27 July 2009
The weather has been a little overcast early in the morning but the days have been sunny and although hot, not as hot as Taraz. I have been getting up early so that I have time to take a shower, get dressed for the day, write the blog posts (uninterrupted), and have some quiet time before the rug rat awakes.
Lukas decided he wanted a pre breakfast snack and drank 1 ½ glasses of yogurt smoothie before going downstairs for the buffet. Needless to say he wasn’t quite as hungry at breakfast this morning but he did eat a little of most of what I brought to the table for him. I almost forgot to mention that Lukas insisted on taking his backpack to breakfast this morning. I think it was because we have been taking my backpack everywhere we go.
While at breakfast we met one of the other families from our same agency that had been and the region of Ust. They have adopted an older sibling pair (boy and girl) and arrived Sunday. They had them escorted to Almaty and met them here. They live in the Chicago area. Our case worker mentioned that 7 children between the age of 12 months to 7 years old were coming home from Kazakhstan this week. Five of the children were in the group from Ust. Some have already left to head home.
After breakfast we headed back to the room for some play time and to check email and post. Unfortunately, even though we paid for 2 hours of internet and were able to log in to the hotel wifi and pull up the homepage for email we couldn’t connect to anything else. We decided to bag getting on the internet from Almaty and waiting until we get to Frankfurt. Lukas took his morning bath and then we headed out to the mall with the play area again. He played for a short time and then wanted to ride the carousel again. It takes two 50 tenge coins. We had one. We managed to get some change but the carousel was occupied so he rode the horse/donkey next to it. The picture doesn’t show it but he really was enjoying his ride, however, he really wanted to ride the carousel. Once it was free he got his wish, twice. We then decided we needed to start making our way back to the hotel so he could rest up before the SOS clinic appointment. On the way down from the top floor someone decided he needed to ride the escalator over and over and over…. Two sales clerks were talking at the top and got a kick out of watching him.
While Lukas and Mama rode the escalator Papa went to the supermarket for some Pepsi. I finally got Lukas off the escalator and down to the second floor flat escalator. We past Papa coming back up to get us and Lukas thought that was pretty funny.
Outside the mall there is a little café that serves meat pies and pastries. We know he likes them and so we decided to buy him one for lunch. I specifically told the girl adeen (one) and she proceeded to put 3 in the bag. I guess she thought I meant one for each of us. We sat at a table and Lukas inhaled an entire pie. They are about the size of a hostess fruit pie. We brought the others back and put them in the fridge for later. He seems to prefer them cold any way.
Once back at the room we let him play some more and then attempted to get him to take a nap. He decided it was time for an afternoon bath. We finally got him to go to sleep about 1pm. We needed to be downstairs at 2pm to go to the clinic. I dressed him while he was still half a sleep and carried him to the lobby. Once he saw he was going in a car he woke right up. He actually let me put a lap belt on him for the ride to the clinic.
He did very well at the clinic appointment and was given a clean bill of health. The doctor was very good with him. He has actually gained some weight and grown 2-2.5 cm since we met him in late April. He is in about the 5th % on both height and weight on the US CDC charts but the doctor was not concerned. I had him at about the 15th% on the WHO international charts which are more reflective of kids in orphanages. We were caught off guard when they informed us they wanted the payment in Tenge and not US dollars. Fortunately Wayne had enough tenge with him or we could have used a credit card.
Lukas wasn’t quite as happy about the lap belt on the drive back. We decided to exchange some more money and then eat at the Koo Koo Roo Chicken for an early dinner. The menu was all Russian but we managed to order 3 chicken fillet dinners. It turned out to be similar to chicken parmesan but with cheese and a white sauce of some kind. Lukas ate about half of his with some fries and rice. He doesn’t appear to like the Kaz version of ketchup. He seems to like sweet tasting things so we will see how he likes US ketchup when we get home.
We called it a day after dinner and headed back to the room. Lukas, of course, had to have another bath. He still fights us with going to sleep but once asleep he sleeps fairly well. No nightmares during the night but Mama made the mistake of moving him halfway through the night so he wouldn’t fall off the bed and woke him up. After a few tears he settled back down to sleep until about 7:30am this morning (Tuesday).
Paka,
Lynda, Wayne and Lukas
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