Our First Day at the Apartment :)

Here we are officially leaving the orphanage as a little family.




Just stepping outside on the front steps of the baby house, Zahri was blinking her eyes and scrunching her cheeks trying to figure out the cold.






Here we are in the car leaving the baby house, you can see how nervous Z is by her blank expression.









Looking out the window at all of the sights. I am so cuious what she was thinking and feeling. What a huge day for this little girl.








Walking up the the stairs to our apartment, our first home!









Z playing with her new one eyed walker; I did end up taking that other eye sticker off too, to creepy.










This is Z before her nap playing with her new teddy bear. This is the teddy bear that I have slept with for months. I only had this one at the orphanage for a day or two and then brought it back to the hotel with me because the fur on the bear collected all of the nasty stuff on the orphanage carpet, not good.










This is Z fighting sleep, hahaha, she got so fun when I was trying to get her down for her nap. Full of laughs and coos and smiles!








Zahri's first nap with mommy.


I sit here quietly typing away on my computer while my little one sleeps on her sofa chair bed, I made the bed by turning both arm chairs to face each other and put a blanket on them to form a little bed. She is so darn cute! It took awhile to get her down, but she wasn’t fussy, actually she was as playful as she has ever been. I tried some of my dog training techniques on her, from the Dog Whisperer (can’t remember his name right now) or maybe they were more of that British Nanny’s tricks, in any case, they didn’t work this time. I was very quiet, I didn’t talk or coo or laugh at her. When she kept getting up to play, I would gently, without talking, lay her back down. It was quite interesting, every time that I laid her back down, she would just lie there for about 20 seconds and just suck her thumb, as if she knew the drill. She didn’t fight it at all, but in the end she was so excited about playing that it took her a bit to actually fall asleep. I hadn’t yet been with her when she took a nap, so it was a first for us. I learned, at least this time, that she is quite giggly and talks a bunch to herself while she lays there. She was making a ton of mouth noises, like clicking her tongue and such, things that I hadn’t heard her do before. I am sure that this is (was) how she entertains(ed) herself while fighting off sleep at the orphanage.

So, it is 6:00 pm now. Z is fast asleep and I am drinking tea. So far, she has been asleep for about ½ an hour, just long enough for me to do the dishes, put a load of laundry in, pick up our coats and make some tea. Perfect! I am about falling asleep too; when Zahri was fighting off sleep I booted up our lullaby cd that John bought for us, and it continues to play as I type. It is a good one, thanks baby! Crazy, I can call John baby on my blog now! I couldn’t speak of him much up until this point as I was too worried about the adoption, I didn’t want to throw out any red flags, but now I can say it as it is because Z is officially my daughter. For those who don’t know John, he is my man.

Fast forward 4 hours later and I am now at my computer again and Z is back to sleep hopefully for the night, or at least a couple hours. I kept her up an additional 1 ½ hours past her scheduled bedtime since we were an hour and a half late on the entire day. When it was time for bed, we cleaned up our toys, I laid her down twice and she was out. I think that she missed her first nap today and her second nap with me was only half an hour, so I think that she is pooped. She seems more happy here than at our bonding visits at the orphanage. Today really makes me so thankful for the past month and a half of bonding because Z is so much more at ease now than she would have been had we done the hand off in a hotel without any bonding. Both times we got in the car today she whimpered a bit, but maybe just for 5-10 seconds and then we cuddled and she was quiet. It was so interesting to watch her in the car, to just wonder what she must be thinking and feeling. My heart really went out to her. When I took her from the orphanage and she felt the cold air outside, she froze. She just looked up and kept batting her eyes and squishing up her cheeks, she wasn’t sure of it at all, but in true Z fashion, she didn’t complain.

She is restless right now, and because she is so mobile, I am incredibly worried about her crawling or rolling right off the sofa chair arms, so I will sleep in the Living Room with her I think, or possibly move her to the bedroom with me. ??? I was just in the Kitchen grabbing something to eat, supper at 10 pm, and I heard a weird sound coming from the Living Room (yes, when I am out of the Living Room I check on her about every minute, no kidding, I do), when I peaked in I could hear that it was Z making sucking noises in her sleep, so cute!

And for those of you adoptive parents, I best add that so far so good on the potty. Big Smile here! I have heard of many babies not going for 4+ days and it is a nightmare for both parents and babies, but so far so good for us tonight. Yahoo! I was also worried that because they had already started ‘potty training’ her she may be reluctant to go in her diapers, um, not a problem there either! Sigh of huge relief there. Hopefully all continues on well in this department. For some of you this may have been too much for you to read, but in the adoption world, this is a large concern so I wanted to share that we are good………so far. Sure wish that I had a Diaper Genie here though. Again, maybe another luxury item in the States, but one that I would say is an essential that I just can’t give up.

