Wednesday, July 15, 2009

MY BABY’S ONLY 5 YEARS OLD!!!! I thought she turned six on Sunday but she turned five!!! I saw her birth certificate today and she was born on July 12, 2004!!! My baby is still a baby!!! Not that it would have mattered in the least if she was six. That just means I get to baby her a little longer. This also makes me feel better about her motor skills as well. I was worried at what I was seeing out of her developmentally but now that I know she is a year younger than I was told by my agency, she’s not as far behind I had thought. What a relief! We’ve still got some catching up to do but now, not as much. It won’t be so hard on her or her Mama.
It’s not as hot today as it has been. I’m even sitting in my sitting room in the hotel with the large windows open and there is a nice, cool breeze blowing through them. I opened up the windows in the bedroom too so the breeze would cool off the room. It seems to be working.
I waited on a bench outside the hotel again this morning. It was nice and cool and it was a welcome feeling since my room felt stuffy this. I had just sat down and Shirin walks up. She has to take a bus and then walk to the hotel from the bus station. It’s about a three minute walk for her. She always asks how I am and I always reciprocate. It seems she had a rough night and didn’t get to go to sleep until four am! Her cousin did not get married yesterday. It seems his girlfriend would not live with him. She would prefer living with her family for right now. She’s simply not ready to get married but it seems that, in Kazakhstan, when the man wants to marry, the woman is suppose to comply whether she wants to or not. Seems a little Neanderthal to me but who am I to judge? Apparently, all the family was over at Shirin’s house last night having a family meeting about it. She seemed very tired but still very gracious and accommodating.
Janette is a little late. She arrives with the same taxi driver we had yesterday and we get in the minivan and head toward Umit. We arrive through the blue and yellow iron gates and the all to familiar sound of children playing. We get out of the van and head toward Alina’s group shelter. They are there and it looks like they have some new toys to play with. I am seen through the shrubbery by one of her playmates and was instantly announced, “Alina’s mama…Alina’s mama!” I no sooner started walking up the paved path to the shelter and was met by my beautiful smiling little cherub! She’s laughing and running and screaming, “mama….mamama”. She is so precious! I love hearing that little giggle and seeing that smile every day! Thank you God for this most wonderful gift! I don’t know what I have done to deserve it! I scoop my girl up in my arms, she hugs me, I give her a little tickle on the belly, and then she is dressed in the new clothes I brought for her today. She wants Mama to do it but the nanny does it instead. As soon as she is dressed, she comes running back to me and wants to be picked up. I do so without hesitation and we are off to our gazebo to play.
I have brought the new stacking toys that I purchased yesterday at the mall. I have also brought a new treat for her….yogurt…peach yogurt (I have to mention that the yogurt here comes in percentages like our milk. The yogurt I have eaten so far is an 8% yogurt and it is the best yogurt I have ever eaten! It is so creamy and tasty. Not like the watered down stuff we have. Boy, I’m gonna miss this when we get back to Memphis.). We play with the stacking toys a little bit then I pull out the yogurt. I don’t know if she has ever had it before but boy, did she devour it! The cup of yogurt was gone in two minutes flat! She even let ME feed it to her! No sooner did I but a small bite in her mouth, she was asking Mama for another bite. To say the least, it was a BIG hit! Score more points for Mama because of the new treat today!! I’m bringing her blueberry yogurt tomorrow. I also brought the usual little poppy seed crackers and cookies. I didn’t give her any sweets today because of the yogurt. And, of course, there was tea which she thinks is juice. It was lemon flavored tea today and it was gone by the end of our visit. We practiced saying please and thank you with our treats. Please, or peeeze as Alina says, we’ve got down pat. Thank you is taking a little longer. She really picked up on the please very quickly. I really don’t think she is going to have much of a problem learning English at all especially when she will be in school surrounded by children who speak it. I’ve got a smart girl on my hands here! Even is she is only five years old!!!
The stacking toys were ok fun. What was more fun was pouring them out of the bag they came in and putting them back in. That was great fun for Alina! She would rather do that than stack them. It doesn’t matter. As long as she is having fun that’s all that counts. The orphanage staff did find the stacking toys I bought her for her birthday so we have those now. Those are a little bigger than the ones I bought yesterday and easier for Alina to handle. So, I’ll take the birthday ones back and forth with me everyday and the others can stay in the room and we’ll play with them when I get to take Alina out of the orphanage. We also flipped through our picture books and looked at pictures of our house, the cats, her room, etc. We went through the other picture book and named all of her friends in her group that were in the pictures. If I could adopt two unrelated children from Kaz, I would be adopting one of Alina’s playmates. Her name is Peka. She is so adorable and so sweet and she and Alina are friends. I would take her home in a heartbeat if I could. Alina and I looked through the Pooh book and played chase Alina around the gazebo which was great fun. She liked it when Mama was chasing her. Lots of laughs and giggles and fun for Alina.
