Official Official Official

We are so happy to report that we have made our way through the 15-day appeal period so now we are REALLY Zak's parents (or Max's parents -- still trying to decide on that nickname!) We had no reason to believe that there would be any cause for concern during that 15 days, but we counted down the days none-the-less. It has been extremely weird being home without our main man.

As most people know, we have very little evidence in our home that we have adopted a child. We still don't have a nursery (although we will be scrambling to set it up this weekend) and we have purchased very few things. I've said all along that we were operating in a fog of procrastination, superstition, and paranoia. Most of that fog has lifted, although I suspect we won't really see clearly until we touch down in the US with Zak in our laps.

We have slipped back into our pre-travel routine, which was surprisingly (freakishly so) easy to do. People say to me, "What does it feel like to be a mom?", and my honest answer is "I don't feel like a mom ... yet." I am so ready for that feeling to hit, as I suspect it will when Zak is screaming and crying during his transitional days. My heart aches knowing what he will be going through during those first few days and weeks. We are so sad for him, but we know we have a lifetime of happiness to offer him thereafter and we will do our best to deliver on that promise to him.

Our agency has indicated that we will hear "something" next week regarding our travel back to Ust. We have been following the stories of all of the parents who either immediately preceded us to the region or who arrived at about the same time. We are also so incredibly blessed that Tina, Kristen, and Crystal - who are all on the "one trip plan" -- have been sending us the most amazing updates. We love these women, and we selfishly hope that they are all still in Kaz when we arrive -- but selflessly hope that they make their way home with their children in short-order.

Passports seem to be taking about 10 days to issue, and then there seems to be a 1-3 day window for Zak's Visa to be issued. We have flights on hold to leave on June 11, arriving into Ust on June 13, but our agency has braced us that it could be the week thereafter as well. In the meantime, we wait. As patiently as we can.

After all, we already know what is waiting for us at the end of the rainbow.

We're Home (and we can't wait to go back!) Oh, and pictures!

We are home! We had an easy, quick trip to Almaty Tuesday, and we spent a short night in Amaty at the Hotel Kazzoul. Despite only being in Almaty for about 10 hours, we managed to work in a quick trek to Ciao Pizza, where we ate enought Italian food for three families. Oh how we missed our pasta while in Ust -- especially after Matt teased our taste buds by whipping up a mighty spaghetti meal during one of our visits to their apartment.

We were picked up at the hotel by our driver at 4:30 AM Wednesday, and we started the three-flight journey home. What a difference four weeks makes -- every single step along the way, we kept asking ourselves, "What will this be like in a few weeks with a 18-month-old traveling companion?!" Other than taking forever to clear immigration, customs, and luggage re-check in Detroit, we had a very smooth trip. We are so glad to be home, and although we miss Zak Makseem so terribly, we are still happy with our decision to come home.

My wonderful friends at work had plastered pictures of Zak all over my office, so my first day back at work on Friday was made much easier as I stared at our baby every time I looked up from my computer. Same with our home -- Auntie Mindy and Auntie Weenie (who will kill me for putting that name in this blog -- somehow "Kathleen" has become "Weenie" over the years) had placed framed photos of our little guy on our front porch and inside our home. These little things made it so much easy to re-enter Cincinnati without our main man.

We're still battling jet lag, but we managed to stay awake Friday night for a little welcome-home celebration with our closest friends (I have to mention Shari, since she is feeling left out as she reads this -- ha!). Zak is already loading up on some wonderful clothes and toys, which is good, since his parents are woefully behind in preparing a nursery or a wardrobe. All in good time. :-)

Speaking of which, we have already been told to be back in Ust on June 15 to start our journey home. We are counting down the days, and we are so excited that we will have celebrated both Mothers Day AND Fathers Day in our son's birth place.

I'm sure all of this writing is simply "blah, blah, blah" because at this point, it's really all about the pictures, isn't it?! (And you may have skipped to the photos by now any way!)

I'll plan to add a few more detailed posts over the course of the next few weeks, aimed primarily at sharing information for waiting families (court process, things we are so happy we brought along from home, etc.). We of course will blog actively as we journey back to Kazakhstan in mid-June.

In the meantime, we are thrilled to formally introduce Zakary Makseem.

Born December 12, 2006.
Adopted May 12, 2008.
Home forever -- hopefully June 23!

Day one ... one of our first photos of Zakary Makseem.

Reviewing the music selections for Club BH -- a tough critic!

His first hand-me-down is a designer shirt! Matt and Suz brought this shirt from home, and when it did not fit Andrey, it ended up on Zak. Thank you, cousin Andrey!

The shirt says it all...

This was either an entertaining moment for the caretakers -- or he was catching a cold. Either way, he was extra cute with a touch of dorkiness this day!

Mean parents introducing too much temptation .... these kids are thirsty all of the time, and it's no wonder, given that it is generally at least 80 degrees in the baby house.

I'm smiling, but seriously -- it is 95 degrees, and I am HOT!

And yes, as we know you are wondering ... we DO grab those cheeks and kiss them over and over again. Who could resist??

It's Official!!!

