What?! 3 days until Christmas??!

Yes, I know I am way behind on my blog posts, but this whole coming home a week before Christmas has me a bit out of sorts!  Ciera and I finally decorated the tree last night, I had put it up the night before and I took out some house decorations after the kids (wow that's so cool to say!) went to sleep, but the major decoration bin (with the big stuff in it) is behind about 6 other bins in the basement, and I just don't feel the urge to move all that stuff to get them out, so they can be out for 5 days.  So it'll be a low decoration year this year, Ciera has not noticed as we have the important stuff out...the tree and the stockings!
 
I kept Ciera home from school/daycare today as my brother and my mom were supposed to come out to meet Tienna, they didn't end up coming much to Cieras' disappointment, but after lunch I dressed both girls up in Christmas outfits and we trekked over to Woodbine Mall to see Santa.  What a great Santa, we were there for Ciera's first Christmas/Santa picture and I will be going back there every year now.  He is a very nice man and the setting is very nice, I was getting tired of the green and white striped chair at Bramalea City Centre.   We got there about 12:30 and there were only about 4 families in front of us, BONUS!   Tienna was a bit fussy so she was drinking her bottle in the stroller, we got to our turn and I plucked it out of her mouth, she started to cry, so I jiggled her (she loves this!) and plunked her on Santa's lap.  Ciera, who has never actually sat on Santa's lap of her own free will, actually got up and sat on his other knee.  I think it was the pressure of "uh oh if my baby sister can do it so can I", and she actually smiled this year, not a great smile but a smile none the less.  We got out stuff together, moved to the cash desk, paid and were handed our pictures!  What service, no "please come back in 30 minutes" right then and there, how great is that.  We were in and out of the mall with our pictures in under 45 minutes, heck I think the drive there and back took longer!
 
The result is posted here......I'm hoping to do a home shot tomorrow evening (hoping for both kids in good moods, evenings do not seem to be Tienna's happiest time!) for my now very late Christmas cards, but better late than never I say!  Hey, I can always say I'm celebrating the Russian orthodox Christmas this year and that I am right on time :-)
 
Poor Tienna, not a great time of year to be trying to get into some sort of routine, but she is going with the flow pretty well.  Here's hoping next week we can get into a predictable routine.
 
I seem to be having some sort of luck lately, perhaps I should be out buying lottery tickets.....we went to the OHIP office yesterday to get Tienna's OHIP.  The Service Ontario web site said the Brampton office was experiencing higher than normal volumes so I decided to head to Milton, a 30 minute drive.  I got there, parked and walked into the office.....I was stunned...I was literally the only person there who was not staff!!!   I had every piece of paper they could possibly want to see for the adoption and the only one she asked for was her immigration form.  No issue on the waiving of the 90 day wait period, done, in and out in under 20 minutes!  Awesome!!!!
 
Ok, I'm off to do yet another load of laundry....I've added one tiny person yet seem to be doing a whole heck of a lot more laundry how is this possible?  She's not even a messy little person...I don't get it.  This whole time of day usage sucks when you are actually at home during the day and then I'm off to bed.  I've been up REALLY late (1:00/2:00/3:00) the past 3 nights and tonight I am pooped, I fell asleep giving Tienna her bedtime bottle...in my defence it was dark in her room and she was warm and cuddly!
 
I will catch up on our trip home post over the next few days.....in the midst of wrapping Christmas presents!!
 
 

Nothing smells better than a baby fresh out of the bath!

Yes, I have Tienna with me in the hotel now and I think it's going to be a looooooong night!  I took her out of the babyhouse around 4:40, so she has missed her 4-6 nap, and it's now 8:45PM and she is showing no sign of laying down and going to sleep, she is however in her crib having a wonderful time, while mom is fighting sleep big time!  For that reason I will make this short (yes I really will) and then I will tell the rest tomorrow.

