Bonding Day #11

Today was another morning session and it was very crowded again with the same four families as yesterday (though the Belgian girl wasn't quite as hyper today). Max was in good spirits and had lots of fun, but he did keep trying to take the toys that the Belgian family had brought. Aside from that, it was business as usual. He does seem to be initiating more walking (with assistance), not needing to be convinced as much as before. Shannon hadn't seen him in a week, but yesterday said that he looks different to her (in a good way). That made us feel good.

The caregivers have been dressing him in some of the clothes that we brought. We take his hat off as soon as they bring him in, but we don't try to peel off the layers. He had an undershirt, a polo, and a hoodie on today with two layers on the bottom. Here's his hoodie with the puppy on it.

We do love how ticklish Max is.

We just returned from a short walk on which we took a picture of a statue of Abul Khair Khan. He was a leader of the Kazakh Little Juz, which was located in what is now western Kazakhstan. He ruled in the 18th century and was allied with the Russian crown at the time. The statue is located just to the west of our apartment building, across the street from a nice park. After strolling past the statue, we went to the AHBAP (pronounced "anbar"), our local market. We have just about run out of the food that we brought (what in the world are we going to do when we are here for 6 weeks?), so we needed to pick up some water, eggs, cheese, fruit, etc. Here are a couple of photos of the statue.

And here he is on a Kazakh stamp that I found on Wikipedia.

Bonding Day #10

We had another morning session with Max today because it is Saturday (weekends are in the morning). He was wide awake and was pretty active. The room was very crowded today. Usually, we are in the room with just the Spanish couple and their daughter Fleur, but today we had that couple, our Alaskan friends and their little guy Dmitri, and a Belgian couple with their 6-year-old biological daughter Mirte (very hyperactive) and their adoptive daughter Mikka with whom they are bonding. We had the usual routine of cups, rings, walking by the bench, etc.

Here is a photo of Max and Dmitri (sort of) playing together.

And a photo of Jonathan and Shannon with Dmitri.

Funny story. Our driver Tolgat (pronounced like "toll" "got") speaks almost no English. Just a word here and there. Asks "How baby?" and points out "school" and things like that, but otherwise speaks very little English though he wants to very badly. He listens to a lot of techno music including some American stuff. One English word he does know....Aerosmith. Another...Bruce Willis. And yet another....Armageddon. That's right, our Kazakh driver is a big fan of Jenny's favorite movie, Armageddon. Small world. Here's a photo of Tolgat...

And our newly found yummy chocolate...

Bonding Day #9

Someone mentioned to Jenny that being here is sort of like the movie Groundhog Day. It is so true. Each day we get up and have Pop Tarts that we brought while we watch DVD episodes of 30 Rock on our sweet 42 inch flatscreen, which we did not bring (did I mention how nice our apartment is?). Then we get changed and cleaned up for the day. We usually take a walk and head to the grocery at some point to buy another 5-liter container of water (I think we are on our 6th or 7th one of those). Occasionally, we will have some appointment for signing papers or meeting with an official, but otherwise, we tend to do the same thing each day. Today, we found this new marketplace. It was kinda like Findlay Market, but indoors and with other little shops than just food. We bought two potatoes (when Jenny held up two fingers, the lady tried to sell us two kilograms instead) and an onion, although without any spices, I'm not sure what the gourmet will be preparing. I guess just fry 'em up with butter. Yum. We are currently on the lookout for some place to swipe some salt and pepper for seasoning. We did, however, discover Kazakhstan chocolate today and it is very good. We will definitely be getting more of that.




Anyway, on to Bonding Day #9. We got another smile from Max when he was brought in to the bonding room and Jenny says I have to mention that he also reached out to me (but I think he was pointing to his toys). Our bonding sessions also have a Groundhog Day kind of vibe, not that we're complaining. He has already gotten into a few routines. Crawling to the bench to stand up and play with his cups and rings, walking back and forth between us while holding hands, ending the session with some Cheerios, etc. Again, it is not a complaint since we have been very happy with our bonding sessions, but it has gotten repetitive.


Below are some video clips from today...

He has started to make a silly face when he is concentrating. Here he was retrieving cups and rings from my lap and putting them on the bench.

Here he is having fun with his cups and rings at the bench.

And here is another clip of Cheerios-time. We have been teaching him the sign for "more" and after only one day of instruction, he has started to do it without our prompting. How about that! We've said it before, this kid is a genius!

Bonding Day #8 and Missing Home

We got a nice smile from Max when they brought him into the bonding room. He also (kinda) reached out to us, which was nice to see. They had him bundled up again with like three layers and a hat even though it was about 76 degrees and sunny outside. We took the hat off as soon as the caregivers had left the room. Of course, people walk through the bonding room every 15 minutes or so, but no one stopped to scold us for having his hat off or letting him play around on the floor by the bench instead of on our clean blanket. He must have liked his head being rubbed because he kept feeling the top of his noggin (maybe he just likes the feel of his hair, which seems like they are letting grow instead of shaving it. He was completely bald when we first started the bonding process.). Here's our first family photo...



