Halfway mark in official bonding!

Believe it or not, we are now at the half-way mark of our bonding time with the kids. Those first few days when we were dazed and confused counted towards the 14 days – we have our own special way of counting in Kaz. It’s a magical place!

I think I’ll copy a format used by another family whose blog I followed recently, and I’ll give a bit of a report on each of our children, and then our stay in general.

Fina:

Fina is really coming out of her shell. They are telling us that she is talking more and more to her caretakers and her roommates, and we are starting to hear a word here and there seemingly directed at us, instead of the translator. To be honest, I worry about her around the other kids – wouldn’t they be horribly jealous of all of the attention she is receiving, the toys she has, etc., and wouldn’t they be mean to her because of it? Seriously, don’t you just wonder what the “real” dynamics are in the orphanage for the 22 hours that we aren’t there??

The hair goodies are such a huge hit. We spend a lot of time putting in clips and pony tail holders, taking them out, brushing her hair, putting them back in, etc. She must pay close attention to the caretakers when they do her hair or the hair of the other girls, because she can put in her own pigtails and/or a pony tail like a pro! (Most certainly better than I can – but I am learning!) A couple of times today, she came over to me (I am typically on the floor with Max in my lap), said “Mama”, and handed me a pony tail holder so that I could put a pig tail in her hair. Just to hear her little voice mutter “Mama” was priceless. She has also been coloring at least part of each of our visits -- she keeps totally and completely in the lines – eons ahead of Max! --and now she says “Mama” and points to the page so that I can shout words of encouragement (or at least the one Kazak word I know for “good job”) when she is finished. It’s going to be such a challenge to communicate with her once we are home, and I’m pretending there’s no such thing as a 30-hour journey home first. But, we just have to figure it out, and we know we have so many friends in our adoption family who will give us guidance and suggestions. I have to believe that she remembers calling someone else “Mama” earlier in her life, and I just wonder what is going on in her brain.

Fina seems just as comfortable playing with girly-girly things as she does the little hockey game in the visitation room, and the trucks and cars we bring along. Yep, she's clearly my daughter. :-)

Both Fina and Max love playing with balloons during our visits, and Max has actually mastered the act of blowing one up himself.

Sully:

We are seriously going to run of out things to write about our visits with Sully. He’s just a darling little boy who likes cars, stacking rings, and books. He is completely content to sit with us and play with whatever toys we put in front of him. Today, when our translator brought him to us, I was already sitting on the floor waiting for him. He turned around, walked backwards towards me, and just plopped his little bum down in my lap. And that’s where he stayed for the first 15 minutes are so, and I just rocked him and snuggled on him and gave him the love and care that every 19-month-old deserves to have all day long. He smiles, smirks, and giggles through the entire visit. I cannot wait to be able to share some of the video we have of him – he’s a total crack-up!

Heritage:

A couple of people have asked about the kids’ heritage (a question that does not bother me one bit), given my mention of the Kazak language. I’m not sure how it works at the pre-school orphanage, as we haven’t been anywhere but the visitation room, but in the baby house, they now separate the kids by heritage (Russian or Kazak/mixed), and the kids in the Kazak room are spoken to in Kazak so that the learn that language. This is a relatively recent practice, as this was not the case when we adopted Max. I am guessing it’s the same in the pre-school orphanage, as Fina definitely speaks Kazak, not Russian. The kids’ birthmother is either Russian or Ukranian, but their birth fathers are believed to be Kazak. Hence, they are being raised with their Kazak peers, caretakers, and language in their respective orphanages. Sully’s skin is very fair, while Fina’s skin is slightly more olive in tone. I can’t decide how much the kids actually look alike, even when staring at side-by-side pics of them. I guess we’ll let our readers decide when we have the big reveal in a week or so!

Max:

I have to take care to give credit where credit is due. Despite being in my face at most times during the visits with our kids, Max is otherwise a complete and total trooper. I keep waiting for him to just flatly refuse to put his coat on as we prepare for yet another trip to one of the orphanages, and instead, he is often the first to the door. Fortunately, he absolutely loves riding in the van, so he is always ready to “go meet our friends (the other couples) and get in the van.” He loves both of the other couples, but he has with no doubt developed a special bond with Mitch, and he truly enjoys seeing everybody every single morning.

Mitch, teaching Max how to use his chop sticks -- something he's not likely to learn from his Mom and Dad. HA! Mitch even fashioned a device that made it easy for Max to use his chopsticks, and he ate most of a granola bar bit by bit with his chopsticks!

