Stressfull morning....

Ciera and I were up, dressed and ready for 8:45, as I was supposed to be at the babyhouse for 9:00, waiting for Irina (the wonderful woman who cooks us such wonderful meals).  I had been told last night that she would babysit Ciera while I went to the babyhouse this morning to meet with the inspectors.  At 9:05 I phoned Irina our translator to let her know that the other Irina had not arrived, she sounded a bit concerned (as was I), at 9:20 she rang our buzzer and came up stairs, "is she here yet?" Umm no since I'm still here, she phoned the other Irina (I know it's confusing but it's more confusing than you actually know!!!), who apparently knew nothing of these plans but lives about 10 minutes away so she was going to hurry over.  She came in and I said bye Ciera be good and I headed out, no time for dramatics and really Ciera was fine about it, she was on the couch watching Toy Story 2.  Irina and I hustled over to the babyhouse, I walked in and said to myself "whoa…who are all these people?", there had to have been well over 15 people waiting, between new (and I mean brand new to the babyhouse) parents and translators and coordinators there was a ton of people there.  Due to the cold nights the babyhouse is VERY cold downstairs where we were waiting, I kept my coat on as did everyone else.  I was not asked to come into the office until 11:30 and by that point my stomach was a mess, and I was honestly very nervous.  I was not allowed to go upstairs and see or feed Mr. Baby, I had to just sit tight and wait.  While I can't go into details here, let's just say it's all an interesting chess game, but that all is good.  However I was frozen by the time I left the babyhouse!!  I did however, while I was sitting waiting , meet a nice couple from Canada. 

 

I headed back to the apartment, was greeted by Ciera and Irina, who said that Ciera had been good and just watched her movies and coloured, Ciera later told me that she and Irina watched her dance DVD!!!   Hot soup, followed by some very yummy beef and onions in homemade pastry and ,not sure, but I think it was either homefries or cabbage made to look like home fries.  All very tasty!  One of today's pictures is our lunch and dinner (this picture is minus one bowl of soup and one of the beef filled pastries), this is all for Ciera and I, now I know Ciera is a big eater but holy smokes this is a lot of food!!   All we managed to eat between lunch and dinner was the soup, the beef pastries and the homefries.  Every other day I have to tell Irina, please don't make us a new dinner, we are trying to catch up!   Anyhow, Ciera went off to watch tv, and I had a cup of hot tea, and was sitting on the couch in the sun trying to warm up…and I fell asleep for 30 minutes!! Seems the stress of the morning wore me out.

 

When Ciera and I were headed back to the babyhouse we passed a group of 5 people on the babyhouse grounds who were chatting, we nodded and said hello and kept going.  I heard someone behind me and it was one of the men "are you Diane?", "Yeees, I am", this was a family from Ottawa (our first family who was bringing our meds!) and another family from Quebec City, they both started at the Babyhouse today.  The Canadian contingent has arrived!!!!

 

Mr. Baby was happy to see us, having only seen me for about 5 minutes in the morning, she gobbled down her lunch, but had little interest in the bright pink juice that went along with lunch today, no idea what it was it looked like pink lemonade.  M from Spain was concerned about us, wondering where we had been in the morning, I reassuered her as best as I could that all was well.  She said she had tried to convince the caregivers to let Mr. Baby play on the floor with her and her son, but they said no, and Mr Baby went into a walker, but M pulled her over to where they were and they "chatted" with her to keep her company. Mr. Baby's Dr. told me she now has bronchitis (she has one heck of a cough, as do most of the kids) and that she is on medication.   She didn't seem her total happy self (perhaps as she didn't feel well or she was ticked for not seeing us in the morning), but she was not overly grumpy, just not all smiles and giggles as she is normally.  As it was another fabulous day we headed outside, where we ran into the QC and Ottawa families and I was able to have an adult conversation in English!!  I'd almost forgotten what that is like J.  They are on the same schedule as I am so we will see each other quite often.  The Ottawa family lives about 10 minutes from downtown as do we (but in opposite directions I think), but I hope we will get togteher a few times.  I know there is also a family from the US here with their 5 year old son, not sure which babyhouse they are at, so I had Michele (thank you!) post on their blog that Ciera and I are here with our email address so it would be great to get together with them also and let the kids play together, hoping to hear from them soon. (update: when I logged into Hotmail there was an email from them, so hoping to meet up with them for a playdate soon!)

 

After we left the babyhouse, we headed out for a walk to enjoy the last few nice days of weather.  On our drives to and from downtown I had seen a parking lot (part of the city park) where there are 2 yurts.   So we set out to find them, city park is amazing and so much larger than I thought or seen before, there are new surprises down every pathway.  We managed to find the yurts and one is set up as a traditional Kazak yurt (it was so nice and warm and cozy inside), it was very cool to see.  The woman was very accommodating and very nice she offered to take pictures for us, offering us different things to hold and pose with, Ciera played very shy and declined to hold any of them.   I held a fox pelt (a complete one I might add) but only as it was handed to me and I did not want to insult the woman, and I also held some sort of shield that was very heavy.  The other is set up as a gift shop where we purchased a few momentos to bring home.
 
Pictures today:
- lunch
- Ciera and I in the yurt
- Ciera watching mama fish in the wacher (she dropped her outside in a big pile of dirt)
- mama fish in the washer (yes I'm stretching my entertainment here, but Ciera got such a giggle out of seeing her go round and round)