Nothing accelerates bonding like blood work

Yesterday afternoon I was told that Mr. Baby needed to have a few blood tests done (it's for nothing awful so no worries) and that today I'd have to take her to the clinic.  My plan was not to feed her breakfast this morning just in case she got so worked up that she vomited, that plan fell through when we got to the BH at 9:55 and one of the caretakers had just fed her, as they knew we were taking her at 10:00.  So I hustled her into a snow suit, 2 pairs of socks and 2 hats (it was truly not that cold out and we were going in a car!!) and off went Ciera, Mr. Baby, Irina (our translator) and myself into the car to the clinic.  Once again I served as the car seats for both my kiddies, sitting one on each leg holding on tightly to both of them.  The babyhouse had given Irina the requisition so we went into the clinic, paid 3500 tenge (about $23 Cdn, hmm what does that say about our health care system?), checked our coats (that was cool, checking your coat at a clinic!), went upstairs, handed our requisition to one of the nurses and went right in (no waiting).  I told Ciera to stand with Irina at the back of the room and warned her that her sister was going to cry, she immediately covered both her ears! Mr. Baby at this point was holding on tight, I pulled her little arm out of her shirt, laid her down and then covered her body and head with my upper body, my face resting on hers.  She screamed bloody murder (that was loud), but they were very fast and it was over with in less than 2 minutes.  I held the cotton on her arm and bent her arm to apply pressure and picked her up, she stopped crying pretty quickly.  We waited 5 minutes and we were gone, poor Irina she's had a few firsts with us, I asked her as we were leaving "so have you had to do this before" "no, first time" she replied.   Monday morning we will go to the hospital to see a Dr. and get the results, again nothing horrible, we just need to know the standings of these blood tests.

 

As we were leaving the apt this morning, we stepped out the front door (downstairs), I turned to see Ciera heading face first down the 5 concrete stairs, she tripped or something and went straight down.  Fortunately, her only injury was a scraped knee and she scared herself.  I pictured a broken bone or 2 as I flew down to get her, her guardian angel must have been with her, again.   Oh and there was a definite frost on the rooftops this morning and the puddles were frozen too, so the nights are quite cold but the days are not bad at all.  

 

Other than that a pretty good day, we were allowed outside with the babies this afternoon and a big THANK you to our new friends for leaving their baby carrier for me…..what a huge difference that made, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!   We are hoping to go out the next few days too as it's not forecasted to be too cold out.

 

Mr. Baby seems to love her extra fluids, she had an extra 8oz today, it does not sound like much but considering her body size I think it's a good amount.  Her cough does sound better and really, with the extra fluid she must feel better in general.  M is also giving her son the extra juice/water combo and he is enjoying his also.

 

This afternoon Ciera and I walked through the park to downtown, she walked all the way through it, just not getting to the park and getting to the mall (for that we used the stroller), but that's a pretty long walk for her.   We went to the blue mall, whose name I can never remember the one across from Uym, for a change of scenery and to see what they have there, it is huge and we only covered a small part of it.  We then headed to City Mall for Mag & Dak (McDonalds like) for dinner, I ordered an apple pie for dessert and was ecstatic when I opened it up and it was like the old McD's apple pies….deep fried and yummy crispy!!  After that we headed into Babylon, it's kind of like Chuckie Cheese but without the food.  We played a few games, including a great one of air hockey, then Ciera went into the play area and she had a blast.  She was so sweaty when the girl told us her time was up.  While we were there I picked up a flyer for Halloween so I will have Irina read it on Monday to see what the scoop is for that.   So all in all Ciera had a much better day, and hopefully that will continue, I just really need to be careful to get physical play time in for her as often as possible.  Now that I know how inexpensive the play area there is we will do it more often, why didn't I check that out weeks ago?!

 

On the bright side for me, I had 2 phone calls from friends at home today, one I expected as it was arranged and the other was a total surprise!!   It was so great to talk to them, thanks so much!!!!

 

Ok, off to sleep for me too!!

 

Pictures today:

-       this was Ciera in our bed last night, note she is totally on MY side of the bed!! Not to mention sideways and she fought me moving her

-       "She's got the whole world…in her hands…", sorry I could not resist, now you can all sing it in your heads to a day as I have since she did that this morning!

-       Ciera balancing a nesting cup on her head, yes we amuse ourselves anyway we can

-       Karaganda sunset over the city park, now I wish I had waited around there for another 15-20 minutes to get another shot

-       Ciera and Mama Fish on the "Gold Wing" at Babylon

 

P.S. Good to know I'm not the only one junk fooding it here, I really don't recall being this bad 4 years ago, but then again I was only gone for 3 and a bit weeks.  That does make me feel much better about it.