Today, after Fina called me Mama a couple of times, Max said to me “Mommy, are you still MY Mommy?” Poor little guy, this must be so freakin’ confusing for him!! I of course loved on him and reassured him, and I continue to love on him even when he regresses into some ridiculously baby-like behaviors. I am happy to report that this only happens at the orphanages, and he's pretty much settling into the little guy that we know and love (especially now that he is sleeping) at most other times.

"There's a place dowtown where the freaks all come around..."

What goes on in Club 301, stays in Club 301. :-)

Max slept until 7:30 AM on Sunday morning – the first time he’s made it past 3:30! He didn’t nap at all between visits, and instead fell asleep in the van on the way to Sully’s visit. Glenn carried him up to the visitation area, which is actually a former “baby” room that is no longer needed because not as many babies are in the baby house. (They are being adopted by local families much more freqently now). Glenn laid Max down in one of the big square play pens and he slept through the entire visit. What’s really weird/ironic/cool/creepy is that Max might very well have played in that exact play pen when he was a baby! I was worried he would wake up and freak out, but he slept through the entire visit. Glenn carried him back out to the van, still asleep, and he finally came out of his slumber once we were back in the hotel room. As we were eating dinner, he suddenly announced, “We forgot to go visit my wittle brudder!”

Speaking of dinner, we are on the Great Hot Plate Adventure, Take 2. I bought a hot plate from a little store at the market – an applicance that is actually wired for this country’s voltage – and we cooked dinner in our room. The local supermarket has plenty of pasta selections, and I found a Heinz sauce that had enough English on the label to note that is was pasta sauce. Using my Russian dictionary, I found butter in the store, and I bought wine using price (not too cheap, not too expensive) and label artwork as my only means of selection. We had a really nice pasta dinner with fresh bread and wine, right in our little hotel room – and we didn’t even knock out the power .to the city in doing so. It is fantastic to get out to dinner with the other families, but it’s good to have the option of not taking Max out to a restaurant every night.

We closed out the night with a Skype call with Salina. I miss being with her right now so much, and I am so thankful for the Internet and our ability to connect “face to face.” And I am so overwhelmingly proud of her as she fights through a ton of diversity on behalf of her beautiful children. Salina, I love you so much!!!!

It’s hard to believe that one week ago tonight, I was crying myself to sleep. We’re in a groove now, and I have two more kids.

What a week. What a week.

And the beat goes on!

Introducing the newest additions to our family! I'll post a couple of pictures a day (when the Internet cooperates), but I'll hold off on clear views of their precious little faces until we're just a bit further along. Trust me, they are cute, cute, cute!

I love that Sully was in pink on our first day together. So was Max.

Glenn's metro-sexualness is on full display -- he is just as happy here as he is when Fina demonstrated some great hand/eye coordination when he was tossing the ball with her. We predict that she will have no problems standing her own ground when going toe-to-toe with Max.

I'm signing the paperwork to accept Sully's referral....

and Fina's referral.

Or, given that the paperwork is in Russian and Kazak, I also my be signing our house over to the baby house. I do look happy regardless, don't I?!

It’s Saturday morning in Ust, and we are getting on a roll here, people. It should feel like Groundhog's Day any time soon. We had a great Friday – although we still don’t have our sleep figured out. Fortunately, visiting two orphanages while hauling a cranky toddler along doesn’t really require astute mental abilities, but rather sheer perseverance, and caffeine really is a cure-all for many ills.

Stating the obvious here – it is so very different to visit with a 4-year-old than it is a 1-year-old. We’re thrilled that the order of our visits have been switched, so that we meet with Fina in the morning when our energy levels are better. One of us tries to engage with her at all times -- while Max is hanging on the other. My wise friend Pam suggested that trying to get everyone to engage at once was fruitless -- she coined Glenn as "the golden ticket" -- the person who could keep Max occupied while I bonded with our children." Except -- Max refuses to leave my side. So, instead, Glenn is doing most of the bonding! It's actually been really great to observe our children getting to know their Papa -- that is, when I can actually see something other than Max's face in front of mine. :-) I have full confidence that Fina and Max will be fast friends some day, just as I have full confidence that "it ain't gonna happen in Ust."

