Since this post is in two parts I’ll give two words for the day:
Harasho = good!
Sh-chot, pajalsta = could I have the bill please?
Thanks to everyone who has written to extend your congratulations, well wishes and prayers. We really appreciate each and everyone of them. We don't visit Anton until the afternoon so this post will be in two parts.
We were unsuccessful at setting up an internet connection in our room but were delighted to discover the Hotel business center has high speed internet service 24hrs for free. Our room would have been dial up and extremely slow. We were blessed with help from one of the hotel staff who speaks excellent english. He was born and raised in Taraz. Internet Explorer doesn't work well here so he set us up with Mozilla and we have had no problems since. He spent quite a bit of time with us last night getting it to work. We got to help in out as well as he was working on an english translation of the restaurant menu.
We found out today that the other family that had been delayed should be joining us on Monday. I'm really looking forward to their arrival. It will be nice to have US company.
I think we are already starting to settle into a routine. We washed some clothes this morning in the bathroom sink and they look quite nice hanging from the clothes line between our living room and bedroom. Hopefully they will dry with in a day. We made our first excursion to the store by ourselves this morning. We bought more water, some yogurt smoothies, cheese, jam, bread, and some tangerines. Hopefully later today or at least by Monday we will make it to the bigger store, GROS, and I can by a hot pot, spoons, bowls, mugs and a knife to set up a sudo kitchen. Then I can have some hot coffee or tea in the room and we can buy some cereal and milk for breakfast. The hotel has a breakfast buffet that has been ok but we'd like to save anywhere we can and it will be cheaper to buy cereal and milk. The PB we packed has definitely come in handy for the first few days as we get settled.
That's all for now. Will update this post after our visit with Anton this afternoon.
Part 2:
We had a nice, long visit with Anton today. We were probably there for almost 2 hours. They took us to a much smaller room that was a little too small for our guys antics today. He was very quiet when they first brought him in but we were informed that they had woken him up from his nap early because we there to visit. He came around fairly quickly when we pulled out the little pooh lunchbox with 2 toy trucks inside. They came to get him for his afternoon snack shortly after we got there but it was not long before we heard him running down the hallway back to the room. We played for a while and then Janetta came to get us to meet with the Umit Director. We chatted very briefly, took the mandatory picture of us with the director and were back to the room for more bonding.
Zema is the young one behind Wayne and the Director is next to me.
We have learned fairly quickly that Anton appears to be a very bright boy. He studies things closely and figures them out pretty quickly. He watched both of us blow up the beach ball over the last two days and while we were playing with it today he picked it up and pretended to blow it up. We have also learned he is a climber and a pretty tough guy. When he falls down he just laughs and gets back up and keeps on going.
Yesterday he didn’t really say anything or make any noises, just smiled a lot. Today he was making noises while he played with his trucks and we had loads of laughs from him while playing ball. We discovered that he not only throws well, but he can kick well too. We had our own version of indoor soccer today, thus the statement that the room wasn’t quite big enough. He can be quite the ham when he wants to. We also heard him speak today which was a relief. We figured he hadn’t said anything yet because his language is mostly Kazak, not Russian so we have a little bit of a language barrier. Fortunately, Zema, our translator knows Kazak as well. He had been saying some words that we didn’t recognize. We asked her when she came back in the room and she said they were Kazak words. When asked what certain animals were that we showed him he spoke very clearly in Kazak. Janetta came in and spoke to him and he would answer her.
He didn’t seem very happy when then told him it was time to go. He isn’t very big on giving hugs but I believe that is because of the environment and that he barely knows us. He will come up so we can hug him good bye but he loves to wave. My favorite moment of the day was as he was leaving and waving good bye I (mama) blew him a kiss and he blew one back to me. It made my day.
We had some 4 piece puzzles of a monkey and a lion. He enjoyed putting them together and was pretty good at it. He was very intent on making sure each piece was secure. Janetta asked him who his papa was and he pointed to me (papa). Of course, I was the only male in the room, but it was still nice to see.
Now what you all really want to see, more pictures of Anton:
Bonnie, he really likes the puzzles, thanks! Great idea!
We will go back tomorrow to see him at 3pm right after nap time. Then early next week we will meet with the Doctor and Psychologist/social worker to get his medical and developmental background.
This afternoon we walked to the GROS store (grocery/department store) and I finally got my hot water kettle. It doesn’t take long to heat up water. We picked up some mugs, bowls and utensils so we are now pretty well set for eating in if we want to and I can have my morning cup of coffee. They serve instant coffee or something similar to International Foods Flavored Coffee.
For dinner we went to the Turkish Restaurant that Zema pointed out the first day we were here. It was inexpensive and decent food.
Paka,
Lynda and Wayne
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