This is Zahri and Ilyan; Ilyan is the son of Davy and Evy our Belguim friends. Isn't he just a peanut!
I am writing this blog post on January 10th hoping that I soon will be able to actually post it to my blog. It has been so frustrating not being able to post; thank you to all of you that were able to email me personally to see that we were okay, and I am sorry to those of you that didn’t have my email but were worried that I wasn’t obsessing over my daily entries thus was I okay? All is great here! I am loving Zahri more and more each day and she too thinks that I am amazing. Hahaha Two days ago I bought Z some new booties, of course they just had to have fur on them as she is a Kazak beauty and fur comes with the culture, and she loves these new booties. I am finding that Z loves texture, so she will spend much time just feeling the traction on the bottom of her booties and playing with the thread that attaches the sole of the bootie to the top part.
TIP – Bring Board & Soft Books that have texture in them. There are books with fur, scales on fish, shoelaces, etc. the kids would love those! I of course only brought one with texture on the front, it is the ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ and Z loves to just pet the front cover as it is fuzzy. I have looked for texture books everywhere here and no luck, they just don’t have them here. I even asked Aina, my translator, and she said that she doesn’t know of anywhere that has them either. Ugh!
When I got to the baby house this morning, there was Russian family in the play room loving on their daughter. They are adopting a little Russian girl, she was such a beauty, probably no older than 6 months. When I arrived, they soon left and then Z was brought it to play. Up to this point, I haven’t met or seen any other adoptive families (outside our play group) in the orphanage, so this prompted me to ask Aina about local adoptions. She let me know that the locals here in Kazakhstan can adopt an infant, this is why the babies are only available for international adoptions after the age of 6 months, the local government prefers to see their children adopted locally if possible. It sounds like more girls are adopted locally as well, however, Bayana had mentioned that little boys are often adopted as well, just not as much. I guess that it is tradition here in Kazakhstan for the youngest boy to always live with his parents, he never moves out, not even when he is married, his role is to take care of his parents. Needless to say, boys are very valued here for this reason. Then I had a freak out moment, and I asked Aina if a local couple now visited the orphanage, could they choose to adopt Zahri? I guess I never thought about this, I knew that once I started bonding with Z, she wouldn’t be introduced to other international adopting families, but what about local families? Aina reassured me that once we started bonding, she was no longer available for adoption to any family. Fewweee! I mean, at this point, she does have that happy twinkle in her eye, she is more mobile, she is cooing, she is cleaner and her nose is better, her vision has really strengthened and not to mention all of those adorable clothes, hats and boots that I have her dressed in now, she is a doll. What if I just bonded with her, gave her the love she needed to blossom, and then ‘Walla’ another family saw what an amazing child she was and they wanted to snatch her up? I would have absolutely been heartbroken. That isn’t even a good enough word, devastated? Still not even the word to describe just how empty and lost I would have felt, but no worries, this is not the case. This little beauty is set to be my daughter thank heavens!
Okay, back to those new booties, with the help of the support and the traction on the bottom of the booties, Z learned yesterday that she can move herself around the playroom in the rolling walker. Yahoo! This is a new trick! I used to push her around and she just played with the attached toys on the tray of the walker, but now she is mobile! And today she was moving herself forward in the walker. She is so smart! Yes, that is my daughter! I taught her all that I know, that is why she is brilliant you know.
Today when Zahri’s caregiver came to get her, she was so lovey with Z, which is fairly normal with this specific caregiver and one other, and she said, “She gets more and more beautiful each day now that she found her mom!” What a great compliment! It is true too, her eyes are so much happier, her skin is softer, her clothes are cleaner, she is interacting more & she is starting to coo and find her voice more. She is just a beauty! Her caregiver was beaming when telling this to Aina, it was so wonderful to hear. She also told a story of this past week when we were not able to visit, she mentioned that Z started crying after breakfast because I was not there. This tends to happen every time I am not able to visit due to holidays and such, but this time Z quit crying for just a bit, until one of the caregivers from another baby room came in and this caregiver had glasses just like me. Zahri’s caregiver swears that she thought that other lady was me, and when she didn’t take Z, Z started crying again. Although this is heart breaking to me, it warms my heart too, just to know that she is recognizing me and our time together is a wonderful thing.
TIPS – If you haven’t yet bought a coat for your time here, and you plan to travel in the winter months, buy a long coat (one that covers your thighs and butt), and buy one with a hood. I am so thankful that I bought a warm coat with a great hood, but I wish that I would have bought a longer coat; yesterday my thighs and butt nearly froze off, I do have some to spare so it wasn’t all that terrible of a thing, but I don’t want my whole butt to fall off. Hehe
TIPS – Laurie has had great luck with her apartment. She is on the main floor of an apt building that is attached to the Hotel Dastan, so she is able to walk over to the Hotel for lunch and breakfast no problem. The parking lot between the Hotel and Apt. is well lit and there is a security house that is manned 24/7, so it is a great location. I had asked Bayana why they tend to recommend their clients stay in Hotels versus Apts and she said that the water and heat are just so unpredictable in the apartments and their families often have times when they may be w/out water or heat for a bit of time. She mentioned that a building could be without water for days while the pipes are worked on. Yikes! I guess that life in an apartment is much more reliable in the winter months, as there is no construction happening on the water lines (the ground is frozen so construction stops for a couple months just like in the States), but come Spring, Summer and Fall you just never know what you will get. Just a thought! If you are traveling in the Winter, an apartment might be a great bet! Although, I like my little dormitory hotel room just fine.
INTERESTING KAZ TIDBIT – Girls here live with their families until they are married, which is hopefully by the time they are 25. If you have not been married by 25 your family gets very concerned and your likelihood of finding a man decreases drastically. Although it is not legal here to have multiple wives, it is a custom of their religion so their religion views it as acceptable. There are men that have 2 and 3 wives, and it sounds like they are trying to change the law now to make it legal to marry several wives. The Church does recognize the marriage of a 2nd and 3rd wife, just the law does not, so you can still get married in the church (Mosque) 2 and 3 times to additional women. But women cannot marry 2 and 3 men. Imagine that! Sheesh! Double standard I do say! Arranged marriages were also much more common up until about 8 years ago, and now they are not so common.
This is my daughter, the typical slobbery, spitting up of much juice girl that I hope to offically be mine in the next couple weeks.
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