Day 14: A Horse of Course

Our morning visit with Leah was as usual. Her chest sounds so much better! You can no longer hear her breathe from across the room. They brought her in a pink 3-6 month snowsuit I had brought. She looked adorable but goodness, a snowsuit inside!! We got yelled at by the nanny for Davis not having his slippers on. We hadn’t gotten around to putting them on him yet since we had just arrived. I am so glad we decided to bring them as I think they have earned us brownie points!!

We learned today that Leah use to be in baby room #2 (yes, Alysa she was cribmates with Brady!). They have closed baby room #2 for awhile so she got moved to baby room #1. They call her Ivanova which is her last name. Some where along the line, her name got switched to Katya which is short for Ekaterina.

We asked the nanny how they feed so many babies. She said they sit on a small child’s chair (See pic below) and lay the babies on their lap and shovel food in. They said they play with them to distract them and feed them fast. They said it takes them 5 mins to feed Leah. It takes us 30 mins! I have to admit that Milon is much better at feeding her than I am. He doesn’t even use a rag to wipe her mouth in between spoonfuls! I make quite a mess and I am not sure how much goes in her mouth versus on the floor! I just don’t remember Davis eating like this! He use to eat like a normal baby! She cries, spits it out, turns her head, doesn’t swallow! One nanny did say she was a poor eater so I know I am not too far off!
I got yelled at this morning for not wearing a hat and gloves by the security guard! I usually wear one but my hair was up in a bun and my hat doesn’t fit very well with a big clip in my hair. We were only walking to the street to get picked up by the driver anyway, but I don’t think she knew that. It was freezing cold today. Negative 13 to be exact! Milon said his nose was running in the grocery store and felt on the walk home it froze solid. I am in trouble because I like to sleep with our window open! It is government regulated heat and is so hot in the apt we usually have a window open. In the middle of the night it gets even hotter but Milon says he freezes all night. Tonight I guess I will have to be hot.

Today we went to a restaurant to try the Beshbarmak. Thanks for the tip on the Restaurant Regina. Ainura, our translator came and ordered for us and then she had to go back to work. Ainura ordered chicken and vegetables for Davis which he liked, Beshbarmak for us and Baursak which were basically fried donughts. They were delicious….almost like a dessert, but they serve them as an appetizer. The Beshbarmak (made with horsemeat, potatoes, onion, noodles) was very good but I am not use to so much fat on meat. What I learned after the fact is that the Beshbarmak was made with horsemeat. It was actually quite good I must say. The joke was on me because no one let on it was horse until later at the bonding session. Ainura was very nice and asked for the bill early because she said they sometimes rip off unsuspecting tourists. No, those were actually my words, but that is why she asked for the bill early!! We plan on having a family party and making a Kazakh/Russian type meal every year on her gotcha day (in adoption, this is the day we gain custody!). We are thinking of making Beshbarmak as the meal. Ainura is getting her mothers recipe for us! She is also getting other traditional recipes for us to have along with it. We figured this was a way to preserve a little bit of her culture.

The Beshbarmak

Baursak

Chicken with Vegetables
Here are some pictures of Aktobe. The first one is a picture of our apartment building.

Front door of our apartment. Security Guard sits in room on right

Small grocery store beneath our apartment

View of the stadium outside our window

Tree decorated for the holiday outside the bank

Mosque Mall

Street we walk on to go to the grocery store and mall

Grocery Store
We have a busy next few days. We still have to get our HIV tests done, print pictures and put together our bonding collage, get some souvenirs, and pack.

Leaving is bittersweet. I am glad to be getting back home, but will miss Leah. I am still not allowing myself to feel like she is ours until we get custody of her. Plus, it is hard to really bond with a child when we always have our interpreter in the room, we can’t play with her on the floor, she can hardly move she has so many clothes on, and we can’t feed her food she likes. Now, they do not want us to rock her to sleep because she keeps the other babies up at naptime. I will miss seeing the big changes in her in just the 4 hours a day we spend with her. Here is a picture of her standing up with a chair. She actually held herself up for a little. To think her legs when we met her were like jello!

I know 5 weeks will go by very quickly and then we will be back to get her. I do have a lot to do between trips. We are leaning towards making one long trip for 6 weeks. Milon can’t stay the entire time so he will just come for 2 weeks. Davis and I will stay for 1 week by ourselves, and then my mom will come for the last 3 weeks once I have custody of Leah. I am not brave enough to take the 2 of them to the grocery store let alone a 15 hour airplane ride! This seems to be what works best for each individual. Davis won’t be without parents for 6 weeks, Leah will have time to readjust to us before being taken away from all she knows, Milon can work, I can limit flying on airplanes since it’s not my favorite thing to do and my mom, well….sorry mom :>!