Mom, do you remember when I babysat the neighbor’s little white dog on LaMesa? Reggie was his name; can you even believe that I just remembered that? Seriously traumatic. I am having terrible flashbacks as I sit here tonight with Z. Ugh! I will probably obsessively check on her every hour to be sure that she is breathing.

2 new families came to Aqtobe today and experienced their selection process; I am sure that it has been an incredibly emotional couple days for both couples. While I was picking Zahri up from the orphanage, I got to meet both couples and talk with them for about 10 minutes which was great! We plan to get together for supper yet this week to chat about everything. Both couples traveled to select boys, but that is all that I know so far.

No Z Just Yet :(

No Zahria at our apartment yet. I got word this morning that the chief judge didn’t count this Saturday as the last day of our Appeal Period since it was on the weekend (???? weird, since last weekend’s days counted, but what do you do), so today was the last day of the Appeal Period instead. Sorry mom and dad, looks like you had a drink for no good reason other than that it was Saturday. Haha You best have another drink tonight! So, tomorrow I get Z. I visited Zahri this afternoon at the orphanage and apologized for not seeing her this morning; Bayan called me to see if I wanted to visit, but they would have come to get me in like 10 minutes, and I wasn’t prepared to go. I hadn’t showered or anything and I was in the middle of cleaning the floors and such. Check out the handy mop I made.
Haha, it is a broom that I just found, wrapped in a towel that is being held on by clips that were being used as clothes pins. Smart hu! Tomorrow it is! That gave me tonight to make up some mashed potatoes for a couple lunches for Z this week. I plan to add a little chicken (in the oven baking now) and carrots, to them to jazz them up a bit. My oven is totally a gas oven. No, no, no, not like our gas stoves, not only do I have to manually light the burners but I even have to light the oven to get it heating. Scary hu! Other than that we have porridge, formula, fruit juice, carrot juice, jarred baby food, teething biscuits, gold fish crackers, animal crackers, etc. I think we are good. We will see hu!

I am not yet sure if Z and I will share the bed, I made a blanket bumper just in case, I don’t want her to roll off. Or maybe she will sleep on the two sofa chairs that I put together to form a little bed. Hmmmm, no crib here so we have to get creative. I must say that this past month and a half of living lean has really helped me see just how little you truly need to get by, now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that I am going to give up ALL of the finer things due to this journey (I still need facials & toilet paper, the essentials, haha, as if toilet paper is an essential.........gotta have facials still at least, hehe) but I am learning that I can live without a lot. I always thought that I would marry fairly young, mid 20s and our first home would be a little fixer that we would need to put pans under the leak from the roof to catch the rain (inside the house), like we used to as kids when I grew up, but that just didn’t happen. I guess that I get to live part of that life now! (Too funny, while writing this blog post, I just read my mom's comment on yesterday'spost that talked about my parents first home 30+ years ago and how my apartment reminded her of their first home. That is crazy that I was just writing about my home as a child and how we put pans under the leaks from the roof when it rained and my mom was thinking the same thing.) Uh - Oh, the lights keep dimming and getting brighter in my apt. Eeek! I did see where a couple tall candles were, but they aren't in holders or anything. Oh yeah, I have the rockin' flashlight that John sent with me, and I just put it in my backpack since I am now in an apartment, so I should be fine if I lose power. :) haha probably won't but gotta be prepared.

Here is our apartment play area, just like at the orphanage. :)








Here are a couple additional photos of our apartment building from the front, our room is on the third floor if you check out the set of 5 stacked apartments. I caught a couple fun photos of both men and women with their tall fur hats! I love it! There is also a photo here of the neighborhood park, this park is pretty normal for a kid’s park in Aqtobe. And last there is a photo of our little neighborhood convenience store, this is something that I love about Aqtobe, they make it so convenient for everyone to just pop in for bread, meat, pop, chocolate, canned goods, etc.














Since Z wasn’t able to come to the apartment today, I decided to put her frozen jump suit in her walker and stroll it around the apartment. Okay, I didn’t really do that, but look how funny this photo is!
I learned that hanging your clothes in the freezing cold porch, better yet outside on clothes lines, DOES NOT in fact dry your clothes, it just freezes them. I know that sounds obvious, but when you see everyone hanging out their clothes you question if there might be some way they are drying. I mean, why else would everyone hang their clothes out in this weather? You think, maybe the air is dryer here and they do dry, maybe they dry with icicles, but maybe they still dry???? Don’t laugh at me; you would have wondered the same thing had you come here first. Haha Anyhow, I talked to Bayan about this today, and she said that they don’t dry, I am right; they just freeze them to seal in the freshness and freeze any bacteria. Hmmmmmmm maybe that makes sense. She had told me about the bacteria thing a couple days back, but she never verified that the clothes do not dry, I still thought that they must dry somehow. Yah, Yah, you laugh but you are the ones that thought the dog in my trash photos was the bobcat that I talked about, when in fact the bobcat was the piece of machinery taking away the trash, not the dog that was in fact a dog, not a bobcat. Come on girls, I am in Kazakhstan, there aren't any bobcats (the animals) here. That was way too funny to read on my comments........from 2 people.