We'll write a more detailed post soon, but just wanted to quickly post that our court hearing is over and the adoption has been granted. Except for the 20 minutes we waited in the courtroom for the hearing to begin (the judge arrived at 10:20) it was practically over before we knew it! The ruling came within 5 minutes after we stepped out of the court room at the end of the proceedings, and during the hearing, the Prosecutor asked us only one question ("You both work, so who will care for Makseem when you get back to America?") It is now noon on Monday in Ust, and we have some running around to do this afternoon before visiting our little guy this afternoon and then packing up tonight.

Zakary Makseem Leggett. Our son.

Pictures will follow soon, we promise!

We will visit Zakary Makseem one more time on Tuesday morning, and then we will fly to Almaty, spend the night, and begin our journey to Cincinnati on Wednesday morning, 7:20 AM Kaz time.

May 28 is our next milestone -- the day after the 15-day appeal period.

More soon! Off to hit the "markets" one more time!!

Love to all, and thank you so much for the support!!!!

Days 17, 18 and 19 -- Club BH is not the same

It’s pretty easy to summarize Day 17 (Wednesday) from my perspective: “The ceiling of the hotel room is white.” I started feeling crappy on Tuesday night, and had a rough night of flu-like symptoms (sore throat, cough, etc.). I immediately flashed back to Jenny’s blog – Roxana’s mom – and recall reading about how the baby house ushered her into a separate "treatment room" when she showed up with the sniffles, and I decided I didn’t want to have THAT as a journal entry. I also did not want to bring more germs into the baby house. So, I stayed in bed all day on Wednesday, and self-medicated myself with an array of over-the-counter meds and antibiotics that we brought from home. Glenn, of course, carried on with visits, and had some great one-on-one time with ZM in my absence. As much I had hoped that ZM would be watching the door throughout the entire visit, wondering when his Mama would walk in, alas, it sounds as if they got along just fine without me!

I really felt better on Thursday, so we headed over for our morning visit. Within minutes, we could tell that our play room mate, ZM’s buddy, was not feeling well at all. Between the two families, we didn’t have a translator between us, but we could tell the caretakers were worried that he had an ear infection. Within about 10 minutes of being there, the doctors arrived, took his temperature, and soon thereafter, he was whisked off to the hospital. We know that they take extra precautions with these children, and if they are required to be on antibiotics, they often check them into the hospital. He was alert as Tina carried him out of the baby house, and we are praying for his quick recovery.

Of course, our morning and afternoon visits in Club BH – as we’ve coined our play room, which is always jamming with IPod Tunes -- were not the same, worrying about our little play mate. We arrived a bit early for our afternoon visit, and the caretakers now really seem to welcome my help as the kids are served their snacks. ZM still needs extra help, so I sat down between him and Anne’s little Timmy, and I played caretaker to the four little guys at my table. (I have to think massive happy thoughts to counteract the gag reflex that kicks in as I’m helping these little guys drink their kefir – what the heck is that stuff, really?!?!) I snuck in A LOT of extra hugs for Timmy, and we hope that his paperwork is well on its way and that he will be off to his new life in LA before long. Anne, I know you're reading this, and we promise you Timmy knows he'll be "home" soon with Brady and you!

We spent the afternoon outside – a gorgeous day in Ust – and we played with stones, bugs, and leaves. I rubbed a soft leaf across ZM’s cheeks, and then he took it from my hand and did the same to my cheeks. He is just too dang cute, and he loves to imitate us.

Thursday evening, we had dinner with Cyrstal at Pizza Blues. It is another holiday in Ust on Friday (I am SOOOOOO sorry, waiting families!), so Thursday evening was super busy as people were starting their long weekend. The line was long to order, and our regular order person just didn’t have the patience for us that she typically does … I’m still not quite sure what I ended up ordering for Glenn, but it looked like a pork chop covered in mayonnaise when it arrived. We split my chicken shaslik, bid farewell to Cyrstal who had laundry to do, and we walked into the town center to meet three sets of adoptive parents for drinks. These friends (S. Africa, Ireland, LA) are all staying in apartments around town, so while we do not see them at The Shiny River, we always make a point of tracking one another down at the baby house for friendship and support. Tina and her friend Kristen, our Club BH mates, were there, so we were so happy to get an update on ZM’s little buddy. He is responding well to the antibiotics, and Tina is hoping to be able to get into the hospital to see him Friday or Saturday.

Interestingly, when we all arrived into Kaz (we arrived one day before these three two-somes), at least one person within each duo was seriously considering staying through the entire time. Now, only Tina and her friend Kristen are staying, and the rest of us are leaving soon after our court dates. It’s really hard to describe how we came to these decisions … it is such a personal decision. To waiting families, I would say, "don't be surprised if you come with one plan, and you decide upon a new plan while you are here." The beauty of it is that you will find support no matter what you decide to do. There is some chance that we will all come back into the country at about the same time to pick up our children. And we look forward to a reunion of sorts if we are fortunate enough to have the opportunity.

When we arrived at the baby house on Friday, the caretakers told us that ZM was feeling a bit under the weather, and that he might want to sleep during our visit. Wow. They actually endorsed him sleeping with us! They encouraged us to take him outside, and we thought he would fall asleep in the stroller. Instead, he was really fussy, so I held him and he fell sound asleep. I plopped myself onto a bench, leaned against a pole, and sat for an hour with a sleeping baby in my lap.