 

It was a very emotional day, I fought tears all day and lost the battle when saying goodbye and thank you to everyone at the babyhouse, I know I will sob tomorrow when I say goodbye to Irina (the translator) at the airport.  Poor girl has to be at the hotel at 5:00AM with a driver to take us to the airport.  Even the 2 nannies who were in room 4 today had tears in their eyes as they kissed Tienna goodbye and said "das vidanya" to her.  A true testament to how attached they are to the babies and their love for them.

 

As for the bath, she LOVED it, I was half soaked as was the bathroom, she laughed and giggled all thru it, including rinsing off her hair with the shower hose!

 

More tomorrow….other than Tienna still being awake there is some sort of banquet at the hotel.....guess who's room it's under....that is one loud band!!!

 

Pictures:

 -Bath

- the big wail....this is what she did when I put her down for her nap at 12, she was actaully holding onto me!

- Tienna all dressed up and ready to go....please note she was clapping !

- On our way out of the babyhouse.

Reunited..

and it feels so good!!!
 
I made it to the babyhouse for 2:00 hoping to get Tienna out of her crib and feed her but when I got there she was already up, fed, and on the potty :-(   but as I walked in one of the nannies saw me and said "Ira mama, Ira mama!!!" (They call her Ira, short for Irina), I didn't even take my coat or anything off I walked over to the giant playpen and she gave me a big smile, and I kissed her repeatedly and stroked her face, her hair has really grown in.  They got me a diaper and I picked her up and diapered her and took my stuff off.  I sat and cuddled her for close to 45 minutes, tearing up every so often.  She never let me cuddle her for that long before, while I loved it, it also made me sad as I knew it was likley because she had missed me.  Dr. Ludmilla came in and saw me, she said Tienna has not coughed for 2 weeks and then started again yesterday, super thanks T!   She sounds all congested again poor baby, could make for some interesting plane rides.
 
I then got her changed into different clothes and went downstairs to find Salley, another single mom from Toronto who is now there bonding with her new little one.  I had brought some supplies for her (as others did for me!) and needed to pass them along, we chatted for a bit and agreed to meet at 4:00 to head out.  I went back upstairs and played with Tienna and also set "free" little A (my friends from the US son) as they are home in the US now waiting to come back to pick him up.  It was so cute the nannies had put 4 kids into the high chairs and had them all lined up, it looked like some sort of baby board meeting!
 
Ok, so I'll back up now......I slept off and on for the drive to Karaganda, but woke up just as entered the city.  There is not much to see on the drive between Astana and Karaganda, it is VERY flat and the odd steppe here and there but pretty dull scenery overall.  I asked Kostya to take me to the apartment first to pick up my bag of babyclothes.  The downstairs door was open so I ran upstairs and rang the bell...no answer...darn.  Rang back downstairs and ran into 2 people, looked closer and one was Irina (translator) she was surprised and happy to see me and we exchanged hugs!  She was with the mom of the new family who is now staying at the apartment, how's that for timing.  Irina came over to Scholnik with me to load up some credits on my cell phone and then back to the apt to get my bag.
 
Back in the car we headed for the hotel, I walked in and was asked "are you Diane Davies?", wow I feel like some sort of celebrity, how'd she know?  Oh maybe the stroller with no child gave me away!!!  The rooms are nice, hot as heck and this one is smoky (ugh!), but it's only for 2 nights.  It includes breakfast and free wifi so that's great!  I put down my stuff, grabbed what I needed for Tienna and walked the 10 minutes up the road to the babyhouse.  It was a great day, sunny and not cold, ok it's cold but not horribly so!  Not too mcuh snow either, maybe 4 inches on the ground.
 
At the end of our visit I headed downstairs and met up with Salley and we headed off for downtown, there were a few things I needed to pick up and she also had some shopping to do.  We were in one store in the bazaar and 2 young girls heard us talking, turns out one of them remembered Ciera and I as she had translated something for us at Uym once, small world indeed!
 
