An Amazing Day

Irina and Zhanara arrived just before 11 and we all carried all the gifts, cookies, candy and cake downstairs, loaded up the car and headed to the baby house. It was a little different than when Matt left because they knew we were coming to take him home then. This time, we had to wait upstairs for Irina to talk to Dr. Alma (the director) to let her know that we wanted to take Hope that day. We brought the group gift upstairs and gave it to Gulzada, one of Hope's caretakers. She's been a great source if information since we've been there and is very motherly with the children. I'm glad she was working today because we really like her a lot. We also started to have Hope change into the clothes we brought for her. She'd been wearing 2 outfits we brought for her, but I had saved one for coming home, plus she had to get out of the orphanage undies and tights. She seemed quite pleased with her new tights and since her sweater was green, I bought a green scrunchie and hair clip for her. She had been asking for a beautiful green clip and I kept telling her, "Well, maybe Santa will bring you one" so she looked pleasantly surprised to see the green clip. We said our good-byes upstairs without any tears and she seemed ready to go. Then again, we thought, to her this might just seem like any other visit to the apartment.

Before we left the 2nd floor, we made one last trip by Matt's old group to see which caretakers where there and say a last "Do svidaniya and paka". They are always so happy to see Matt, but he is, at best, disinterested in seeing them. It's strange because this is a kid that usually loves to see anybody. Today he was ready for his nap so he only wanted Mommy or Daddy to hold him and started to cry within a few seconds of being held.

We headed back downstairs to give the gifts to the doctors, but they were all at a meeting except Matt's old doc who must have been left behind as the duty doctor. It was decided that we should give the gifts to the doctors in person so we left the cake, but will return at another time to bring the gifts. While we were discussing the doctors' absence and waiting to see Dr. Alma, a nurse that Hope is very close to, calls Mama, and has known since her first day in the orphanage came in. We were happy to see her because they had her in another room for a while and I thought was going to make her cry, but as it turned out, she had promised Hope a watch when she left and Hope wanted to know where it was. Well, OK then. Never promise kids something because they ALWAYS remember. She wants to give Hope her watch and also has a picture of her when she was little that she wants to give us soriginally said that she wasn't there. She found out Hope was leaving and gave her lots of hugs, sat witho we have another reason to return to the baby house for a visit.

It was finally time to see Dr. Alma so the nurse returned Hope to us and off we went. Dr. Alma gave us the email address for the baby house so that we can send pictures and letters. It's very different leaving the baby house with a big kid. I think they see so many babies leave that they're happy they are getting families, but it isn't quite the event with a baby that it is with Hope. EVERYBODY we see there tells us what a good girl she is and how smart she is. We'd have to agree on both counts, at least so far. She definitely has a mischievous streak. We'll see what happens when she feels secure enough to really let that part show! Dr. Alma also wanted to give her a present that she didn't have with her and give us some pictures of Hope, so we will return to the baby house at 10 AM on Friday for a visit.

After saying good-bye we went home and Irina and Zhanara headed out to take care of paperwork for us. The rest of the day passed as usual. Around dinner time Zhanara called to say that Hope needed different pictures for her passport so we dashed out to the photo place to have new pictures taken and then it sounded as if Irina was going to try to take them wherever they needed to go before the government office closed at 8 PM. We will have her adoption decree and birth certificate tomorrow so we will be able to take her out of the apartment with us. We are really looking forward to that! It will still be several days before the rest of the paperwork is finished so the current thinking is that we will not leave for Almaty until the evening of December 25 or morning of December 26.

The big moment finally arrived. Around 8 PM we announced that it was time to put pajamas on and get ready for bed. Much to our surprise, she changed into her pj's with now problem and made Tim happy by choosing the ones he had picked out. I think she picked them because they were pink and said princess on them. He had picked them because the pants are pink and brown camaflouge. We watched The Grinch and then sent them to "bed" (Power Ranger and Disney princess air mattress sleeping bags). We set them both up in the hall because the bedroom is too crowded and we figured Hope is so used to sleeping with other kids and right next to a little boy that we hoped this would make her more comfortable. She happily laid down, we kissed them both good night and after about 45 minutes for fooling around by both of them, they were asleep. It's now 7 AM and all has continued to be quiet here. We're amazed. Yes Tevis, you're right. If we're sure they're going to do something, they are determined to make liars of us!

We're not sure what changed for her because the staff had been talking to her all along about leaving and after the first couple of days was fine going with us, but even one of the caretakers admitted that sleeping here was her psychological barrier. It's funny though, when we were in the car on the way to have her new picture taken, out of the blue, she announced to Zhanara, "Hope Umit doesn't cry anymore". At the time, I thought, "Well, you say that now, but we'll see what happens in a couple of hours." She must have been thinking about it and decided that she was OK with the idea because she didn't just go to bed stoically, she was all smiles. She even decided to test what the boundaries were a bit. She wouldn't get off the bed, but she called me several times as Tim came to tell me. One time she wanted to show me, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, that she had gotten out of the sleeping bad and was on top. Fine with me if that's where you want to sleep. Then she was pointing to her blanket. You want it off? OK, fine with me. It's great to watch her enjoying having some choices. The other funny thing was that both she and Tim thought we were going on the airplane today. (I wish!) Tim remembers bringing Matt home and they have been telling Hope that she is going on an airplane to her house. She's been going around the apartment pointing out all the things we will take on the airplane.

Hopefully we will get out of the apartment tomorrow. We're all looking forward to that!