American girl

Another girl in Lera's room, Sasha (soon to be Sarah) is being adopted by Cecile, who is from Montpelier, France. She speaks very little English.... so I have really enjoyed practicing my French with her! And, she can understand me, which is a bonus.

Russ brought this hat, which Lera really liked. When Lera put it on, Cecile said, "She looks like American girl!"

Our apartment

Want to share a few pix of our apartment, which isn't much to look at from the outside - but is nice inside and we are enjoying it.

Our living room, looking into the kitchen

The bedroom, which opens to a little sunroom (aka my vanity...and laundry drying room)









Bathroom (and laundry room)

Day Five - Bubbles, Blankets and Babies

Today was a good day at the baby house, in large part because we learned so much. In addition to our very informative and encouraging appointment with the doctor, we learned a few other key facts:

* In Kazakh baby houses, letting a kid play on the floor without a blanket is a no-no. We were chastised in “the big room” when a caregiver happened by while Lera was upset, lying quietly on her back (that is her mad thing). Yeah right… try keeping a 2 year old on a blanket!

* Bubbles can solve any problem in a child’s world. Lera had fun during most of our visit, but we are learning that she really does not like being told “nyet!” (The caregivers tell us she is a very obedient girl, so she rarely gets the “nyet.” However we have her in a big room with hallways and curtains and other babies to check out.. so it seems to come up a bit during our visits!) Anticipating this, we brought in our heavy artillery today - bubbles. She went from mad to glad in seconds!
* Baby doll hats do not fit Russ. It has been fun to see how far he will go to get a grin or a chuckle from Lera, and she rewards him in spades. From goofy faces to silly dances, putting pants on his head or trying on doll hats - she thinks he’s the best darn toy ever!!

* Valeria really wants a family, and while she does not know what to do in this situation, she is trying hard. She only cried a few times today, but after hearing it, one of the caregivers basically told her “If you don’t want these people for your MamaPapa, there are other kids here who would be happy to have them for MamaPapa. You need to be a good girl for them.” She changed her attitude and actions immediately, and it was moving to see.

A few pix - including our interpreter, Oxana. And - a picture Dad took of Aidan and Kristin during our Skype session! A & K, we really miss you and love you.

Pockets - what a concept

We have been bringing snacks to the baby house, as we've heard 'bribery' is a good trick. However, Valeria hasn't eaten anything we've given her - Cheerios, Goldfish, even M&M's! She does find them interesting and likes to carry them around. We have since learned that she eats 5x per day, so just might not be hungry! The other day on the playground, she wanted to keep a few Goldfish and play too. She quickly discovered the pockets on the little jacket we brought her, and kept them there. She literally checked the pockets about every 15 seconds for the rest of our time outside, to make sure they were still there!

We had a great meeting with the baby house doctor today - it is clear the kids have such good care here. A few highlights -

* No real health issues: she is gaining weight and has had all vaccinations, on schedule, her whole life.

* She has some 'psycho-motor delays' and speech delays, as expected and common for orphanage kids. She sees a speech therapist every day (we think that is pretty amazing).

* We were impressed that the doctor knows Valeria as a person, and seems to genuinely care for all of the kids. She said, "I want to tell you she is a good girl, very obedient and smart. She is able to love and love back."

Hey, what happened to spring?

It was so beautiful yesterday, and today while we had our visit at the baby house it actually snowed!! Just flurries, but in May it's a little tough to take. I will not win adoptive mother of the year admitting this, but we were pleased to have just one visit today (normal for Sunday) - so we could do some touristing this afternoon. We had lunch with our 'travel partners' at Johnnie Walker's Pub and then took a long, meandering walk home with a bit of shopping along the way. It was a fun day.