Fina will look at us if we speak to her, but she rarely utters a word while we are in the room with her. That’s okay … it will come with time. She will engage with either one of us (again, usually Glenn) in a partner activity, like tossing a ball, or sending the Batmobile back and forth across the floor. She loves coloring, and we brought her a little hair care kit (I am going to have to learn this lingo!!) and a little pink purse (thank you, Janet!), which absolutely thrilled her. We also got to see her recite her numbers when the social worker came in to visit with us, and it was so precious to hear her little voice confidently repeating her numbers. Our coordinator told us that the Director says she has come out of her shell in her group, and is now talking up a storm about the Mama and Papa that come to visit her each day, bearing special gifts. Whatever it takes, whatever it takes.

I managed to skip what has been a mandatory nap on Friday and I headed to the market while my boys rested. I feel so cocky and confident in Ust – I think I owe that to Matt and Suz, who dragged us everywhere with them when we were here together 2 ½ years ago. (Thank you, Ruleys!!!) I picked up several little things for our room – not only have I unpacked, but I am thoroughly nesting in our little suite. I even bought little baskets to hold our snacks from home. One of the smartest decisions we made (and we’ve committed our share of not-so-smart decisions, a listing of which is saved for a future post) is reserving a two-room suite at The Shiny River. In hindsight, we’re going to need that extra money (like, to buy a new car!), but having the extra space of a front room and a bedroom has kept us from body-slamming one another on a regular basis.

Our visits with Sully are short and sweet – one hour each afternoon at 4. While some people might be really disappointed with that, we are fine with it. We know that our real bonding will happen at home with him, and he is so easy going. The hour flies by as we play with stacking rings, cars, and any number of other things that we brought for him. He is stubborn and makes the funniest little faces (true smirks) when he doesn’t want to engage with us – but that little half-smile is almost always present. I think he might be an old soul already – can’t wait to see him emerge.

We had time for a quick dinner in the room, and them we were off to the hockey game in the arena up the street. It was the Ust “B” team playing what I think was the “B” team from Pavlodar. The tickets were about $2 a piece, and there were probably about 500 people scattered around what seemed to be a 5000 seat arena. Mitch and I both embraced it as if it were an NHL game – I’m sure the other 498 people in the stands (including our spouses) are still talking about those two crazy Americans who were yelling and cheering. Max spent the first period asking if it was over, the second period watching Olivia on his ITouch, and the third period paying close attention and announcing at the end, “I WUV hockey.” I think he would have been asleep in Glenn’s arms on the walk home if it were not for the fact that he was facing frostbite. It is cold, cold, cold here, but it felt so great to get out and about with the other two families. They are so loving and caring towards Max, too – I just can’t stop stating how lucky we are to be traveling with them!

A few additional random tidbits:

• Max has watched the same 13 episodes of Little Bear seemingly thousands of times. When he is not watching them, we are frequently re-enacting one of the episodes. I am typically Mama Bear, Max is Papa Bear, and Glenn is Little Bear. I downloaded other shows for him, but he is obsessed with Little Bear. If that gives him comfort to get through this month, so be it. (One of the smart decisions we made – two laptops and a portable DVD player).

• Along the lines of DVDs, I am working my way through Big Bang Theory – I’ve never watched it, and I was especially intrigued after one of the actors recently won an Emmy. I’m now part-way through Season 1, and would code the purchase of three seasons a “good decision”. Glenn is watching multiple things, including Johnny Carson highlight DVDs. Even when we were totally stressed at the beginning of this week, we had some great belly-laughs watching various animals poop on Johnny’s head. “Hey, our life’s not so bad – there could be a marmot crapping on our head right now."

• It is cold. Really really really really cold.

Hugs to all from Ust!

Are you ready for this?

Expect the unexpected: Despite being reassured for months that the little boy you’ve been told about will be available upon arrival, that changes while you are sleeping off jet lag in Almaty. Uh-Huh.

Expect the unexpected: Despite the fact that there has been a huge slow-down of adoptive families traveling into Kaz over the last few months, there is not another toddler boy available in Ust, or another region, or for that matter, the entire country. Yeah, right. Cue the eyes rolling so far back into your head that you inadvertently tip over backwards.

Expect the unexpected: You might come home with siblings. Um, Wait. What?

For those keeping score, it’s now Unexpected, 3. Things-Go-As-Originally-Planned, 0.

That’s right. We are adopting siblings, so not only is Max going to have a new little brother, but he is also going to have a new big sister, too.

Wow.