We were primarily in the shade, with just the right amount of sunshine and breeze hitting our faces. Glenn and I talked about how beautiful this country already is, and how beautiful it will grow to be as the Kaz citizens take up even deeper interest in the environment and their surroundings. The baby house is adjacent to several high-rise apartment buildings and a school, all inter-connected by paved walking paths. Because it is a holiday, all around us there were families out for walks, children playing basketball and soccer, and a general feeling of happiness that accompanies what looks to be – finally – the end to a long winter. In the distance, we could see the mountains, which are now green with Spring color. Despite the fact that our little guy wasn’t feeling his best, it was truly an incredible hour, sitting as a family, enjoying a much slower pace than we’ve experienced in years.

We woke our little guy and headed him in for lunch, and then we were whisked off to Air Astana to purchase our in-country tickets from Ust to Almaty. We will leave Ust on Tuesday, after visiting ZM in the morning. It will be incredibly difficult, but we know that Club BH will go on without us, and Tina will keep us posted on ZM’s (and his buddy's) activities.

We then met with our Coordinator, and she reviewed (and edited) our speech. As Karen P. indicated in one of the comments on this blog, in her region (Uralsk), they were unable to write out their speech, and they had to “memorize it” so to speak and hope to remember to hit all key points. And, only her husband, Bob, was asked to speak. Not so in Ust – we are able to write out our speech and read it from our document in court, stopping every few sentences for the translator to deliver the message in Russian. And, we have to each speak for about the same amount of time. We haven’t yet figured out who will talk when, but we will have that sorted out (and rehearsed!) before Monday morning.

We had a great afternoon visit, and ZM was either feeling better or was pepped up on some strong medicine. The hour flew by, which was good, because we had an important mission ahead of us – one that involved heading over to the apartment to give Matt and Suz some respite care! :-)

After a quick stop at the hotel to gather up Crystal, we all hiked on over to the apartment. As Matt and Suz are sharing on their blog, going from short daily visits at two orphanages with a full-time translator to a small apartment with two kids full-time who only speak Russian and no translator help is …. well, at times, it’s been difficult. We were thrilled to play and play and play with the kids for a few hours, giving Matt and Suz time to have dinner together, do some laundry, and just take a few deep breaths. If you haven’t already done so, be sure to send some love out to them via their blog (and keep them in your thoughts if you are not regular blog readers). BTW, there are certain things that need no translation – balloons, tag, whoopee cushions, upside down tosses, Cheerios, and hide and seek. Their children are simply amazing (as are their parents), and we love them already. If nothing else, we hope that we wore the kids out so that everyone gets a good night’s sleep tonight.

On the way home (well after dark – we are getting VERY brave), we stopped on the foot bridge, looked skyward, and caught the end of the Victory Day fireworks show across town. Again, we marvel – we are standing on a foot bridge at 10 PM, over the Irtysh River, in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan (our son’s birthplace), under a moonlit sky, watching an amazing fireworks show. Are you kidding me??? Somebody pinch me.

Days 15 and 16 -- We have a voice, a court date, and some history

Over the last two days, ZM has really found his voice. In fact, we think we now have a preview into just how loud he will be on the plane when it comes time to bring him home. He is really starting to babble, and although nothing resembling any words (that we know of) is emerging from his little mouth, we are so happy to listen to ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba for long periods of time. Music to our ears!

And another piece of big news – and it is big – is that we have a court date for the adoption hearing, now set for Monday, May 12 at 10:00 AM. It is not lost on me that at that moment of time, Mother’s Day will be coming to a close back home. (Dang, if we lived in San Francisco, it would actually still be Mother’s Day back home! HA!) We will have been in the country 22 days as of our court date, and we continue to be so humbled by our good fortune that includes the aggressive, speedy time lines in this region. The sooner we get to court, the sooner we are through the 15 day appeal period, which means the passport and exit paperwork can begin, etc., etc., etc.

In the meantime, Groundhog Day continues, with more daily tweaks.

On Monday morning (our official last day of bonding), we stopped at the court house on the way to the baby house. The coordinator positioned this as “filing your court papers.” How very official sounding. Here’s what it really was: “Peer through this 2 inch by 6 inch window while the person on the other side of the wall looks at you and looks at your passport to make sure you are indeed the person in the photo.” We are certain that our coordinator had more to do in the “filing” department, but our important role lasted two seconds each (giving the clerk a chance to glance our way not once, but twice), and we were on our way to visit ZM.

When we arrived, ZM was all dressed up in the overalls and shirt that we bought him in Ust. He came running over, and although all of his mates were going outside, we selfishly wanted to keep him inside for some one-on-one time. He wasn’t too happy with us at first because he wanted to be with his classmates. We of course want him to prefer us, but we are comforted by how happy he is with his little pals and his caretakers.

ZM fell asleep earlier than usual – and perhaps it’s because he heard the caretakers talking about an important visitor that we only found out about at 11:00 AM when one of the translators stopped in and said, “Clean up now, we want you out of here as a commissioner is about to visit.” This is one of about a gazillion moments in time in Kaz where you have multiple questions that you simply do not ask. Instead, we jiggled our little guy awake and he seemed a little out of sorts. We stripped him down to his regular clothes, and sat him back in the “pit” with his friends (since he still had another 30 minutes until lunch). We were then whisked out of the baby house in a hurry. Ahhhh, the mystery.

