February 21, 2010

We woke up to a snowy gray day. Although it is Sunday, the streets are filed with people walking and children playing.  Most people are off today; even the baby house is quiet. We all slept late-8.30 am. It is going to be hard to get back in to the early mornings once back home, ugh.

After a quick breakfast of eggs and coffee, we made our way downstairs to meet Victoria and our taxi driver. Both are always there on time. We exchange our good mornings with the driver - he in English me in Kazak; we will miss this next week. We got stuck in a little traffic, so when we arrived at the baby house Ollie was sitting on the care givers lap waiting for us to come and me to feed him breakfast. When he saw us through the door his started to kick his little legs, so happy to see us. As usual he ate really well and drank all the pumpkin juice with very little mess!!

Sunday is a big cleaning day. All the net curtains were down, windows were being cleaned, rugs hung outside, and all pieces of furniture moved. The baby house is one of the cleanest places I have ever seen, no dust or cobwebs anywhere. Yes it is very old, but has a wonderful feeling of love when you walk through the doors. You are also greeted by all kinds of cooking smells, sometimes it is cabbage or potatoes, and in the late afternoon it is always fresh bread. These smells are all going to be memories for me.

Once Ollie has finished his breakfast we all head up to the play room. Today he sat for the longest time looking and smiling at himself in the mirror. At one point he was kissing his reflection, so cute. We found a few new toys and they held his attention for a while. We are going to leave some toys here for other bonding parents because after 3 weeks the toys are getting boring, so some one else can use them. We had thought of just leaving them in his group, but they have a lot of toys in the cabinet that they do not use, so at least in the playroom, someone will use them.

Today we took a drive to the other side of the city to visit a war park. It was filed with trucks and tanks used in WWII; all very interesting. We took lots of pictures and as we were leaving, a group of children from the children's house arrived (the older kids baby house). It was sad to see them all playing, knowing they all live together without a family to love them right now. It’s hard to not want to take them all home; they were trying to talk to Isabel.

We again went to the bakery for lunch. Everything there is always so fresh and good. I am sure they use trans fat here, but what the heck, they taste so good. Before we knew it we had to leave again for the baby house. Today is flying by. When we arrived all the babies were still sleeping except Mr. Ollie; he was waiting for his lunch. A Sunday roast meat, potatoes and veggies; very English. All he was missing was the Yorkshire pudding!!!!. Today he was not very hungry and it took a little longer to feed him. He was looking at everybody else’s lunch even though it was the same as his. As usual he was very thirsty and drank all his rose hip tea. It looked more like pink lemonade than tea, but he loved it. Now play time, we found a large green plastic donkey which he was able to sit on. Isabel was patting it's head. Ollie for some reason, known only to him, found this so funny he could not stop laughing. He laughed so hard he ended up getting hiccups, poor boy. We again lost track of the time. When Oliver is well rested he loves to just play. It is amazing how much he has changed in the last two and a half weeks. We can not imagine leaving him, but know he will be well cared for until my return. It just seems sad for him to have had us everyday for almost 4 hours a day to nothing until I am able to return to pick him up. We wonder if he will look for us each day. In some ways we hope so, and in another we don't. Son enough he will be with us full time.

After our visit, Victoria took us to the forest. They have some really beautiful fir trees, some of the biggest we have seen. They are in a protected forest, and with the snow, it was so peaceful to walk around. All we could see were snow and trees for miles. After this I had wanted to get a Kaz flag for Ollie's room. We found a nice size one that we are able to frame. We are now back at the hotel watching a little Russian TV before going to dinner, so until tomorrow, we miss you all. See you next week, Paka Paka

The Vigale Family

Adoption Journey to Kazakhstan

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I love my brother

A WWII Tank

Riding my 1st donkey

Looking cold in the forest