Saturday, 4/21/07

Bonding Day #4

Today, we were picked up around 9:45 to go see Az. His group was outside helping the caretakers “spring clean” the streets and grounds of the baby house. Tanya our interpreter said that everyone in Kazakhstan is supposed to help clean the streets on this day. This goes back to the days of Lenin, who established day for all citizens to participate in spring cleaning of the city. During our ride to the baby house this morning, we did see people everywhere cleaning the streets and parks. Might not be a bad idea!

Back to our visit. The caretakers brought Az to us all bundled in his 14 layers and we decided to stay outside and give Az some practice walking. He did very well in his blue sneakers. He did have to stop and rest a couple of times. It was kind of cute. He would squat down and bent forward touching the concrete with his hands. I guess you had to see it. After our walk we went inside to play. We had to take off 12 layers of clothing (3 pairs of socks) just so he wouldn’t sweat to death. He decided to play with the legos, stacking them as high as possible, knocking them down, and then slinging them off the table. Thinking this was funny, he did this over and over again. It was dangerous if you were sitting around him. You had to keep ducking from getting hit in the eye.

The next toy he played with was the trucks. He is getting better everyday with pushing them to David. Also, Az likes to throw them instead of pushing them. I guess we have a ball player in the makings. He does not have much aim but there is some force there. He noticed some larger vehicles behind us and wandered over to check those out. He chose one that he could get on. We helped him on and his legs are just long enough where he can push himself forward and backward on this jeep. We did that for a while, just pushing him back and forth. Tanya said it was time to take him back to the room for his next scheduled item.

So when it came time to clean up and put everything away he got his temper out again. Amy picked him up to measure his feet and I started putting everything away. He did the typical bowing thing and flinging his head backward, typical of any kid that doesn’t want to stop playing. Once we got him calmed down we took him upstairs and said goodbye until Monday.

This day is a little different because we have a party to go to this afternoon. Normally we would get something to eat and watch movies until we passed out around 10:00, but not today. We got home and ate some soup and journeyed off to pick up some supplies for the party. We were in charge of drinks and we had to buy Tanya something for her birthday. We went to the first shop closest to us and they did not have exactly what we wanted so we went to the other one. The other one has more choices of candy and anything else we could pickup. I got a Coke and a Sprite for the drinks and Amy picked out a nice box of candy. With that accomplished we set off for home.

Amy got the presents ready for the party and we set off for Kevin and Trinia’s apartment. It only took us about 5 minutes to get there. Some of you probably don’t know this or have never realized this but it is a curse that afflicts some of us Halls. We always have to be early. The party was to start at 3:00 and we were looking at the building at about 2:45, so not wanting to be the first to show up we decided to sit on a bench in the courtyard, which was really nice. So we waited for about 10 minutes and then went upstairs to the party. As always we were the first to arrive. Being the first to arrive we were thrown into decorating duties. No big deal something to do to pass the time. Plus it gave us a chance to meet Kevin and talk with them for a little while. They are the couple from Switzerland (originally from NY) who adopted the 2 siblings. By the time Tanya arrived the house was packed. Everyone showed up including Tanya’s boyfriend Illiya, Svetlana and her daughter Masha, Grove and Jenny, Sergei, and of course Kevin, Trinia, Masha, and Igor. The food was great, the normal suck up food and Trinia had bought 2 cakes from Krindles pastry shop which were delicious. We ate so much that we didn’t eat dinner. We made it home around 6pm and fell back into the normal routine of watching movies until we passed out.

Hope to have internet in the apartment by Monday and have pictures posted during the week.

Paka from Pavlodar
Love David and Amy