As part of our court appearance, we will present a daily journal about our visits with ZM. It is amazingly challenging to make each Groundhog Day sound uniquely different than the prior day. (“Today, he waved at us with his left hand.” “Oooh, today he waved at us with his right hand. How amazing is this child?!”) Each day’s entry is accompanied by the infamous dated photo. So, we headed out at lunch in search of a way to print photographs.

We walked to the center of town, and spun in circles until we saw a Kodak sign. We headed through the doors and found ourselves in a maze-like shopping area of many little kiosk-type shops. We wandered around and came upon a Kodak color print machine just as we would find at home – except of course that everything was in Cyrillic and the photo sizes were in meters. The photo attendant helped us figure out the machine (with no words spoken between any of us -- it's amazing what you can accomplish with alot of pointing, pantomiming, and "uh huhs"). After a few seconds, we had the hang of it, and we were even getting cocky and editing the photos. Our little guy has the prettiest eyes, so we had to be sure to remove any hint of redeye! We printed out the required journal photos and several extras to carry around with us just in case someone stops us on the street and asks to see a picture of the most adorable 16-month-old in Ust. We then wandered around Ust a bit more, enjoying a beautiful sunny day and marveling at the fact that we were strolling through Kazakhstan as if we were strolling through Cincinnati.

We spent our afternoon visit outdoors. We love to get fresh air with our little guy, but to be honest, he’s just not that happy with us when he is outside. We are just about certain that he is a different kid when he is outdoors with his mates and his caretakers. We more or less pushed him to walk a bit by each holding a hand and encouraging steps that he stubbornly turned into dragging feet. These stubborn moments are also accompanied by a high pitched moan. After 30 minutes, we gave up and picked him up, sat on the swing with him, etc. and he was of course all smiles. He’s already figured out how to manipulate us! Most of the other families were also outside, and we were all carrying our kids around and acknowledging that now is not the time to try to push our kids to walk, interact, etc. We’ll all work on those skills when we get home, and we know it will all be fine.

We hoofed it over to the Pancake House and met Matt and Suz for dinner. We already miss them so much, and they have only been gone from The Shiny River for 24 hours! I thought I ordered “thick pancakes” for dinner for both Glenn and me, but when it came, it was more like fried dough balls – like the dough in carnival-style Elephant Ears, but without any powdered sugar. Glenn had sweetened condensed milk as his dipping sauce, and I had jam. So, we basically had doughnuts for dinner. Only in Kaz. :-)

We then walked to the edge of town to see Matt’s and Suz’s apartment. It’s a bit of a walk from the hotel, but we of course are going to make every effort to continue to see them as often as possible.

We had a big day on Tuesday. After a great morning visit (with a really loud child!), we journeyed to the village where ZM was born. It was important to us to see this area, so we had asked well in advance if we could be driven to this village at some point during our stay. It took just under an hour to drive to this area (to be named publicly after the appeal period), although at least 15 minutes of that time was getting out of Ust. Once we passed the airport, it was smooth sailing through the countryside. I would compare the road on which we traveled to what would be a secondary county roadway in the US … two lanes for traffic, very uneven pavement, a gravel berm on either side, and no lines on the road. There was a surprising amount of traffic, and it is truly amazing how aggressive some drivers are with passing other drivers, even with a truck bearing down on them in the incoming lane. On more than one occasion, we watched the passing car win the chicken game as the oncoming car swerved onto the gravel berm to avoid the head on collision. Our driver’s car has seat belts – including in the back seat – and I was strapped in tightly!

The village where ZM was born is a small town of about 50,000 people, with a large zinc plant on the outskirts. It reminded us a bit of the housing and lifestyle of Appalachia. You’d think in a town this small, it would be easy to find the hospital, but it was a challenge. As we were attempting to find it, we came upon this town’s memorial to the Great War (they do not refer to it as WW II). We got out and studied the memorial, checking the names of the local soldiers who were lost in the war to see if any of them had ZM’s surname -- there was no one. We then proceeded to continue to try to find the hospital. We had stopped earlier and asked about it, so someone had pointed it out to us in the distance. We could see it – but we could not figure out how to drive to it! We turned down road after road that would result in a dead end. We finally ended up in what felt like someone’s back yard, and our driver asked a man in the yard, “How do we get to the hospital?” Watching his gestures, we think he was motioning that we had to go quite a bit north of town and make a big U-Turn so to speak to work our way back to the building on another roadway …. or we could just start walking up a path that led out of his back yard and make our way to the building. So, we started walking.

We took a lot of video footage and many, many photographs of the outside of the building – all sides. It looked like a long-ago abandoned factory, and if not for the ambulances that were parked outside (and the neighbor man pointing to it), there is no way we would have ever realized it was the hospital. No sign, no “grand entry”, no cars sitting in a parking lot, nothing. As we were walking up the path, a young woman carrying a baby passed us by, and our driver asked her which floor of the hospital was maternity. She told us, “the first floor.” When we got up to the building, a few of the first floor windows had numbers posted in them …. 1, 2, 3, etc. Our coordinator said that a visitor could come stand outside of the appointed window and the baby would be shown to the outside visitors. It sounded a bit unbelievable to us, but we took photos of the numbers just the same. We didn’t go inside, and to be honest, we didn’t even ask to do so. It felt invasive as it was, and we saw many people (no one on floor one) peeping out the windows at us as we were walking around the building. I did not need to see the inside of the building, and I think there is a decent chance it would have been more upsetting than sentimental to see it. It was a completely surreal experience, knowing that our little boy could just as easily have been growing up in this village … but his birth mother decided for whatever reason to give him an opportunity at another life, and he will now be raised in America.

