LIFE with LEXIE

Today is day 11 of Bonding and all is well. It is actually even relatively cool today since I think it's only in the upper 70's with a breeze. I don't have much time today so I'll make it short. We still have our fingers crossed for going to court a week from Today! Of course nothing is firm but that's still what they were saying this morning. I don't think the judge is due back until Thursday so she will be the one to make the final decision but we're still hopeful.

Lexie was full of herself again this morning and made sure I got to share some of her breakfast with her. She doesn't seem to understand that I don't eat from my hair or pants or cheek but she'll learn. She seems to care less about food and more about playing these days. Which I'm sure has something to do with the jar of baby food I feed her in the afternoon with Mom keeps watch. I'd rather not ask since if they told me no then I'd have to stop but if I get catch now then I can just play dumb (I'm pretty good at that) and at least she'll have had extra food up until then. She loves to play with all her interactive toys and as you can see from the pictures she's already reading. Just because the book is upside down doesn't mean she can't read it. It probably looks more like Russian to her that way.

Anyway, we are having fun at our visits and the time in between is bearable. We really didn't expect anything more so we're just fine. I do think Mom has managed to eat all the ice cream in Aktau. Every where we go they are out. She claims it's the only thing that taste like normal. Between ice cream and her oatmeal she won't starve. Take care and more tomorrow.

I did something wrong so I couldn't load the pictures for Day 10 with the writing but hopefully I can do it now. Thank goodness for the cell phone I rented because I just call Zina and then hand the phone to the attendant. As most of you know I'm can break a computer simply by walking into a room so it's good to know some things never change.

DAY 10 of the Bonding Period - I can't believe that I've know Alexis only 10 days. It's hard to understand how a stranger can put a child in your arms and a few days later you truly feel like their Mom. But that's just how I feel. I know I didn't give birth to her but I feel completely responsible for her and am totally in love with her. There is no doubt that she is mine and I can hardly wait to get her home to meet everyone.

Her bites are even better today which makes me feel better about leaving her there but it's not easy. They do their best but two women caring for 12 one year olds just can't give them all the attention they deserve. Soon I'll take Lexie out of there but unfortunately that just makes room for another child. This baby house is much brighter, cleaner and cheerier than I expected. Someone painted a lot of Disney characters on the walls of the halls and the kids play rooms and recently they received donations for all new highchairs in Alexis' room and Rosa said her daughter's room of 3 year olds had all new beds so this new director must really have connections or know how to fund raise.

They do have funny ideas about germs and viruses here though. Lexie has had a runny noise for the last week or so and I was really afraid they would blame us or the fact that I've left her in just her diaper as much as possible and then put her in very cool clothes. But so far they haven't said anything. Then a couple of days ago Lexie thought it would be funny to lick Mommy's face starting with my mouth (we are going to have to work on her social skills) so I've come down with her cold. Zina said it was not that but because I was in the air conditioner too much (in this heat I don't believe that is possible and I might add their version of air conditioners is more like a swap cooler - it never really gets cold but it's better than just leaving the windows open.) Then when I drank water with ice this morning she said I'd get worse not better. So she is going to take me to the pharmacy to get what they use for colds. I figure it can't hurt at this point since I'll still take the Tylenol Cold I brought with me. That is the one thing I think anyone coming over here should bring. Drugs. They simply don't have what we have available to us and I've already had to dip into our little medicine kit several times. Forget the dark clothes, the toilet paper (even though a couple of rolls to start out with would be fine)utensils, a pot for boiling water and babies items like diapers & formula. They have all that here. Just bring drugs, books, DVD's (or do what I did and buy them from ITunes then just download them to an external hard drive so you don't have to use too much space in you suitcases or worry about damaging them) and baby toys. They have some here but they are VERY expensive. A simple rattle which would be about $5 in the US is about $35 here. I'm not kidding. I'm glad we brought what we did but I wish I'd brought more for her to play with. Right now she is very happy with what I have but I'm not sure she will still be entertained with them a month for now. We'll see or I'll break out the VISA and make some Kazakh storekeeper very happy.

On Friday we went to their open market which was really great. It's not actually "open" but a pink stucco building with a tin roof that has some areas open to keep it cooler (I'd say it was only 95 degrees in there so it was much cooler than outside.) There were amazing fruits and veggies and some meat but no horse or dog (I really don't think they eat dog here just horse) but mainly fish. There was this wonderful older woman selling newspapers so I bought one from her and then had Zina ask if I could take her picture. She said DA and after I showed it to her Zina said she asked "who is that woman?" Clearly she hadn't looked in a mirror recently or didn't understand digital cameras. She was really beautiful and when I said Paka paka waving good-bye she blow me a kiss. I'm having the picture developed and I'll give it to her the next time we go. (I didn't put her picture on my zip drive so I'll put them on next time.)

