Heat wave

Well, it’s a heat wave in Ust-Kamenogorsk with temperatures soaring into the upper 40s. All the pretty snow has given way to ugly, muddy, slushy puddles of brown with only patches of snow and ice in areas that get no sun. The only large areas of white are on the hills and small mountains. Sometimes, on our way to the baby house, we pass by a hill and see a herd of horses grazing—they look wild but Bulat says they are not. I’m not sure though because the land they are on isn’t fenced in.

Our morning visit was nice and Liam seems to be feeling and looking better. In fact, he was in a playpen when Steve walked in and he started bouncing and smiling as soon as he saw Steve. The caregivers were a little busy and they did not go get him right away and he started fussing because he wanted dada. He smiled a lot more today and enjoyed motoring around in the excersaucer part of the time. Aidan was energetic as we pulled him out of gymnastics type of class where they had tumbling mats and small jungle gym type items.

Our visit was cut short when Anya came in and told us it was time to go to file our court papers right them. So we had to pack up our things, send the boys back to their groups and drive to the other side of town to the courthouse. The building is a typical Soviet era style—sterile and official looking. We met Albina at the entrance and climbed several flights of stairs to a small office where we were asked to sit. Our coordinator gave a large packet of documents to a lady at the desk who may be one of the judge’s clerks. Together, they went over everything page by page, talking in Russia and never directly acknowledging us. Then we were told we could leave. And, that was that—quick and unceremonious—our paperwork was filed and we still wait for a court date and are still unable to book a return flight. We were told we’d be called this evening to let us know when our court date will be but it is now almost 10pm as I write this. So yet another day in the dark. And, we finished the last season of 24, what will we do?

We went to one of the three places here that have “pizza” in the name, where we do not have pizza. As we’ve mentioned before, the food here is really good and well prepared, but after almost 4 weeks of it I am craving pizza and burgers. Steve woke up feeling run down and a bit ill today, too, so we came back to the apartment for our break between visits.

3:00 came around and we went for the afternoon visit. I went to get Aidan and Steve went to get settled in with Liam. When I got to Aidan’s room he was almost ready to go—darn, I missed the garshok moment! He seemed very happy to see me and took my hand to walk to the baby room. Before we even made it inside we knew there was trouble we heard some really loud crying and I recognized it was Liam. We walked in and Steve was holding a very unhappy Liam—he would not be consoled by walking, bouncing, toys, the excersaurcer or anything else that he usually enjoys. He was in fully deployed scream mode. One of the caregivers who was attending to another unhappy baby suggested that Liam may need to be fed. I immediately asked if perhaps one of us could do it and she willingly obliged and Steve was recruited. He put Liam in one of the slots in the feeding table and guess what they gave Steve? A coffee mug with milk/formula! Steve held it up to Liam and he grabbed hold and sucked it down. Poor thing, Steve tried to give him a break but he just wanted to finish off the contents of the mug as quickly as possible. It seemed like it only took seconds and the mug was empty—and he was still crying. Finally, one of the caregivers saved the day by giving him a binky and it was like someone flipped his off switch. He was happy, smiling and mobile the rest of the visit. Aidan was witness to this and seemed a little sensitive to the fact that dada was focusing so much on Liam. We made sure to give plenty of attention to Aidan, too, and I spent a good part of the visit going over the photo book we made for him and pointing out mama and dada, the grandmas (babushka) and grandpas (dyedushka), our house (dom), the nieces, and, of course, the dogs (cabaka). He was looking at it all very intently like he may have a spark of understanding. Lena did tell us that Aidan’s caregivers said that he apparently is displaying a knowledge that he now has a mama and papa to his group and walks around with his chest pushed out and hands behind him as if he is very proud.

We heard that the Wood’s had court today and their translator told us it went well—they were asked some questions, broke for lunch and the judge made the final decision in the afternoon. We heard this all from Lena, their translator since we still have yet to run into them lately. We want to wish them a very heartfelt congratulations.

In other adoption news, we’d like to congratulation our friends, the Levey’s. They went to the Humane Society this weekend and brought home Murray a three-month old Retrieved/Poodle mix.