We also passed a school, with several children playing outdoors during what seemed to be recess. We know that ZM has an older birth sibling, so it occurred to both of us that this child could be on that playground. We can't put into words how odd that feeling is.

We took a lot of pictures of the Main Street, and of the big entrance signs to the village. We totally believe that ZM will come back here one day – if he wants to – to see his birth place in person, and we hope that he will appreciate that we took the time to visit it while we are here. We feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity.

We will post additional news as the next days progress, but we have made the decision to come home between visits, and to both return to Ust to bring ZM home when the paperwork is complete. It is a difficult decision, but we feel we have received many signs that it is the right decision for us.

More soon! We miss everyone, including all of our Blogger friends! It is not always easy to read your blogs, but we are doing so whenever we can get the Internet to cooperate!!!

Days 12, 13 and 14 -- We love those morning naps!

We have settled into a routine for the morning visits, and we have really come to realize how correct Angela was about our little guy ... he just doesn’t have the stamina to play for 90 minutes straight. The family whom we share the play room with have come to the same conclusion. So, we all play hard for an hour, and then we let our little guys sleep for about 20 minutes. Since we have started this routine, it is amazing how much happier everyone is! (Except maybe the caretakers, but one of them walked in on our sleeping baby one morning to put medicine in his nose, and we did not get scolded. YEA!). We really enjoy the company of the other family, so we spend the last 20 minutes cuddling our sleeping babies and chatting with each other. (I’ve stopped short of checking my Blackberry during this “bonding” time, but don’t think it hasn’t occurred to me – HA!).

Between visits, I finally made myself work out, using an aerobics DVD that we brought from home. I really should do this every day, and I have no idea why I don’t. We’re all convinced that we’ve contracted sleeping sickness (whatever that really is) because we all feel like we can sleep and sleep yet never feel quite rested. I often wonder how I am going to work an entire day when I return to work without my mid-afternoon nap!

We walked in to our afternoon visit and found ZM wrapped up in a stylish head dress. We both just started laughing, and he looked so adorable and so dorky. We had no translator with us (still the “holiday”) and the regular caretakers were also on holiday. So, we are not exactly sure of the purpose of this fashion statement, but we think it has something to do with the fact that he is coming down with a cold and the caretakers believe it is important to keep the children’s heads completely covered when that is the case. (Or, they were just having fun dressing up the one kid in the room who would let them do it – who knows?!?!). We of course left his head dress on him throughout the entire visit, and we promise you that the photos from that day will be some of the first that we post. I believe that I giggled for the entire 60 minutes, as he just looked so adorable and SO GOOFY!

We grabbed dinner at Pizza Blues that evening with Matt, Suz, and Crystal. A new family arrived today to The Shiny River, and half of the couple, Nathan, also joined us for dinner while Lori was still adjusting to the time zone. We know we’ll spend a lot of time with them over the next couple of weeks.

We only had one visit on Saturday. I feel the pain of all of the waiting families, because while May 1 was a “one day holiday”, the country does seem to stretch the holiday across a few more days. Several families were told they could not visit at all on Saturday, but we somehow lucked out again and had a morning visit. When we arrived, ZM was dressed in his cute blue jeans (from Aunt Mindy) and one of the “toddler-ish” shirts that we brought from home, and he looked like he’d grown from a baby to a toddler right before our eyes. We made it through almost the entire visit before ZM nodded off – because we had the place to ourselves, he wasn’t quite as busy playing with his buddy, so his stamina held out for a bit longer.

As each morning visit passes, we help out a bit more as we get him ready for lunch. On this day, the substitute caretakers were more than happy for our help. We got our little guy changed back into his regular t-shirt and tights, washed his little hands in their pint-sized sink, and sat him on his tiny little chair. I wrapped the appointed towel around him – he attempts to feed himself, but he is still way too messy for only a bib! And, the caretaker motioned for me to get him two pieces of bread, so I did that as well. Of course, while doing all of this, I loved on all of the other kids as much as possible, giving extra hugs and kisses to Anne’s little guy Timmy. If only I could scoop one or two of them up and stash them in our back pack and make a run for it! We pray every day that every single one of these kids will have a mommy or a daddy soon, and we know many waiting families who wish they were here right now. Something in that equation just doesn’t add up, and it is frustrating for us all.

We didn’t escape before watching the caretaker feed to ZM what looked liked stewed tomatoes. She was shoveling it in SO fast – it was a bit tough to watch. These kids are encouraged to eat FAST, and every day we see at least one little guy choking or gagging – either by shoving too much food into their own mouths, or because they can’t swallow fast enough to get ready for the next bite being fed to them by the caretaker. We understand why it is this way, but oh my, it’s tough to see.

Before dinner, we headed to a big toy store in town, because our play room mates found a puzzle for their son that ZM really favors. We couldn’t find that puzzle, despite another one of my great pantomimes that seemed to register clearly with the clerk who went off in search of the puzzle. Instead, we settled in on a Noah’s Ark that has many animals and buttons and sounds – perfect for our noisy play room. But, there is only one of each animal – what’s up with that?!

