before we go. She is a cute little lady too. She brings him often and picks him up at the end a lot, too.

Aliya took us to the “big” bookstore today. We told Aliya about Barnes & Noble, she loves books and can hardly wait to visit someday and go to our bookstores. They have lots of children’s story books in Russian, Kazakh and English. We bought a whole stack of them! We love how the pictures are all of little Kazakh children! They are so cute! We also found a nice map of Kazakhstan (in English) and a large book on Kazakh traditions and customs (in the 3 languages). We were very excited! They are also making a new map of Uralsk, so they didn’t have any there right now, But Aliya said that she would get us one when they are printed and send it home with another family. Aliya gets a kick out of us… We keep asking her to find us special places, Today Jerry asked her if there was a place to ride a camel… she doesn’t know of any with in the City Limits, since we cannot go outside the city limits. I don’t think she knows of any outside the City either.

In the afternoon, Jerry had to write out a request to the Uralsk Minister of Education, to be able to visit Aliya, our sponsor daughter at Zhas Dauren. Aliya then Translated it and after our visit we would drop it off at the Ministry office. Which, at that point they said that Aliya had to have her signature notarized! She was annoyed, because they hadn’t had to do that before. Since it was late she will have to do it in the morning, right away and deliver it back to the Ministry Office. Hopefully we will get to spend some time with Luba and Aliya tomorrow afternoon.

Alex was obsessed of course with trying to get a hold of the paper Aliya had with our request on it. He basically sat on us and played with his crazy toys. We tried to get that profile shot that they tell us the judge wants to see, but of course when you are trying to get it, there is no cooperation, we sat him in the chair and Jerry sat in front of him and I on the side to take the picture. Jerry would try to hold him there and he would lung smiling and giggling at him, as fast as you could set him in the chair. His newest nickname has become Little Grasshopper! We will try for the profile shot tomorrow! :) They do not sell snacks for babies over here like we have at home, so I may have to ration out these puffs, so we can make it home. Aliya said they give the babies, cookies… interesting. (I looked at the store tonight and did find some baby cookies, but that was it for snacks!) We did our normal playing routine and then the time was up!!! Aliya gave the caregivers Alex’s book to answer questions in and tomorrow she will ask them to all write letters in the book to him. Woohoo!!! We should be able to get him full time in a little over a week from today, we think!!!!!

We came home, dropped off our stuff and went to have dinner at our favorite Pizza place, MacJohn’s! :) We picked up a few coconut puffs and came home to sit in bed, under the blankets and journal! It is getting colder here every day, I think!!! Today Aliya and Olga asked if we were cold in the apartment, we had to tell them yes, so tonight Olga brought over a portable heater for us to use! They keep telling us that if we need something we need to tell them, like hot water and heat, I guess. It really is no big deal to us, good grief, we are in Kazakhstan getting our baby after all, but they want to make sure we are taken good care of. We are. Life is good and we get to go to sleep early tonight as soon as I can post this!!