I must warn you, the following map rocks! Davy, Evy’s husband, is my John here, well; you will see what I mean. Look at this map, it is a map of Aqtobe, with all of the great sites to see and places to shop platted out for you! If you are coming to Aqtobe for your adoption, or just for sight seeing (haha j/k) enlarge and print this map out; boy do I wish that I had had this map when I arrived here in Aqtobe. I have a legend for this map too, I think that I will add this to my main page of the blog for future families to access easily. For those of you that don’t know my John, this is exactly what he would have done had he been able to make the trip with me.

Our New Pad - Our First Place :)

It is official, I have now moved for the 3rd time in a month and a half. Haha If you are looking for a good reference on both Hotel and Apartment life here in Aqtobe, I will be the one to chat with as I have first hand experience in 2 Hotels and 1 apartment now. (Plus I have been in 2 additional apartments here in Aqtobe, so I can say that I have a good feel for living options here.)

I must say that so far so good. Moving into this apartment is a really nice change. Tonight I made supper in my own kitchen, I did some laundry in a washing machine & hung my laundry in the 3-season porch like a true Kazak. I am now watching fun Russian MTV videos and sitting at a true desk, on a real chair, typing on my computer. Yahoo!









Here is the outside of my apartment building, a pretty normal concrete Soviet era apartment building. Check out the front door to my stairway, they must have been serious when installing these doors, they are steel and super heavy duty. The entry doors are secured by a code to get in, but often they are left open so you don’t have to use your code. No elevators here, and I am on the 3rd floor. Really it isn’t bad at all, but getting my heafty luggage up was a chore for Ceric, Bayana and I. Good thing I have them!













This is the door, or should I say doors, there are two, to my apartment. The outside door again is a super heavy duty steel door with a bolt about 2 inches long, no body is getting in this door, but if they do, just in case, there is a second door that they now need to get through too. I guess I would say that I am safe and sound inside my apartment here. I am sure that my mom and dad are happy to hear that!












Is it just me, or is this outlet not up to code? Haha



Code? What code?











Outlet covers to protect children? What? Nope, not here, not in this apartment. Instead I get exposed wires and extension cords to run the washing machine (that drains into the bathtub.) haha At least I have a washing machine I say, it rocks!










After scouring this place, and sweeping the floors, yes this was my broom, I decided to shred some carrots. I want to put carrots in mashed potatoes, like Evy and Davy did, such smart parents, so I went to the local indoor market to buy some carrots. Holy Shit! Look at the size of these things! I think that the carrots are on steroids, and yes, most of them that I have seen look like this. Must be something in the soil here, could it be oil? Yuck, bad thought!












Well, I can’t say that I am ready, but I am sure trying to be ready. I am a little scared I must admit. I sure hope that our transition is fairly smooth. Poor little bean has so many changes ahead of her, but this is one thing that I loved about the Kazakhstan adoption program, we have now bonded for a month and a half so Zahri has learned that I am a constant for her and I believe that she trusts me to some degree already. I am trying to keep things as normal for her as possible. I have all of her favorite toys with me here, her stacking cups, Itsy Bitsy Spider Book, Frog toy, linking teething rings, etc. And I purchased a cheap walker and a blow up beach ball for our time here, she loved both of these toys at the baby house, so I thought that would be fun for her.

Sorry, I didn’t take any photos of Z today, bad mommy, but here are some fun group photos that Davy and Evy just gave me. I must say that Zahri's mohawk is starting to fill in nicely. :)

IT IS OFFICIAL, I AM ZAHRI'S MOM!

Today was Day #15 of our Appeal Period, so tonight at 6:00 our appeal period ended, and I am now officially Zahri's mother! Yahooooo! I can't even believe it. I think that I am in shock.

It doesn't feel real at all. It feels as if I have just been visiting this beautiful little girl each day and that is that. It doesn't truly feel that I am even 1/2 way around the world. It is all way too surreal. When does it sink in? I mean even the being so far from home, it really doesn't feel real still, and I have been here for a month and a half. You just expect it to be SO different, and it is quite different, but people are still people, they look fairly similar, and they live in houses like we do, and they have families like we do, and the eat similar foods, and they have similar styles in clothing and they laugh at the same things. I am not sure what I expected. It just affirms that this is a really small world and that we are all such similar people, only seperated by water, land and language.