Salley and I had dinner and it was a fun evening out, lots of laughs.  I headed to the Ramstore to buy babyfood, damn I should have brought some from home...I got veggies, fruit and rice cereal but they had no meat and I have no idea which formula to buy so after negotiating with the store security guard he let me take a picture of 2 formulas which I will show the BH tomorrow and they can tell me which one to get.  Other than that I am all ready to take custody of my baby girl tomorrow afternoon at 4:00!!!!  Hoping she is not too freaked out by it all.
 
Tonight I put all my gifts together and am now going to sit in bed, enjoy the quiet and watch my 42" flat screen tv.......I don't ever get to do this at home, nor do I have a flat screen (Christmas present hint for anyone who wants to buy me one, only 32" will do!!!)
 
 
Pics:
 
Tienna and I (I'm nt very good at taking pictures of myself!)
Tienna pulling herself up at the piano, her pants came unsnapped as she dragged herself over (she still is not crawling!!) and they pulled off
Me in front of City Mall
 
 
 
 
 

The big pat down

Yes, I had the big airport pat down in Frankfurt and quite frankly I don't understand what all the fuss is about.  Sure, I'd rather be bought a drink or two first before I get frisked but seriously it was no big deal.  As I seem to be setting off the alarm everywhere (could it be my magnetic personality?!) I have to have the pat down.  In Toronto, as there was no woman available to pat me down, I had the option of removing jewelry piece by piece until I no longer beeped, they were quite accommodating and held first my watch and then my bracelet for me as I walked back and forth.  I suppose if I had still beeped I would have had to hang around and wait for a woman to frisk me. In Frankfurt there was a woman there so as soon as I beeped, it was into patdown mode.  It's quite the system they have there, but I have to tell you if you are travelling thru Frankfurt anytime soon, make sure you have LOTS of time between your connecting flights.   Even though you have just gotten off of a plane where you had to go through security to get on the plane in the first place, you get off your flight……follow the signs for connecting flights and boom you are in a 30 minute line to go through security again, I don't understand it but whatever! And it is thorough, everything goes in a bin and is scrutinized, then you line up at the other end to pick up your stuff and if there is anything questionable (I was ok), you wait and wait for your turn to come up for the security folks to check it with you.  The guy in front of me was quite amused, he thought it quite funny that he got off the plane at, say, gate B40 and his connecting flight was leaving out of the same gate B40 and he had to go through security.  He had on a sweater over a t-shirt and the woman made him take his sweater off, he wondered aloud why and the male security guy smiled and said "maybe she just wants to check you out", they were all very pleasant about it.  Oddly I too had on a fleece over another top and I was not asked to take my fleece off…hmm maybe she did want to check his physique!

 

Even with my  flight being late and the 30 minute security check I still had about 3 hours to pass…..it was a long 3 hours.  I had a 3 Euro tea (c'mon nothing make a tea worth that much, and it's not like it was even loose leaf, it was a bag in a paper cup!), and some animal crackers….I was not willing to pay 5 Euro for a danish even though it looked amazing.  Played some games on my itouch, listed to music and read my trashy People magazine, and wandered around a fair bit trying to stay awake and not fall down!

 

The flight was not full and as soon as they said "boarding is complete" the man beside me bolted from the seat (was it something I said?!) and moved to a full centre row (lucky guy), so I had the 2 seats to myself which allowed me to curl up, lie down and catch some sleep once we were off.  Even so I was not even awake for take off,  I closed my eyes and when I opened them next we were already in the air!!!  It was a very smooth flight and I caught several hours to sleep in 1 or 2 hour increments.   Once in Astana I got through passport control and my luggage was up all in about 10 minutes and I went out to find Kostya (the driver).  He found me!  It's not too cold here in Astana, it was -6C last night and it felt good.  The Astana airport is all decorated for Christmas and it's beautiful.  A large, had to be 50foot, tree of lights is out front, I commented on it and Kostya said "it's just for you"…awww sweet.