The journey to get to these words was just a wee bit complicated and stressful. But for now, rather than focus on the journey, let me share with you the details of our newest family members. Our little girl is 4 years old, six months older than Max. She is living at the pre-school orphanage, where she has been for a few months. Prior to that, she was in the baby house for just about a year. We are still getting to know her, but we see a bit more of her emerge every day. We know it will be quite a journey to get her to trust us and to feel a part of a real family, and we cannot wait to get to it, full-time, at home.

We didn’t bring any “girlie” toys with us, and we have not yet had a chance to get out to buy anything, so we take Max’s toys with us to our visits with our little girl. She loves the Batmobile, and we are relatively certain that her first English word will be “Batman.”

Our little boy will be 20 months old next week. He arrived at the baby house with his sister, when he was 5 months old. He is full of smiles and giggles, and he is already following Max around the visitation room like a perfectly trained annoying little brother.

We could continue to use MLB for our little guy – he’s Max’s Little Brother. But MBS – Max’s Big Sister – doesn’t’ sound quite right. It reminds me of “Masters Degree in BS” – that term most definitely holds a place in this story (I digress), but definitely NOT to describe our precious little girl. So, we’ll call the kids “Fina” and “Sully” for blog purposes, which are forms of their current names.

We don’t think that our dear little Sully remembers that he has a sister. We asked Fina if she has a brother, and she said “yes” (“Da”), but she could not remember his name. Needless to say, they have not spent much time together over the last year, and we are counting down the days until we have our entire family home, under one roof.

The process from this point forward includes visiting with Fina in the morning, when we can be accompanied by a Kazak interpreter. While Fina understands some Russian, she primarily speaks Kazak (although she rarely says a word when we are visiting). We have not spent any time prior to this trip thinking about the Kazak language – Max was being raised on Russian and we were told the same about the little boy we thought we’d be meeting. I was tutored in Russian before we traveled for Max, and that's what we brushed up on before this trip. I’ll be going into overdrive to learn as many Kazak words and phrases as I can over the next few weeks. This is one of about a million challenges/concerns/anticipations that are jumbling around in our sleep-deprived brains.

We will then visit Sully every afternoon, for an hour, in the baby house.

After the standard 14 day bonding period, our coordinator will apply for us to go to court. At this point, she is predicting court somewhere around December 22. We have flights booked to leave Ust on Christmas Day, and to fly out of Almaty on December 26. If it is possible to leave earlier, it’s something we’d consider. Fina and Sully will remain in their orphanages while an appeal period works through the system, and while their final paperwork is granted. We hope to travel back for them by the middle of February or so.

Max, in his overtired state, is hanging tough. We’re relatively certain that he doesn’t really understand what is happening, although he will say that he has a new sister and a new little brother if prompted or asked. We actually try not to refer to Fina as Max’s “big” sister – I’m slightly stressed out about the birth-order business as it is, so we just leave it as “sister.” Fina is pretty much the same size as Max, and given the literal stage that he’s in, chances are he’d argue with us that she is "NOT BIGGER!!!!" if we dared refer to her as his big sister any way. He exhibits signs of jealousy and clinginess during the visits – we think it’s a bit grueling to head to two different orphanages every day, so we understand that Max sees it as a bit grueling, too. That said, he is now very proud of the few Russian words that he has added to his vocabulary, and he shouts “Mala Dyets” (“Great Job”) to both kids when they do something fun. Of course, that’s Russian, and the kids speak Kazak, but we just roll with it.

We are suddenly having Internet problems at the hotel (which is exactly how we remember it from 2.5 years ago). It comes and go in spurts with no warning. Thank you, God, that was not the case from Sunday through Wednesday -- if I had not been able to communicate with my family and friends to the degree that I did during that time, I truly wonder if we'd still be in Ust. Phew.

We won't post pictures of the kids for now, and I'm just too exhausted to think about going private at this point. When we hit our stride, I'll either go private or I'll start posting those "head-turned", "fingers only" pictures that adoption blogs have made so popular.

THANK YOU for the support. It is not understated when I say that our Facebook and Blogger comments and emails are what further solidified our ability to bring Fina and Sully into our family. You are ALL a part of our family now!!!!

At the Ust airport, upon arrival ... waiting for the (300 plus pounds of) luggage.

Max on one of the statues outside of The Shiny River -- I'm relatively certain they were not put there so that little kids could climb on them! I was ready at any moment for someone to come out and yell at us -- but I may have also been giving off a vibe at this point of, "I dare you to yell at me...."

