12 Days & Counting

My Mom called last night which was awesome! The funny thing is, they brought the phone to us downstairs. :) I guess when it rang into our room and we didn’t pick up they decided we might be in the restaurant. So, we talked to my mom at dinner. Yeah, it’s a small establishment.

Patrick is sick. He doesn’t act like it – he still laughed and talked and played. But his eyes and nose are runny. It’s clear but constant, no fever. When we arrived this morning, the baby house doctor was in his room and before they would let me hold him, they did this awful treatment. I don’t know what it was but Patrick hated it!! They held up this blow-dryer looking thing and then this bright, yellowy light was shined on his nose and face for a certain amount of time (not sure how much). The poor kid practically jumped into my arms after that. He is a typical kid in that he doesn’t like to have his nose wiped by anyone! Please pray he gets better. I hesitate to take anything in to treat him with since I have no idea what they are giving him (he also smelled like menthol). Patrick has discovered the popper – they have an old, gross one at the baby house and he loves it. He wants me to hold and cuddle him but not without this popper attached to his arm. He is so good at walking and balancing himself. He definitely wanted to stay with us today which we take as a very good sign. :)

We had quite the adventure this afternoon. We asked our driver, Vadim (pronounced Va-deem), to take us to the Atrium and then we would walk back to our hotel. We then headed past the Atrium to this huge outdoor market (kind of like a flea market meets green market). We walked around for about 1 ½ hours and bought a few things. We found some cucumbers and kiwi which we were really happy about. They don’t eat much green around here except parsley – yuck! The whole experience was quite fun except for one building. It was the meat market and it smelled so bad and everything looked so disgusting, I thought I was going to throw up! There were just tables and tables of cuts of all kinds of meat. There were huge pieces hanging and nothing refrigerated – no air conditioning even. Makes you not want to eat meat here at all but you know, as long I don’t have to look at it and smell it… We haven’t had any trouble eating it so far! We took a “new” route home and we probably won’t repeat it. It was a little scary but not too bad. We stopped at another store to buy a loaf of bread and some butter for a total of 65 tenge (the exchange rate is 125.5 tenge/ $1) – so that was pretty cheap.

Calvin also was not feeling the best today. He was very hot though I don’t think he had fever. He was definitely Daddy’s little boy today. He had a great time looking out the window and flying around the room. He was so thirsty! He was a bit more cuddly than some days but definitely was mad a few times – we have yet to see actual tears. What a cutie – he loved Daddy’s watch and thought it was a great game to put it on his wrist and let it fall and to pull it off Daddy’s wrist. He devoured his snack and was furious when it was gone. We took it in a Ziploc today so when it was empty, there was no more! He rode the rocking horse again and liked that. He also wanted to stay with us and was not at all interested in going back to the caregiver. We can’t wait to have the boys with us full time. Each day without them is harder than the last.

Tonight was lots of fun! We met the 4 & 6 year old boys that our friends adopted. What sweet, active, cute kids! I sat next to the 6 yr. old and he kept me entertained. :) They are absolutely beautiful and have delightful personalities! They practiced some English but do a great job of communicating overall. We are so glad to have the other families here. It’s always good to see another one successfully complete their adoption.

Oh, we learned that the light used to treat colds is warm and is supposed to help dry up the sinuses. Hmmm….

Also, boiled buckwheat is not very good.