 

Astana is a beautiful city at night, lots and lots of coloured lights and the new part of the city is very, very modern.  There is one building that is 1.5 kilometres long, very cool!  I look forward to coming back in a few years with the kids and Astana is on my list of places to stay for a week.   I am currently in a small, but comfortable hotel, where I will wait for Kostya to pick me up at 10 to take me to Karaganda. I was hoping to be there by 10 but I guess since he was up late picking me up last night he needed to get his sleep and be alert for the 2.5 hour drive, plus he has to drive back.  I have to say though that this was the most comfortable bed I have ever slept on in Kazakhstan, and I managed to get about 4 hours straight sleep, wahooooooo!!!

 

I had just woken up this morning, when my Kaz cell phone rang, it was my sister, and I had a 20 minute talk with Ciera.  I've never talked to her on the phone before, she sounds so cute J.  She told me about her day, kept telling me she loved me (I teared up a few times) and not to get hurt (sweet eh) and as I was trying to convince her to hand the phone back to Auntie Dada my cell phone minutes ran out…..damn.  I hope she was not too upset that we cut off that way.  Now I need to add minutes to it today.  I hope Irina, my translator, is around this afternoon as I am not adept at adding minutes to this phone and she can do it in about 4.3 seconds.

 

Ok, now  only 1 ½ hours to pass until Kostya is here….maybe he will surprise me and be early as he was in Karaganda….so perhaps I should get up and get ready, and maybe just maybe I can get a cup of tea downstairs that is far less than 3 Euro!!!

 

Next stop Karaganda and Tienna!!!!!

 

The picture is the big Christmas tree in front of the Astana airport, I'm quite happy that the picture turned out!!!

On the road again....

Or rather in the air again.

 

I am sitting in the Frankfurt airport awaiting my connection to Astana, so I have a bit of time to kill!

 

I can't believe how fast the past 4 weeks have flown by, but somehow I managed to get 2 visa's (Kazakhstan and Russia), booked my flights, arranged hotels, took Ciera to her activities, worked (ugh!), finished up Tienna's room (ok I was doing that up to about 5 minutes before I left home), and I now have several hours to spend with nothing to do, that's not something that happens to me very often!

 

Ciera has spent the past several weeks saying "I want to go with you", with my answer being "I'm sorry honey you can't come this time", I thought she had accepted it and was ok with it when she said on Friday night "how many more sleeps until you bring my sister home?".  However as I was in line to check in for my flight she kept wanting to hold my hand, telling me she wanted to hold it forever, and as I was checking my bags she had silent tears running down her face.  She was really cute though and I have to give her credit for trying "why can't I come with you?" "I only have one ticket" to which she responded "then tear it in half so I can use it too".   We grabbed some dinner as we waited and then it was time to go……she was clinging to me, holding on, and crying, I tried not to cry but I resisted the sobs but had tears running down my face too, I hate pulling myself out of her grasp.  Again she tried….she took the fruit loops that Auntie Dada was holding and she gave them to me, then she gave me dee dee and mama fish and reached for her coat that Auntie Dada was holding, I said "I see what you're doing here" and handed the stuff back to Linda.  A few more hugs and I pulled away, I waved and blew kisses all the way thru security, tears streaming down my face.  Ciera waved back and blew back kisses but I knew she was crying.  Linda said as they got to the car Ciera was still sniffling, I hope she went to bed early last night.   

 

I LOVE Lufthansa, I had 2 bags (gifts took up one!) and a stroller, the agent said "adoption?", I said yes and she put it all through, gave me a bag and some tape for the stroller and presto, no extra charges, I'm betting Air Canada would have charged me J

 

The snow delayed us a bit, about 40 minutes and it was a very full flight.  It was bumpy over Canada, as the pilot said we were hitting the storm.  I managed to grab a few hours sleep here and there, and am hoping the flight to Astana is not full as I could really use more sleep!

 

I cannot believe in less than 24 hours I will see and hold Tienna again….

 

Update from Linda: by the time they were home she was fine…..that's a relief!!