It might be hard to see, but here's our first snowman of the season.

All Okay

The Internet has been down at the hotel, and I am posting this via an email created on my Blackberry.

All is fine -- well, except for the Internet. We promise you'll see a blog post once we can type it in with more than just thumbs.

Cheers!

Plugging Along

Hello from snowy Ust.  It's been snowing a bit each day, and Max could not be more excited.  As for me, it just reminds me earlier in the year than is typical that I do NOT like winter.  HA!  Blogger is unexpectedly blocked again, so I'm emailing this to the blog.  Hope it works.  :-)   We won't keep you hanging – still no significant news to share on the adoption front, other than it has been officially confirmed that the little boy who we traveled to meet is being adopted by someone else.  It's all a bit awkward – we may very well have blog readers who know her (we don't), and she is staying in The Shiny River, although she has never spoken to the six of us (7 with Max) who travel in a pack.  The most important thing of all is that little boy now has a family, so we are so happy for that and we have moved on, because there really is no other choice.   As a lot of people know, the Kaz adoption process is shutting down after the end of the year to "activate" a new process, and there is a "cut-off" of December 15 – if a family is not in process by then, the family can not push forward.  We are in a tough spot – we are almost certain that we will not qualify under the new Hague standards in 2011 (drat the aging process), and absolutely no one can tell us if we could be grandfathered in for 2011, or even if we could, there's no clear understanding of when the country will open back up to adoption travel.   So, it's not really making much sense to see children who "might" be available in 2011.  It's an interesting time to be in Kaz, as people who work in this adoption world wonder what their own future's hold (let alone ours).  We're basically the last families who will be in Ust for the foreseeable future.   As we continue to wade our way through the complications of our situation, we also continue to push forward as a family to ensure that this is the best adventure that we can make it to be.  It has tested Glenn and I as a unit, and we feel confident we will come out of this with a stronger bond than we had coming into it.  We are so thrilled to be traveling alongside two other couples who are experiencing amazing joy as they bond with the children who will soon be their sons and daughter.  We love to see their pictures and gush with them over the "first moments" they are already experiencing with their children.  It is such a blessing that we've been through it all before, VERY SUCCESSFULLY.  They are all so generous and loving towards Max, which has not always been easy.  :-)  (More on that in a moment).  I suppose our situation could be awkward at times – two couples moving forward as planned, one, not so much.  BUT, it is NOT! All we need to do is look over at Max (who is typically in our face, so it's not hard to miss him – ha!) to be reminded of how blessed we already are.  We love hanging out together with our traveling pals, and once I am more comfortable that the "real Max" has emerged again, the offers of others to watch Max here and there to give us a bit of a break will likely be graciously accepted.  It's typically hard for me to accept offers of help, but we're in survival mode here, people!  HA!   Ah Max …. Our beautiful amazing little blessing Max.  I cannot imagine being here without him, but at times, it is the biggest pain in the ass to be here with him!  I can't hold him fully accountable for his wacky behavior, as his sleep is still nowhere near as scheduled as I'd hoped he'd be by now.  For the most part, he still has his days and nights mixed up, so he is whiny and clingy all day (because he wishes he was in bed), and then he has yet to even come close to sleeping through the night.  You can imagine how wonderful it is to have a clingy whiny almost-4-year-old at your side as you are going through could-change-your-life meetings at the orphanages in town. It's just a laugh a minute! A mother who I trust very much has suggested Baby Benydryl -- while I did not bring that, I believe Baby Motrin has the same effect on Max, so tonight, we may be drugging him.  Don't tell anyone.  :-) We think that Max is completely confused at this point (so are we!) so it's hard to know exactly what to say about the potential of a sibling.   