Our past few visits with Valeria have been good, and we've now officially passed the acting-angelic-for-these-funny-talking-big-people stage. She has been so sweet and perfectly behaved until today, when after a few minutes of chasing and having fun, her demeanor turned 180 degrees. She needed her space, as Russ said...or, was just tired of all of the attention. She lay down on the floor, wouldn't make eye contact and sighed disgustedly a few times. Oxana said this is normal 'testing' behavior at this point - to see if we'll enforce boundaries, and/or to see if we'll stick around if she's 'bad.' Or - she just wanted to go outside, and was annoyed that we wouldn't let her! Who knows. We ignored her and played together, as Oxana suggested, which worked like a charm. Before too long she crept over with a timid smile that melted our hearts, and climbed up into my lap. Can you imagine what this must be like for her?

Oh and last night, we had one of the highlights of our week (other than meeting our new little girl): finally getting the Skype to work so we could see Aidan, Kristin, Mom & Dad. (Well...we actually only saw Mom's robe on the screen...) It was literally physically replenishing to lay eyes on them, and to talk with them and hear about their week. Why Skype is free I do not understand, it was priceless to us last night!

Here is a cute photo of Russ showing Lera the snow outside, followed by a few pix of the city.

The first is City Mall, with the Circus building in the background. Our apartment is near here, so these are our 'stomping grounds' for the month.

This is our neighborhood, which we are told is where the professionals live! From all the BMW & Lexus cars, we think it's true. Note the pipes, which are everywhere -are for water and the city-wide steam heat.

This is the Karaganda Cafe, which has free wifi that has been our main connection to home these past few days.

This is Russ at a statue of the millionth ton of coal that Karaganda gave to the world (I think that is the right amount?) He drew a few stares with this pose...but heck, we don't know anyone here anyway!

A day on the playground

We are enjoying some of the first nice days of spring here...it is just perfect weather. We spent much of both visits on the playground around the baby house. We went outside with all of the kids from her "gruppe" (her group of 12, 2 year olds). They were all bundled up in winter clothes even though it was about 70 degrees out (as is customary here, don't ask us why!).



It was fun to see Lera interact with the other kids - they all seem to get along and love their caregivers. They are so cute, and were especially interested in Russ (they don't get to spend much time with men). He taught them how to do "high fives" and was a big hit.



We had a bit of excitement when Lera made it clear she had to go "pee pee" (with no diaper on at the time!). I ran her in the house, changed into my slippers (no shoes allowed inside), quickly went up to her room to find the door locked. Back downstairs, found the adults' bathroom - and she made it!! She did not like the unfamiliar, too-big-for-her potty, and cried a little - it was only the 2nd time I saw her cry. But with my praise "maladyets!" (good girl) she was very proud. We went outside and all the caregivers made a big fuss over her too.

To answer a couple of the questions we've gotten - Valeria is pronounced Wa-LEHR-yia. Our visits are 10am-noon and 4-6pm, a schedule we really like because we can have a leisurely lunch at the wifi cafe and do email / blog posts and catch a nap (until this jet lag thing subsides...).

What a difference a day makes

We had our 2nd day of visits with Valeria, the pace was a bit slower and the weather was sunny and nice - so we ended the day in a much more relaxed state than the day before! We briefly met with the doctor, who answered our questions and clearly knows Valeria very well. We were a little concerned that she didn’t say any words our first day, but the doctor confirmed that Valeria is on pace with the other kids her age, comprehends everything and has begun to say a few words. During the afternoon, we were happy to hear her say a few words like “opallah” (it fell) and “da” (yes).



We love how happy and easy-going she seems, just thrilled with a bouncy ball, and very adept with the blocks, phone & doll baby. The first we saw her act upset at all was when we started to bundle her up to go outside. Her little lower lip jutted out, she clearly did not want to go outside until the caregivers talked to her. We don’t know what they said, but it did the trick. We all enjoyed the playground and the nice weather.

Another interesting point in the day was a visit to “the specialists” - three doctors who visit twice each year. In the picture here, she was getting her eyes checked. Russ and I were impressed by the 10-12 two year olds who sat patiently in the waiting area - all the kids seem so well behaved here!



One last photo, of Valeria having a snack in her room with her group. Can you guess which one is Valeria? (By the way, they call her "Lera" here, with a rolled R - I think that's cute!)



Thanks to everyone for your blog comments, they are fun to read and it’s great to hear from back home.