We then met up for a group dinner at the Chinese Restaurant. We enjoyed a fantastic dinner with our friends Nathan (Cape Cod, Lori still settling in), Suz and Matt (Tampa), Crystal (Orlando), and Sevi and Paolo (Cape Town, South Africa). The food was great, the conversation was better, and the company was the best. We really are making memories that will last a life time.

When we arrived to the baby house on Sunday morning, we couldn’t wait to show our little guy his new Noah’s Ark. And, he loved it – as did his play room mate. We have some great pics of these two little guys playing with all of the animals. We heard a few more “ooh”s and “ahhh”s out of our little guy, but not nearly the screeches that we hear from his little friend. We are confident that ZM will find his voice soon enough, but he is still a shy reserved little guy, and we hang on every little giggle.

After an hour of hard play, we danced our little ones to sleep. Our friends brought some great music today, and we just love being in the room with them. If we end up leaving after court – which is looking entirely likely – we know that our friends will cuddle ZM occasionally as they continue to visit their son.

As hard as it is to do (“never wake a sleeping baby!”), we woke ZM up by promising him that lunch was about to be served. He held my hand as he toddled (more like drunken stumbling as he was still half asleep) his way into his room. He settled in for lunch, and we were off.

We then had an amazing afternoon visit. The regular caretakers are still not all back from holiday, and the caretakers were so busy when we arrived. So, I pantomimed something along the lines of “can I get him ready?”, and I got the nod of approval. So, I was able to change our little guy’s diaper, put on fresh clothes, and cuddle with him while doing so. I heard new coos and noises during those few minutes – which melted my heart but also made me understand yet again that the caretakers really coo and cuddle with these guys whenever they have even a moment of one-on-one time with each child. We had an hour of play time that just flew by, and I swear I heard ZM say “mama.” Glenn definitely heard something that “sounded like mama”, but he’s maintaining it was an accident. I’m sure if it had been “papa”, the story would be different. :-)

We had a quick dinner – just the two of us tonight – at Pizza Blues because we have a lot of homework before us. We have to create a journal entry for every visit, and we need to pick out a photograph for each day. We also met with our Coordinator, and she gave us the run down on everything that we have to prepare for our two court speeches. Fortunately, in this region (and maybe others?), you can write out your speech and read it – we just have to choreograph it out as we are both expected to speak about the same amount of time. Our journal and photos are due to our Coordinator on Tuesday, and our speeches soon thereafter.

We’re inching ever so close to court and we should know our court date within the next 48 hours. We are projecting that our Court Date will be on either Monday, May 12 or Tuesday, May 13.

Our last official bonding day is Monday, May 5. Of course we will continue to visit ZM every day thereafter, until we go to court. What happens thereafter remains to be seen, but we are relatively certain we will come home after court and return for our son roughly one month later. Yuck. But, we think … at least today, at this minute, as I type this … that this is the right decision for us.

Those details will emerge soon enough.

Thanks again for all of the support. We feel it. We cannot believe how blessed we are, and we promise you all that we know it and we are humbled by our good fortune.

Days 9, 10 and 11 ... and another long post!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of the comments. As every family before us will tell you, those comments really keep us going. We either huddle around the computer in the lobby (when it is working) and read them together, or we share the 2 inch Blackberry screen and read them via that unit. Thank you thank you thank you!

Before I forget, let’s talk food. We have both settled in on about 5 or 6 things that we will eat, and we just keep eating those things. We are still working through our huge jar of peanut butter. I stare into the jar every day, trying to determine how long it will last. :-) Last night, I counted out the Crystal Light packets and have now begun rationing them. These are the things we do with the time on our hands in Ust. LOL.

A special note for Angela and other vegetarians: While every meal is indeed built around meat, we have a nearby market that has plentiful supplies of fruits and vegetables, and they have all been delicious. You can find oils and dressings in the store, so I have to believe that you can whip up some type of vegetable medley to accompany your mac and cheese and potato chips. We have also found some form of granola bar – not exactly Quaker Oats, but good enough.

In the restaurants, we have found a lot of rice and potatoes, and even the occasional “greek” salad. Lettuce is not plentiful, but we have had salads of tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, peppers, etc. I do occasionally worry that we are eating veggies that may have been washed in local water, but we have not had any stomach problems – yet. We do wonder if parasites will take over our bodies once we return to the states, and we will have to cross that bridge if we come upon it.

We’ll now take you on a tour of our cuisine. Note – no need to hold onto your seats, as this tour bus does NOT stop at any horse meat, sheep brains, or goat testicle eateries. For that tour, you’ll have to seek out the more adventurous bloggers.

We have breakfast every morning at the hotel buffet. We each have a made-to-order omelet, and we are wondering who is going to make our omelets for us every morning when we are back at home. We could get used to this type of service! We really enjoy b-fast, and all of the families at The Shiny River (currently 3 families, but expected to grow shortly) eat together. It is a wonderful way to start our day, and we look forward to it every single morning.