We are walking a fine line of having looser standards (as we would on a vacation) while holding him accountable for his actions (often-times in front of many watchful eyes).    Before we came to Kaz, we talked a lot about our "adventure vacation" to Kaz.  Max loves vacation, but of course every vacation he's been on has been to a warmer climate with either his grandma or a lot of other friends (usually Kaz families!) around.  He has taken plenty of opportunities to remind us that "this isn't vacation."  Dude, you sure have that right!   Fortunately, we were very prepared for the fact that he wouldn't eat anything – he's like that at home, too.  Some of you may remember my debate on FB as to whether or not to bring a hot plate from home.  I ended up doing so (I left seemingly nothing at home, and have almost 300 pounds of luggage to prove it!).  After we'd been here for about an hour on night #1 (before the fateful meeting), I plugged it in to a converter, fired it up, and after a really loud crackle, the electricity immediately went out in our room.  I rushed to the window to see if I'd knocked out the lights in the entire town – HA!  The thing started smoking and I was ready for the sprinkler system to kick in next.  Holy Moly! We had to call the desk to have the breaker re-set, and that was the end of the hot plate experiment.  Three less pounds to carry home.  HA!   So far, Max is surviving on bananas, jelly sandwiches (he won't eat peanut butter, although we brought plenty of it with us), granola bars, potato chips, oatmeal, mac and cheese (EasyMac, made in the room's hot pot), and milk (laced with either Carnation Instant Breakfast or another nutritional supplement).  We found a milk that he'll drink – it smells a bit sour to me (I have yet to taste it – ha!), but he drinks it down without complaint.  We have tried a couple of instant mashed potato mixes, but so far, we haven't come upon one that he'll eat.  The Shiny River has mashed potatoes that we've yet to try – that's next on the list if he's ever awake when we're there.    There are so many differences between our trips for Max and this current trip – stating the obvious here!  When we traveled for Max, we went out to dinner and/drinks just about every night with at least two or three other people, and some times as many as 10 other people (Suz, Matt, Crystal, Tina, Kristen, Sevi, Paolo, etc. etc. we miss them all!).  We have managed to eat out one night with our current traveling partners (with Max sound asleep in a stroller) but we're just not sure how often that's going to be realistic.  We're in a weird weather spot, in that there is too much snow/ice/slush on the ground to make the stroller feasible, but not enough snow/ice on the ground to make pulling a toddler-filled sled feasible either. Next step is to more aggressively use taxis to get into town – otherwise, I fear we'll become a bit more shut-in than we'd ever intended.  I also find myself wishing for just a bit more snow (what?!) so that we can buy a sled and pull him (and our groceries!) around town more easily.  I also want it to be about 70 degrees while it's snowing, so I may have to readjust my expectations a bit.   A few things remain exactly the same as 2.5 years ago:   You still need to plan double the time for a shower at The Shiny River, as you spend all of the extra time adjusting the water temperature, trying to match it degree for degree as it changes temperature unexpectedly.  We can't let Max take a shower by himself, for fear he'll be scalded without enough time to react. That said, we are just happy to have hot water!  That's not always the case in other parts of town.  Diet Coke seems to come and go regularly. When we find it, we buy up as much as we're willing to carry at the time. The heat is regulated by a wizard behind a curtain somewhere, and it is hot and dry. We can never get enough water. Even Max is guzzling it down.  The traffic.  Ay, ay, ay.  Now we get to experience that same traffic, at the same crazy speeds, on a layer of snow and ice.  With a toddler in our lap in a jam-packed van.  Without seat belts.     You can exchange money everywhere, at these little windows that are usually up a few steps and tucked just inside of a nondescript building. You can spot them because there is a sign outside stating that day's exchange rates.  It almost always feels a bit shady, and it almost always feels like you'll be robbed at any moment.  And, it's always perfectly fine.   We hope we have more news to share soon.  Thank you SO MUCH for the support!!!

