A Fourth Child, a New Cousin and Russian Language Mishaps

Happy Independence Day!

Today is Kazakhstan's 15th Independence Day. The main streets have been thoroughly cleaned and the sidewalks have been cleared of snow and ice down to the pavers. It was blustery and cold today so we didn't go out to explore what might be going on. What we do know is that government workers had a short day on Friday and are off Monday and Tuesday. This translates into our paperwork sitting untouched in several offices for 5 days while we wait ever more impatiently to go home. On the positive side, Mike and I did just see the end of a nice fireworks display on the left bank (new side) of Astana. We're not sure who was out freezing at 11 PM to watch fireworks, but we enjoyed them from the window.

One thing that we hadn’t considered now that we have 2 children that can talk is that we’ve also gotten an additional child – Notme. Poor Notme, we just don’t know what to do with this kid. Since (s)he arrived Notme has done a small drawing on a wall and accidentally written in marker on the back of the sofa behind the cushions. Tim and Hope have each assured us that they didn’t do either of these things, but Tim said that Notme did it and Hope shrugged in agreement. So, until we can catch him/her in the act, we’re keeping a closer eye on Notme.

In addition to Notme, we’ve also seen the arrival of Hope’s alter-ego, Cousin It.




Life with Hope continues to go well. We got her adoption decree and birth certificate Friday afternoon and within an hour we were all out the door! Even though I bought several outfits for Hope before we left home I only brought 3 outfits for her with us, just as for the rest of us. Unfortunately, the baby house can’t find one of them so we headed up to City Market to purchase an outrageously priced outfit because 2 just isn’t enough, especially when you have to line dry everything. After City Market we stopped at a candy store we noticed the other day for some chocolate and something similar to jelly beans. We were all (except Hope) looking forward to pizza so we also went to Neighborhood Café for dinner. Well, we should have listened to Hope when she said she wanted to go home as we were going in. Turns out she had a bit of a stomach bug, which we first thought was just her nervous reaction to going to a restaurant, but as we discovered when we got home she really did have a fever and voluntarily went to bed at 7 PM. After a lot of sleep the next day she was good as new by 6:30 that night. One additional bit of fun that came with the stomach bug was the need for a bath, something she has always professed to hate. She managed like a trooper, but it has further solidified my notion that her hair needs to meet a nice sharp pair of scissors. Hopefully she comes around to this idea by September when she starts real school and we all need to be out of the house early in the morning and she and Tim both have homework at night. Today's pictures are from Hope's first morning in the apartment (in the kitchen and being loved to death by Tim on the sofa).

Since we missed our visit with Dr. Alma at the baby house on Friday because Hope was sick, everyone there new she was ill so today we took her to see the doctor on duty to make everyone feel better. It worked out well because on the way out we ran into her favorite nurse who happened to be returning her wish book to her old group and dropping off her watch, as promised, and some hair doo-dads from so other nurses since she won’t be around when we go back for our last visit some time this week. She seems very devoted and very attached to Hope so it was a bit tearful on her part. Hopefully we will keep in touch with her since she gave us her address and asked if I would mind sending her some letters and pictures. (Carolyn and Igor read this as you have just been volunteered to translate my letters because I don’t think my Russian repertoire of “the boy is under the table”, “it is a new red car” or “the man dances” is what she’s looking for by way of a letter.)

We had been managing OK on my limited Russian. Mainly this means I can order meat successfully at the grocery store and cookies at the bakery so we eat well. It turns out after many trips to the bakery this summer and this winter, the woman who usually waits on me finally corrected me. I never bothered to actually look up how to count in hundreds because I thought I knew how. Apparently I’ve been saying anything over 100 wrong for months and she finally couldn’t take it anymore. Wish she had corrected me a long time ago because I order lots of things in 500 gm quantities. I also had a revelation on the way home from City Market that the reason I was getting funny looks the last couple of days when I’d been looking for pants for Hope is that I kept asking for a glass for a girl 103 cm. The last couple of pictures highlight what can happen when one’s Russian is not up to snuff (and you don’t notice the difference in the picture on the detergent package). During both trips we always used the Ariel detergent in the green package. A couple of days ago Mike bought the one in the blue package which we thought was blue just to highlight the pretty mountains on the package or something. NOT! Turns out there are still a few old washing machines here that are not front loaders. The blue package is for these machines and if you use it in a front loading machine, you suds your kitchen floor when you do the laundry. Fortunately Irina and Zhanara showed up shortly after this incident and Irina explained about the 2 machines. After a couple of tries doing laundry with ever decreasing amounts of soap, but still suds on the floor, we bought more green-bag detergent tonight. I’m sure the kids will be disappointed because they all get quite excited to see the suds coming out of the machine.

To replace the lost entertainment value of the washing machine, tomorrow we are all going to the Chinese circus in the afternoon.