Once again today, she came over and sat with me in the floor of the gazebo…twice!! No coaxing with treats or asking her to do it. I was sitting on the floor of the gazebo and she came right over and sat between my legs, back toward my belly. We played with the blocks and at one point I just sat and stroked her hair while she was drinking her tea. She seamed to really enjoy that and sat for quite a while (a good 10 minutes) and let me do it. She even wanted me to help her drink her tea today. Usually, if I offer to help her drink from the bottle, she protests but today she would pick the bottle up herself, come over to me, put the bottle close to my hand, and then start to drink. If I didn’t make a move to help her, she would say Mama. I seem to be racking up more trust points with her every day. It’s a nice feeling when she wants me to help her with something that just two days ago she would have not wanted me to help her with.
She also thought I was leaving her today in the middle of our visit. I had been chasing her around the gazebo. We had stopped and I started walking away from her. Alina, through the translation of Shirin, said, “Mama don’t leave”. Poor baby thought her mama was going to leave her. I scooped her up, tickled her, and everything was ok.
We saw the Director of the orphanage today but didn’t know it was her. She has been on vacation the entire time I’ve been visiting Alina. She pulled up in her Ford Fiesta along with who I can only assume was her son. She is a stout woman, about as tall as I am with short, black highlighted hair. She has a somewhat stern look about her. She came over to talk to Alina. She asked Alina where was her mother and Alina pointed her little impish finger at me. It felt good! The director talked to Alina some more and then she went inside the building. Only after she had left did Shirin and I realize that she was the director of the orphanage. I so wanted to make a good first impression on her. I had this little speech prepared and everything and what was I doing…sitting on the floor of the gazebo wearing a t-shirt and didn’t say a word to her. It didn’t seem to phase the director at all and she never said anything to me. It’s just first impressions mean a lot and I wanted her to be impressed with me at our first meeting. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll get a second chance. As the director walked into the front doors of Umit, she start yelling. There was water in the hallway floor which, apparently, wasn’t being cleaned up fast enough for her. This yelling lasted about 15 minutes. To top it off, Alina had to go to the bathroom. The director was standing right in the doorway where I needed to enter to take Alina up to her room to use the toilet. I thought, “Ok, just walk in there like you know where you are going and what you are doing and it will be fine.” So, I did just that and everything was fine. We went, she tee-teed, and we come back down to the gazebo to finish our visit. The yelling from the director had subsided by the time we came back down to the gazebo.
One of Alina’s caretakers came by the gazebo shortly after we had returned from the bathroom. It was time for Alina to eat so we loaded the toys up and headed toward her playroom. She wanted me to carry her so I did. On the way, I asked her if she was, “ash (ah-sh)” which means hungry in Kazak. She answered, “iya (ee-ya)” which means yes. We climb up the stairs and start toward her playroom and Alina starts to whimper. She flings her little arms around my neck, lays her head on my shoulder, and cries, “Maaamama”. It rips me in two when she does this. Again, I hug her, give her a kiss on the cheek, tell her I’ll be back tomorrow, and let one of the caretakers take her from my arms. Then, I leave as quickly as I can. It kills me to have to leave her but what else can I do.
Janette is busy running around and getting paperwork done not only for me but for the other families that are returning to Taraz next week. She is late in picking Shirin and I up so we sit in the gazebo and, once again, start chatting. We chat about where we would like to go and so forth and so on. She is such a sweet girl and I am very lucky to have her as my translator. She’s been studying English for 12 years…ever since she was in grade school. She is doing very well and I’m surprised she has been studying that long. Janette finally arrives but must do some more paperwork for Alina and I in the orphanage. So we wait another 30 minutes and then we are off. This time, we drop Shirin off close to her house and then I get dropped off at the hotel. I tell Janette, who studied French, merci beaucoup and rahkmet, and we part ways. Same time, same bat channel tomorrow.
Thanks peeps! Until tomorrow….