Change of plans?

Expect the unexpected. That is the mantra in international adoption. We’ve been through it before, and we’ve followed countless stories of those before and after us. We know the mantra well.

After checking into our hotel yesterday afternoon, it was no surprise when the phone rang at 5:20 PM, and our coordinator was in the lobby. We’d been told by the translator who picked us up at the airport that the coordinator would be by at 6 PM. Fifty minutes early or 50 minutes late – not unexpected at all in this process.

So, with Max asleep and Glenn close to the same, I grabbed our paperwork and headed to the lobby alone.

I consider myself prepared for the unexpected, but even I was surprised to hear the first words out of our coordinator’s mouth: “I have some bad news.”

It’s a story unfortunately that’s just not that uncommon – the little boy who we’d been told about months ago, and who we’ve been reassured for weeks and weeks is ready for us to meet on November 28 (the first day he is available to meet), is suddenly unavailable because he’s been shown to another family a few days prior. On a day that we were in Almaty, within a 70 minute flight of being in Ust ourselves.

My Type A instinct is to diagnose the situation, determine what went wrong, and fix it. But as anyone who has even lightly brushed across the international adoption process knows, my reasoning skills are no match for the complications and mysteries in this process.

As I type this, it is approaching 8 AM Ust time, and we are being picked up at 10 :15 AM to go to the baby house. For what? We have no idea. Max is still sound asleep next to me – sweet, loving, adorable Max who was so ready to meet his little brother this morning. I just thank God that we had the presence of mind to say little to nothing about our referral to Max (we only showed him the picture once, and that was months ago), and instead Glenn and I have focused on “the big adventure” to Kaz. So far, Max isn’t buying into that big adventure, but we know he’s a tough kid and he will be fine (despite begging to go home multiple times already). Seriously, if I could just get Wonder Pets to play on our Russian-language only TV, I swear he’d never mention home again. :-)

So, we approach this new day with worry, anger, frustration, sadness, exhaustion – and hope and faith. We will plow ahead into the unknown, hoping for the best and preparing as best as we can for the worst. That’s international adoption – and parenthood – in a nutshell.

Almaty!

Hello from Almaty. Warning -- long post! :-) Also, I can't figure out the funky fonts! UGH!

So sorry that we have not been in touch sooner, but as if often the case, we are experiencing some technical difficulties. I think I finally got my Blackbery up and running, but not so yet for my Droid. Despite being warned numerous times by the guy at the Verizon store to call the global help line in advance of leaving the country, I of course forgot to do so, and now I am patching together the means to get it to work. Oh well, best laid plans. I am now leaning out of our hotel room door, aiming the laptop toward the lobby, and hoping to hang onto this wireless signal long enough to post this entry!

So, let me start by saying that we are all great, and Max is a total trooper. We traveled out on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and if that was supposed to be the busiest travel day of the year, someone forgot to tell the people who use the Cincinnati airport. Heather got us there with plenty of time to spare, and we were through the security line in less than 5 minutes. We could have been through in 30 seconds if we weren’t a family of traveling vagabonds with the maximum amount of carry-ons permitted by law.

Max enjoying the necklace he made at school for Thanksgiving, while catching up on Olivia episodes on the ITouch.

The TSA folks were fantastic – no pat-downs in site, and only Glenn went through the full-body scan. One of the TSA guys gave Max a TSA badge sticker that Max wore proudly for hours and hours, until it bit the dust as part of VomitPalooza.

We have known for awhile that Max can suffer from motion sickness, and I very briliantly grabbed the box of Dramamine out of the car as we headed to the airport. The problem is that I opened the box later and it was EMPTY! So, we were traveling without our best friends, the motion sickness pills. Poor Max did great until the wheels hit the ground in Amsterdam, and then he let loose. It was disgusting, especially since I couldn’t get to the bags quick enough. You’ve never seen a business-class compartment empty as fast as ours did once those doors opened in Amsterdam. We stripped Max down right then and there and his traveling clothes are likely in some landfill outside of Amsterdam by now.

Speaking of business class, we feel so blessed to have been able to upgrade using the frequent flyer miles I’ve accumulated over the last few years.

That also gave us entry into the nice KLM club lounge in Amsterdam, where we waited out our 6 hour layover. Glenn and I took turns dozing off while the other entertained Max, who was going strong after just 2 hours of sleep on the long overnight flight to Amsterdam. By the time we boarded our flight for Almaty, Max was downright delirious, and was asleep before we even departed.

He managed to get a good four hours of sleep in, and because I was delirious myself, I forgot to put him into a Pull-Up. So, you guessed it – VomitPalooza on the Amsterdam flight, and PeePalooza on the Almaty flight. We may never be permitted into a business class cabin again. If you heard about a little boy in the Immigration line in Almaty who was in his pajamas and tennis shoes, that would be Max. I packed two sets of clothes (soon to be a minimum of five sets of clothes) for him in our carry-on luggage, so we were down to PJs by the time we made it to Almaty.

We cleared immigration easily in Almaty, even though Max entered on his Kaz passport (he is a dual citizen) and Glenn and I entered on US passports. I expected at least some questioning, but there was nothing out-of-the-ordinary other than a stern hand-smack on the counter from the immigration agent when I didn’t lift Max up quickly enough to stare into the camera for his entry picture – and now that I think about it, that’s probably not out-of-the-ordinary. We picked up our hundreds of pounds of luggage, headed out to the entry area, and easily found our driver through the sea of taxi drivers asking for our business. We were tucked into our nice room at the Hotel Kazzol by 6:30 AM Friday morning Almaty time, and were enjoying our breakfast in the hotel restaurant just about an hour later.