As for Zahri, the most important part in this entire life journey, she is my daughter! I can say it! She is my daughter! Weird hu! I have a daughter! And Z has a Mommy! We now have each other! :) That little girl 1/2 way around the world that I dreamt of for so long, that I wrote of at the beginning of my blog, I have found her and she is even more perfect than I first dreamed. I mean, you let faith take its' course and you fully rely on your agency and the gifts of God. You do your best to step back and just do as you are asked. You give up much control in this journey, which is so darn difficult at so many times throughout the process, but you learn that you must. And here I am, only 11 months after submitting my application to my agency, in Aqtobe, Kazakhstan with the most beautiful daughter. It just isn't real. I can't even imagine what it must feel like on this very day for those adoptive families that have been through years of fertility treatments prior to choosing adoption. To have what you have always dreamed of is surreal really. I can only imagine that giving birth to your child would be the same, surreal. I can't imagine that it really feels real for a couple months. What a monumental change in life! For both me and for Z.

To just take in what she will be feeling in the next couple months both hurts my heart and gives me a million goosebumps of happiness. Her little world is about to change so much! I know that Monday will be emotional for me, to take her from the orphanage, this will be a day of so many mixed emotions. This is all that she knows. This has been her entire life, her home, for nearly all 10 months of it. And then on the following Monday, the 11th, to take her from Aqtobe will be filled with a billion more mixed emotions. Today I looked at her, and I talked with her about how her little world will be changing, completely, in just 2 days. And she just continued to play. :)

The only sadness in this whole journey is losing the luxury of sleep. :) hahaha Okay, so it is a fair trade. Maybe tomorrow I will have a funeral for sleep. I have a feeling that from here on out, at least for the next 20-25 years (as I hope to add another child or two to our family), I will not have the luxury of sleeping in until 9:00.....or 10:00.....or noon. Oh my heavens, what have I done? hahaha just kidding of course.

My daughter is Zahria Alia! Or Zahri! Or Z! Or Z Bean! Or Zukie! I like to sing to her, "Zukhra, Zahria, Alia." Her birth name is Zukhra (pronounced a bit like Zukara), so I sing her names to her, so she can relate what she has known as her name with her given name. :) She now knows her birth name, given name and Z. :)

Up Close & Personal

I love these photos! Look at those long eyelashes, chubby cheeks and pursed lips. Oh yeah, and the drool.













Continuing on with our new game of Peek-a-Boo, I threw the blanket over Zahri's head, and said, "Where is Zahri? Where did she go?" and then I popped my head under the blanket with her, like the forts/tents we used to make as kids, and she laughs and laughs. She loves it!










Just another sweet photo. Bayana put Z's feet up on the sides of the walker and pulled her around, she of course had a great time!










Here is the hospital where Z was born. The hospital itself probably takes up a couple blocks and has several different buildings for specific matters, but the brick building shown here is the maternity building.












Okay, just a cute photo of Z's new winter boots. Check out the fur and the little rinestone broch on the front of the boot. The girl has to have stylin' boots, right! No stilletos yet though, not until she is 4 or 5. hahaha Okay 12. j/k











So, today I did some last minute shopping. It is amazing that I have been here for neary a month and a half, and I am hurrying like a crazy woman to get more shopping in. I went again to Sulpak, the 3 story huge mall and outdoor market with everything under the sun, and I couldn't find a darn thing. Actually, there is so much stuff that I can't shop. Isn't that strange. And shopping here is really difficult, and honestly not a ton of fun. You can't speak the language so you feel bad. They follow you around and watch your every move. You tell them nicely that you only speak English and they continue on in Russian trying to sell you things. They pull out their entire stock trying to get you to buy just something, and then you feel terrible that they just went through so much work and you didn't want to even see what they pulled out for you. Ugh! But in the end I did purchase a cheap walker for Z at the apartment, I fear that without this one crucial item, we will be in a heap of trouble. :) I will need to make supper, cook her porridge, give my arms a break, etc. And she will need to zoom around and feel that freedom, she just loves that darn walker. I am sure that she doesn't get to really be mobile much, so she just eats it up. I also, all by myself, got a bunch of photos developed at a one hour photo shop. I had to get some photos off of a cd and others off my memory card in my camera and it worked! Yahooo! Proud!

Yesterday we had a great lunch at Davy and Evy's apartment, a stellar pad I must add, and it was so nice. Evy cooked a really yummy pork stew and made Belgium French Fries, it was great, just like home............ or better becuase it was a home cooked meal. It was too funny, Evy came back into the Dining Room with her pot of stew and asked if anyone would like a bit more, and many of us said yes, including Bayana. Somehow the type of meat came up, and Bayana had thought that it was beef, even after eating it, and when she found out that it was pork she slightly freaked (not huge but it was a big surprise to her.) Bayana has never had pork, she can't have pork, I believe it is against the Muslim religion. hahaha Here are a couple photos from our lunch: