A day without electricity is like a day without sunshine

              

 

Oh wait we had neither yesterday!  Yup yesterday morning just after 8:00AM as I was flicking on a light switch all the power in the apartment went out…..great I thought I've blown a fuse somehow.  But after a few minutes I realized the whole area was out and when Irina arrived at 9:40AM she announced that the whole city was out and would be out all day!  Good thing we have a gas stove in the apartment so we can have our meals prepared I thought.  So when we arrived home at lunch, as usual I put the leftovers and dinner in the fridge and by 6:00PM they were stone cold and for the life of me I could not figure out why the stove was not starting (it's not like mine at home) so we ate cereal and yogurt for dinner!!!   The babyhouse also had no lights, it was pitch black in the corridor that we enter into but the rooms and stairwells all have big windows so we were ok.  It would not have been so bad if it had been a bright sunny day but it was very overcast. I kept thinking, wow when it gets dark it's going to be REALLY dark.   It's interesting though to see the difference between here and home, at home there would have been widespread panic, here's it's no big deal everyone just carries on.  At 6:00 Ciera was sitting at the table painting, she wanted to watch a movie but I figured we'd best wait until dark for that as the battery in the DVD player only lasts 4-5 hours so we had to make use to the little daylight we had.  I sat by the window reading in the dim light…then at 6:55 just as it was getting really dark….poof the lights came back on…however this evening we had very little running water!!  Hence the almost 5 hour load of laundry I started that sadly had Ciera's Mama Fish in it.  Mama fish was very dirty, it took a lot of convincing to get her into the washing machine, at home she goes in the dryer too so she is usually only out of commission a couple of hours. Ciera kept saying she could not sleep without her, so we made it a bit of a game and as Ciera was going to bed she was calling out to Mama Fish, who is drying in the kitchen (the warmest room) "good night Mama Fish, I love you, have a good sleep".  I REALLY hope Mama Fish is dry in the morning, and Ciera has been warned to keep Mama Fish off the floors or she will have to go in the wash here again!!!

 

It's been a couple of good baby days, yesterday Mr. Baby started to "creep" ok more like pull herself along the carpet but she managed to drag herself about 6 inches to a toy she wanted, today she dragged herself about 2 feet!  It's so cute…she gets up on all 4's and then once she has moved her arms forward, she has not yet figured out that she can then move her legs, she just pulls herself along, I'm sure she will figure it out soon enough!!  I was trying to get her to move along so I placed a ball about a foot in front of her, she would reach for it and not get it and Ciera noticed her reaching for it and moved it to her, while I appreciate Ciera's thoughtfulness I was trying to get the baby to move!!!  Mr Baby is definitely laughing more and more and really looks so much better than she did the day we met.  She is all smiles even when she first wakes up, and she has that same glowing glint in her eyes as Ciera does (hmmm wonder if that is a good thing or not?!), today when I went to put her down for her 4:00PM nap she had a vice like grip on my shirt and did NOT want to go down. I think she likes us!  When I go to put her down I hold her down to Ciera so Ciera can hug her, sometimes Ciera comes in the crib room and sometimes not.  This afternoon I put her down and closed the door (she was the last baby in today and some of them were already asleep, how they drop off so fast is amazing) and I went over to tell Ciera to put her coat on and she looks at me with her eyes all misty and says in a little voice "but I wanted to see my sister go to bed".   I felt bad but I knew the caregivers would not be happy if we went into the crib room, so I had to tell Ciera no, we can't go back in.  Now I know to check with her first.

 

Also earlier today I got back her translated medical and it was sent off to the University of Minnesota's International Adoption Clinic and their appraisal is that she is a healthy little girl, a couple of possible minor issues, but they are optimistic about her health and her future growth…YEAHHHHHH!!!!!  She has hit all her milestones this year, she's in the 10^th percentile for height and the 50^th for weight.  For anyone in the process of an international adoption, I can't say enough good things about the people at the IAC at Univ of Minnesota.  They are the nicest people and their response time when you are in country has amazed me.   I have corresponded with them a fair bit over the past 2 weeks and they have been so friendly, caring, prompt and very very helpful. When I was unable to download directly to their website I'd just send them an email (with attachments) and they would upload the information for me.   I highly highly recommend them!!!

 

It's quite cool here now, ok it's actually cold, it was 10C this morning, Irina (the housekeeper) gave me heck for Ciera not having tights on under her jeans and no scarf (in my defense she did have a hat and gloves on, and a fleece and her fall fleece lined jacket).  I just know she is going to check tomorrow to make sure Ciera has tights on under her jeans.  The thing is once we are inside she will be too warm….guess I'll just have to have her put them on here  and take them off at the babyhouse, I did tell her she has to wear them to play outside.  I need to get some for me now.  We did do a little shopping tonight, we both got warmer coats and scarves and Ciera got Spiderman tights…how cool is that!!!   I'm just hoping it does not snow as we did not bring boots and I really don't want to have to buy those too.

 

I think though that I got fleeced a little bit on our cab ride to the mall tonight, I had asked Irina our translator how much it would be from here to City Mall she thought 400 tenge.  So Ciera and I walked down to the grocery store where the cabs are and I went up to one and said "City Mall" (yes that's what it's called in Russian!) and I held up my paper that I had written 400 on.  He shook his head and held up what I thought was 5 fingers for 500.  Ok, fine and we got in.  We get to City Mall I hand him 500 and start to get out, he says something and I look up and he's handing me back 50, ok so it was 450.  When we were leaving we walked out to the taxi stand, there was only one there, so I said "Scholnik" (which is the name of the market in front of our apt) to the driver and held up my paper that I now had 450 written on….he laughed shaking his head, I guess he would have done it for less!!  Oh well, he was a nice guy and spoke a little bit of English so we had a nice little chat during the ride, the first thing he asked me was "do you know the way to Scholnik?", he was not so sure and yes I do.  He shook his head and laughed again when I paid him!!  Guess I'll find out tomorrow how much it really is when we go to the mall with Irina our translator doing the negotiating!!!

 

Night all!!!