We spent most of Friday lounging around, napping a bit, and exploring the area just around the hotel to grab basics for the room (milk, water and “Coke Light” are must-haves).

We had dinner at the hotel, and then Max and I headed to the indoor pool. I had noted that the Hotel Kazzol had a pool, so I packed our suits “just in case.” I used that pool as the means to keep Max’s crankiness in check most of the day. :-) The pool was heated to about 70 degrees—I have no idea what the temp is in a typical heated pool, but I was freezing the entire time. For the millionth time, I was reminded that we will do anything for our kids. ( I was also reminded of that when my cupped hands were the first line of defense for catching the puke on the plane – YUCK!) At one end of the relatively small pool, a water aerobics class was in progress. The instructor stood on the edge and shouted instructions to 8 or so older women in the pool. She played awesome American dance music, so we had great background music for our swim. We also shared the pool with about 5 or 6 men – maybe Russians or Kazaks. Several tried to talk to me, and I would nod and mutter the basics of “not speaking Russian” (man, I wish I had brushed up more on my Russian before this trip – I was so much better when we traveled for Max). At one point, the men got together and appeared to vote that one of them needed to approach me – so he did, and in his best Russlish accompanied by exaggerated hand-motions, I believe he told me that Max should be wearing a life jacket. I couldn’t figure out how to explain that we had packed four huge suitcases as it was and simply could not fit in a life jacket, but instead I just smiled, said “Spaseeba” (thank you), and moved on.

After shivering our way through the pool, Max continued his swim in the hotel room tub. Such a happy boy if he's in water!

This trip is so very different than our first trip to find our Max in so many ways, but here are the key differences that I haven’t been able to shake:

It’s no surprise to many of you that it was really hard for me to leave home. We are still mourning a death in our family, and it was very hard to leave Salina and Max’s precious cousins Zoe and Austin during their first holiday season ever without their father. If you’re the praying type, please continue to keep them in your prayers. Life may never be the same for that sweet family. Salina wants nothing more than for us to go meet her new nephew, but it continues to be very hard to be so far away from her.

Planning to travel for a month with an almost 4-year-old has been so completely different for me than planning to travel as a couple. Max is such fun-loving, connected little boy who loves school and loves his 9 little classmates who he sees every single day. I have been very focused (Glenn might call it obsessed) on ensuring that Max would have the best possible time during this trip, and that we would have plenty to keep him busy if we can’t get out and about due to inclement weather. That meant thinking about both his 4-year-old birthday party (for which I plan to round up strangers on the street – ha!) and Christmas, and a bunch of time in between. I have been and continue to be worried that the trip will zap the enthusiasm right out of him, or that he’ll freak out at the baby house. He’s asked to go home about 4 times, but distraction has worked every time. I haven’t had to dip into the “bag of surprises” just yet, and I see that as a huge accomplishment as we end Day 1. :-)

To be perfectly honest, the above two points, coupled with bouts of "what-the-hell-are-we-doing-we-have-such-a-perfect-life-already" freak-outs caused me to go into a weird funk for the week before we left – a combination of denial and procrastination. I didn’t start packing until Tuesday night, although there were piles of "stuff" scattered all over the house. On Wednesday morning, I decided that we were taking whatever I felt like taking – to hell with weight limits. I posted about that on Facebook, and received some really encouraging words, which helped me push through. (Seriously, if you were one of those people that said “way to pick your battles, Karen”, that is exactly what I needed to keep pushing through my funk). We have four huge suitcases, two carry-on wheel bags, 3 back-packs, and a stroller. It’s hard to believe there is anything left at home!

I am very happy that we planned to hang out in Almaty first for two days before we head to Ust. We’re comfortable in both cities, and Almaty is just a tad bit “easier” for us. We hope for good weather on Saturday so that we can really explore. The only mistake I made for the planned Almaty layover was that I gave absolutely no thought to the fact that we have those four suitcases jam-packed with stuff, and we’ve had to dig into every single one of them to get by for the next two days. I suppose in hind-sight I could have better planned an “Almaty” suitcase. Whatev. :-)

So I will sign out on this first night in Almaty, as Glenn watches old episodes of Saturday Night Live on one laptop, Max watches Cars on the portable DVD player, and I type away on the second laptop. As I said, we brought A LOT of stuff.

If my calculations are correct, we will meet MLB in just about exactly 2 ½ days. The countdown is on!

Thank you for following along, and for most of all, your support and encouragement!!