We got a lot of different fruits and some nuts and of course bread and then headed back to the van, I mean Lemo, where Flora was waiting for us. She had bought some camels milk and asked if we wanted to try it as she pulled this jar out of her bag about the size of a pickle jar with what looked like sour milk. Stuff was floating on the top and I just couldn't bring myself to try it. Zina said it tasted like sour milk but it's very good. Maybe before I leave I can get up the nerve but I'm not there yet. I've got to ask the question though. How do you milk a camel?

An update first on our apartment situation. Yes the electricity was working when we got home last night so that was a blessing. The fan we bought yesterday at the mall really helped make sleeping more comfortable even if Zina and ReNot did laughed at me as I loaded it in the van and then carried it up our 66 steps to the apartment. I'll donate it to the Baby House or leave it at apt for the next spoiled Americans that come here. More good news is that our "technical water" is working again so we can flush the toilet without filling up a bucket but our hot water is lukewarm at best. That is just fine with us. We just wish we had Internet at the apartment and then everything would be perfect (relatively speaking!) Tomorrow Zina is going to call the Nusat office again and ask if one of the "guys" could come to my apartment to see if they can figure out why my computer worked fine at the Nursat office but not at the apt. And yes we did try Zina's computer at my apartment using the same phone cord and hers worked great. I don't get it but if anyone has any ideas please email me at louannquast@yahoo.com. That's it for today. Take care and God Bless.

Day 9 of Bonding finds us without electricity or the Internet at the apartment. Now we do have hot and cold running water as of 2 days ago but the toilet doesn't flush unless you fill the tank up with water. We only figured that out yesterday after 48 hours of the toilet not flushing at all. I'm sure I don't need to go into detail about how pleasant it was to come home to that. The landlord finally showed up yesterday morning and told us (through Zina on the phone) that the "technical water" was not working so that is why the tank wasn't filling up. He was going to check with the neighbors to see if their technical water was having problems too and if not he'd send over what I'm going to assume is a plumber or maybe a technical water specialist. Still no word on that but we've actually gotten used to filling up a bucket from the tub after we flush so I'd rather have the Internet working and live with the toilet not flushing. Well actually we need the electricity the most since it will be unbearable tonight if we don't have the AC plus our ice will melt and we won't even have something cold to drink to cool us off. Last night it got so hot that we moved our mattresses out to the living room under the AC unit (it's high up on the wall right below the ceiling) to get as cool as possible. It definitely wasn't cold but it was better than the bedroom with no circulation at all. Lexie is worth it all but I'm going to reminder her how much we "suffered" to get her when she's a teenager and hates me for making her come home at curfew.

Enough about our problems. Yesterday was National Children's Day here in Kazakhstan so Happy Children's Day Cody, Mackenzie, Brooke, Dylyn, Damian and any other kids that are reading along. That meant they didn't want any foreigners to be at the Baby House so I only go to see Alexis in the afternoon. For the first time she was crying when I got there and her nurse said she was crying for most of the morning. She stopped when I picked her up - which of course made me feel great - but poor baby she was covered with bug bites again. I'd be crying too. So we stripped her down when I got her to the music room and wiped her off (I'm not sure if they ever get full baths or just are sponged off) and then let her lay around naked for the 2 hours I had her. I didn't have anything for bug bites for babies but I had Boudour's Butt Paste so I smeared it all over her. After awhile she seemed to relax a little. She was fussy the whole time and never her cheery self. I don't blame her one bit. I'd be fussy too if I had been bitten all over by bugs and had no relief.

This morning she was her old self again which was great. She had more bites on her neck but the rest seemed a little better. I also got to feed her porridge and her bottle again this morning after a little bit of arguing with the weekend staff. She is much stricter - thanks for the warning Stephanie - but she let me after I refused to leave and the other nurse seemed to tell her that I had done it before. It is close to 100 today but we went outside where there was a nice breeze so it must have been only 90 in the shade. Life is good. She is certainly worth all the hassle but I really want to get her out of there. I know she doesn't know anything different yet but I do and it gets harder every day to leave her there. Yesterday we heard that court might be sooner rather than later because the Baby House Director is going out of town on the 15th so she is asking the court to see us on the 12 or 13. That would be amazing since our bonding is done on Thursday the 7th of June and the 12 would be that Monday. Then I could at least bring her to the apartment while we wait for the new birth certificate and Kazakh passport. Say a little prayer that we go to court on the 12th.