For lunch, we almost always snack on fruit, sandwiches (peanut butter and jelly), and granola bars, and we run errands. We go to the market almost every day, as we only buy what we can carry comfortably back to the hotel. We buy a 5 litre bottle of water and 2 litres of Diet Pepsi every day. Diet Coke – our fave – is elusive, and the word spreads quickly when the local market has a few bottles in stock. We also buy fresh bread about every other day, and whatever snacks we’re craving at the moment. Currently, I’m staring down a can of Pringles Originals. (Read on to learn about the Kaz Costco!)

For dinner, we hit one of the four or five restaurants that we’ve come to know and love. We tend to wander in and ask for an English menu. If there isn’t one on site (and it’s usually only one, tucked under a counter somewhere), we move to the next spot. Glenn and I are surviving primarily on chicken shislik with rice and soy sauce. (I’m over my fried pork chop phase). I’ve also been known to have French fries and only French fries for dinner – they don’t taste quite the same as back home, but not bad. Note – I would never order French fries for dinner in the US. Here, we just let ourselves find comfort food and go with it.

Mayonnaise is clearly the Country Condiment. I order everything “bez (without) mayonnaise”, and it works just about every time.

While at first we thought we would lose weight while here, we now doubt that will be the case. We can only hope that the multiple walking treks and the constant running up and down the flights of stairs to and from the lobby to check the Internet 25 times each day and night will keep us from beefing up too dramatically. (In case you are wondering why Matt and Suz post almost daily to their blog, they are able to access the hotel WiFi while sitting in their own room, via their own laptop. No such luck for us, the MacBook users.)

Okay, on to matters of the little one.

We had a sleepy Tuesday morning visit (complete with Barry Manilow on the Ipod), and everyone in the baby house seemed to be moving a little slower than normal. We tussled and played as best as we could, but we expect that after lunch, ZM was out cold. As we were leaving, we did have a chance to watch him try to feed himself soup. They give the children big serving size spoons so that in of itself is a challenge for these little dudes. ZM still has a caretaker sit with him, and she is trying to teach him how to hold his spoon and shovel in the food. And I mean shovel. These kids are expected to eat FAST and they stay focused on the task at hand.

Our afternoon visit was chaotic, because a VIP with the Ministry of Education visited and told us that we were holding ZM too much. I’ve waited a lot of years to have a baby of my own in my arms, so you better believe I am holding him a lot! But, we understand her point, as she is fearful that he will then expect that same amount of cuddling from his caretakers, and they just don’t have that kind of time. So, as we tried to put him down, under her watchful eye, chaos broke out in the room. ZM was upset, we were upset, the other family in the play room was upset, their child was upset, and it was just no fun at all.

On top of that chaos, our translator, who we had come to love and adore, informed us that she had taken another job and that was our last visit with her. We really miss her. She asked for photos of ZM before she left, and we were so happy to provide her with a flash drive filled with her 8 days with our little boy. We hope she will stay in touch with us as we would love to update her for years to come.

We sulked our way back to our room, and really just couldn’t muster the energy to head out to eat. So, we went to the hotel restaurant, which is good, but really overpriced. Lo and behold, we heard another couple speaking “American” English, so we quickly introduced ourselves. We now have added Crystal, and her brother Bob (who is only staying for a short time), to our close-knit group. As one arrives, it seems that another leaves, and we bid farewell to Anne, who had a successful court appointment. She will reunite with her son in about 30 days.

We started our Wednesday visit committed to holding ZM less. I suspect this was a taste of what I have often heard parents talk about when they are first letting their bio babies “cry it out” as part of a falling asleep routine. We felt so pained to watch ZM reach up to us and cry, as we responded with offers to build a tower of stacking cups instead. Poor little thing – he finally has someone to hold him, and instead he has stacking cups. Why would anyone ever pick door number two? Fast forward to 20 minutes later, and we just said “forget it.” We’re holding him and that’s that.

It was during this morning visit – while we were back in the big physical fitness room – that we also had a chance to observe the gym teacher and a caretaker work with some of the children who have additional special needs. They were helping them with developmental exercises, stretching, and climbing … and they were having a lot of fun. Every once in awhile one of the children would wander over to where we were playing (if you consider holding our child as playing), and we would get to have a little chat and a wave with these beautiful kids. We can’t say enough about this baby house – they are really committed to all of the children.

Between visits, we were whisked off to the notary. A trip to the notary in Kazakhstan works against every fiber of your being, because you are signing documents left and right with little knowledge of what it is that you are signing. We had to officially choose a name for ZM, so we settled on the spelling of both first and middle names (both of which are slightly unusual), and we committed to giving him Glenn’s last name. (My last name is different). We also signed documents that had to do with ZM’s medical diagnoses, and the actual adoption commitment. It was exciting and exhilarating and scary. We are one step closer to court.

After the notary, we raced back to the room in time for me to connect via phone with Louise, my Asia Pacific colleague based in Hong Kong. While we love our trips to the baby house, it was also great to have a grown up business conversation. Thanks for tracking me down, Louise!

We had one final commotion in the afternoon when our Coordinator challenged us not to hold ZM as much. Again, total chaos. It was also so hard on the other family in the room and it was embarrassing that we had to put them in that situation. We’re just done worrying about it. ZM is a smart kid. He knows his caretakers aren’t going to hold him, and if he wants Mama and Papa to do so during our few short visits with him, so be it. We’ll undo the damage, if any, when we get home.

We spent Wednesday evening walking around town, trying to find a table for six at one of our favorite restaurants, but everything was full. We suspect it was because Thursday is a holiday (Labor Day), and a lot of people were having a nice evening out since they were off work on Thursday. We ended up at Donner, which is sort of a “fast food” place. On our way to dinner, we passed two other adoptive families on the street, as they were headed to a third couple’s apartment for dinner. It really is amazing how quickly we are all drawn to one another, and we feel so blessed to have such a strong support network in Kaz, in addition to all of the love and prayers we feel from back home.

Oh, and at dinner, I used my KwikPoint for the first time. We both really wanted a beer, but we couldn’t remember if the restaurant had beer or not, and I could not remember the Russian word for beer (which is PEEva, by the way). I did my best pantomime of holding up a mug of beer, pretending to do the “cheers” ritual followed by glug, glug, glug of my invisible mug of beer. By this time, quite a crowd had gathered on the other side of the counter, shouting out guesses in Russian. I then remembered that I had my KwikPoint, and I whipped it out and searched for the picture of the mug of beer. Everyone gathered around, and I heard one big “Ahhhhhh” from the other side of the counter, followed by “Nyet.” How much do you want to bet that someone knew I was saying beer from the moment I started, but instead took advantage of what to them was probably 3 minutes of American comedy?! I had a great time with it, so if I gave them a good chuckle, I am happy to be that person. Needless to say, we ended up with water (vaDA, bez gas).

On to Thursday, May 1, which is Labor Day/Unity Day in Kazakhstan. It is a celebratory day, complete with parades and parties. Little did we know that the parade passed directly in front of our hotel. Our room faces the back of the hotel, so the first we knew that something was different was when we tumbled out the front door at our appointed time and instead of seeing our waiting car and driver as we have every other morning, we saw hoards of people lining the parade route. After we got over the initial excitement, we realized that the road to our hotel was blocked to traffic. We then felt somewhat lost, as we had no way to reach our coordinator and vice versa. (Here-to-fore, she would phone us in the hotel room when she needed us during times when we would likely be in the room). So, we just started walking towards the main intersection -- the intersection that Matt refers to as the Holy Crap intersection, where five roads converge with seemingly little organization or traffic protocol. We happened to run into Matt, Suz, and their translator as we were walking upstream through hundreds of people headed the opposite direction. Their translator kindly called our Coordinator, who told us to wait in the middle of the intersection. Really? The middle of the intersection? So, we made our way to no man’s land where inexplicably there always seems to be a car or two just parked in the middle of the intersection. And, we stood there. Not on a median or anything – just pavement with cars flying by in five different directions. Sure enough, about a minute later, our driver came speeding up, slammed on the brakes, we jumped in, and he sped away. It felt sort of mysterious and James Bond-ish to us. We think it felt totally normal to our driver.

In the morning, the other family in the playroom took their little guy outside, so we stayed inside. We managed to get about an hour of play time in … I really think Angela hit the nail on the head about these little guys only having about 45 minutes to an hour of play time in them before they are pooped, hungry, and thirsty. We aren’t permitted to give ZM food or drink, so the only need we can satisfy is his sleep need. Because of the holiday, most of our regular caretakers and VIPs were on holiday, so I rocked our little guy to sleep (to the sounds of Styx), and that’s how we spent the last 30 minutes of our visit. He is, of course, angelic while sleeping. I cannot wait to add a bottle or sippy cup to this rocking routine!

After our visit, our driver took us to the Kaz Costco (AP3AH/Arzan). It is a huge supermarket/general store – really pretty much like a Costco or Sam’s Club back home. And, it was packed because everyone was on holiday that day. We went up and down every aisle just to take it all in, although we really didn’t need to buy very much. (Our coordinator was with us, and she was shopping, too). We took advantage of the fact that we’d have driver service directly to our hotel door – that is, a short distance to carry our goods. We bought extra water, more diapers, and a bunch of granola bars. The prices were less expensive than the nearby grocery store -- 3100 Tenge for Pampers vs. 3700 Tenge. If you are a traveling family, be sure to ask if this store exists anywhere in your region! If a family were staying in an apartment, we suspect that some of the home goods that were available would be even more relevant than they were to us.

I also bought some hand lotion, as I finally took the time to translate the Nivea lotion bottle that I purchased here, and discovered that I’ve been rubbing shower gel into my skin every morning after my shower. That explains the dry, itchy skin. Phew – I was starting to worry that it was the fist signs of parasites (or bed bugs!).

The baby house was super quiet for the afternoon visit, as we seemed to be the only family that was permitted an afternoon visit (or the only family that was forgotten when the “no afternoon visits on holidays” message went around). We spent the entire hour outside, primarily pushing a stroller around and around and around the baby house. It was great to get fresh air, and we are happy that ZM likes the stroller. That could bode well for airport transfers.

Crystal called it a night early (and her brother headed back to the US), and Matt was off dong some heavy-duty electronics shopping, so Glenn, Suz, and I had dinner at Pizza Blues. We are ordering veterans at Pizza Blues, and we had a really nice dinner together.

As we’ve been mentioning, we arrived in Kaz at about the same time as three other families. It’s amazing how we are all hitting certain “walls” at about the same time. I’ll write more about that soon, but suffice to say that while in some regards, your time here FLIES by, in other regards there seems to be no end in sight.

As such, keep those thoughts and prayers coming! We feel the love!