I'm going to end for now since it takes so long to upload the pictures and I have a bunch of new ones. Also if I have time I'll be posting some pictures and journals from the first week here. They are very detailed, I just can't help myself, but I want a good record for Alexis when she's old enough to want to know about her birth country. We miss everyone and hope everyone is enjoying there summer as much as we are.

I just finished downloading the pictures and they are a mixed bag. Could she be any cuter in the yellow hat? One is of her eating her first cookie. She didn't do very well as she has no teeth yet but she got messy and had fun. The naked one is yesterday with her bug bites on her tummy after we put on the Butt Paste. Anyway, I'll try to send more tomorrow.

Well day 7 in Aktau and still no Internet at the apartment. Myself, Rosa (the single mom from Spain) and Zina the interpreter all had problems getting on the Internet so we went on Tue to the Nursat office where they said they could get us signed on and working. This was a tiny office with no AC or windows with a desk and one woman to help us out. After about 30-40 minutes (it felt like a couple of hours with us all in there sweating) she got us all set up we thought. We had to rush back to the Baby House for our second visit which was great. When we got to the apt that night I tried to get it to work without any luck. So I waited until morning to call Zina to see if she could help. Well she and Rosa both had no problems getting on but she could not tell me anything on the phone so she'd come by after the visits to see if she could get it working. Of course we had no luck either. So anyway, she will be here in about 15 minutes to take me back to the Nursat office where we will try again. Sorry. I'd like to respond to comments and emails but I simply am not allowed the time until I get it running at the apartment.

But let's talk about Lexie. I hope these pictures get downloaded since all the instructions (and spell check too) are in Russian I just guess until I push the right one. Once I deleted everything but I won't forget that button anytime soon. She has gotten more adorable every day. She's alert and very active. She never wants to sit still since there are so many new things for her to see. They are never taken out of there rooms which consist of a sleeping room with 12 cribs and a changing table in it and a play room with two large cribs and some shelves with toys on it. Every time I've gone to get her and all the babies are either in their cribs or in walkers rolling around on the floor. Two of the babies are severely handicapped so they just lay in the cribs all day. It just breaks your heart but I'm not sure what else they could do for them. About 3 or 4 have what look to be minor things wrong and the other 5 are small and maybe a little bit behind but seem healthy otherwise. Her group is between 10 months and about 15 months I think. Every other day they carry down a couple of the kids put them in a stroller and let them sit under a tree but that is it. They believe that they will catch cold if they are outside without at least two layers on them. That's why Lexie looked so big in those first pictures. She had that long sleeve top and footie bottoms on plus a ones and socks on under it. And of course they must have a hat on when they go outside. Now it's been between 85 and 96 degrees every day so far so I'm not really thinking she'll catch a cold. So far they have been good about letting me take her outside without the layers and only the hat for protection so I've very grateful. I would feel terrible bundling her up for that kind of heat. She has a number of sores on her back and tummy but the doc says it's more or less an allergy to the soap they use. They have allowed me to bring her new clothes every day and take the worn ones home to clean myself. So she is looking better. Overall they have been very accommodating and seem to have the children's best interest at heart. They have a new director that just started a few weeks ago so I think that is why we aren't supervised as much as the other families that were here before us were. Whatever the reason it's great since I basically have her to myself for 4 hours a day. I'm sure she'll be walking on her own before we leave. Today is day 7 of the bonding so we should be done next Thursday June 7. Then they have to get us a court date that could take a week or two. I'm definitely hoping for a week. Then we have another 15 day waiting period until it's final with the court. I can take her to the apartment after that but I've just learned yesterday that we may be here a week or more after that so the new birth certificate and passport can be issued. I can't think that far ahead right now. I'm just going to count down until the bonding period is over.

We still don't have hot water at the apartment which makes 8 days of cold showers. It's actually so hot here that after the initial shock it feels pretty good. Of course we can't drink the water so we buy a lot and boil some for washing dishes etc. It certainly fills your days up just doing the chores. If I can just get the Internet working I'd be satisfied. Which reminds me I have to go so I have time to down load as many pictures as I can. Everyone take care and thanks for everything.