And here's some smiley photos without his little hat...

We are definitely missing home. It is a weird feeling for us. We want to stay here to see Max of course, but we are ready to be back home where we do not get stared at wherever we go and there is no language barrier. The people here must rarely see Americans because they all give us the eyeball as we pass by and they are not very subtle about it either. The language barrier is especially frustrating because we are without our interpreter the majority of the time. She is only with us for official adoption business. The other problem is this Cyrillic alphabet. Since there are so many characters that are not letters to us, we can't even sound out the words we are seeing. And some of their letters get pronounced differently. Their H is pronounced like our N and their Z is like our number 3. That gets to be very frustrating. At least when we went to France, Spain, and Italy, we could sound out the word and recognize root words that were common in the English language (or Latin for me). It's not that we dislike the country or that we are miserable here, it is just frustratingly different at times.

But tonight, we went out to dinner by ourselves (no interpreter and no Jonathan and Shannon) and it was a success. We went to the cafe attached to the bowling alley/pool hall and had a pizza and a soda. It was a close approximation of American pizza, so that helped. It was basically a pepperoni pizza with no pizza sauce. Very greasy, but not bad at all.

Bonding Day #7

Things are still going smoothly here. We still aren't getting the initial excitement we would LOVE to see when they bring him into the room, but he smiles and remembers that these are the people who come to play with me every day. We still don't think that he feels we are of any significance yet, but we are confident it will come eventually. He is always happy to go back to his caregivers (which we are totally happy about ourselves), especially since it is dinnertime. The caregivers here really love the children that are in their charge and they do the best they can with their resources. This makes it much easier for us to deal with leaving him for a month.

Some pictures (still love that half-smile)...




Lots of cup stacking today (and they even dressed him in some of the clothes that we brought for him...special thanks to Marla George for her donations!).

And this one is for JoJo Darnell...

And (by request), here's some video of Cheerios-time...

Bonding Day #6

Another great day with Max (we're wondering when we might not have such a great day...one has to be coming, right? Actually, the only time he has gotten fussy at all was when the caregivers brought some food for Fleur, the baby being adopted by the Spanish couple. He was very preoccupied by her food and wanted it himself. We gave him some Cheerios at the end of our session, but it makes us sad that he is hungry all the time.)

In addition to the usual walking and crawling, we are starting to hear a lot more babbling from Max. He's just itching to get that first step and first word out before we leave. It is becoming his habit to crawl over to the bench, stand up, and throw his toys around. He likes walking around and gathering them up, followed by tossing them one by one to the floor. He was trying to climb over the bench today, but he just can't quite make it.

He enjoyed playing with a balloon that was brought by the Spanish couple, Paco and Lola.

And here's a photo of his baby house. The name on the sign "YMIT" is pronounced "oo-meet" and means hope.

Our last day of bonding will be June 4th, so we will likely be leaving for home on the 6th. The sooner we get home, the sooner we can return and the sooner we'll all be home together.

Bonding Day #5

Another good day with Max. We much prefer the more active afternoon sessions to the laid-back morning ones. He was ready to play as soon as they brought him in. We made the mistake of giving him some Cheerios at the beginning, so he was a little preoccupied with getting more and more of them. In the future, we'll have to hold off on the cereal until the last half hour of our bonding session. We felt bad having to cut him off, but we didn't want to give him too much, especially since we probably aren't supposed to be giving him any at all. He was walking a lot and was in a really smiley mood as you'll see in the pictures and video. He discovered his bald head and he was taking his hat off all by himself. The cool air must have felt good because he kept taking it off and smiling.

We had dinner at a Ukranian restaurant with our Alaskan friends this evening. They were excited about getting their court date confirmed and we went out to celebrate. Jenny had the Pelmini (a beef filled pasta with butter on top) and I had a dish consisting of toasted mashed potato balls stuffed with beef. Both dishes were quite good and an added bonus was that the menu was in English as well as Russian. Ordering wasn't quite a chore for us this time.

And since we neglected to share this video on Thursday (since I hadn't yet learned how to trim the length down from 20 minutes which would have taken hours to load), here's some video of Max eating his porridge (which we find hilarious) from our first day of bonding. Check out those fine motor skills...

Bonding Day #4 and Out and About in Aktobe

Another morning session with Max, but a little more active today. They brought him in holding a piece of apple in each hand and we sneaked him a few handfuls of Cheerios as well. Previously, we had been told that he was able to pull himself up to stand, but since we hadn't seen it for ourselves, we were skeptical. No more...

So not only can he stand, but walk a little bit too (with some help)...

There was a lot of exploring like this...

and he even discovered my glasses...

The caregivers today called him Max for the first time. We were unsure whether we should tell them that we were planning to change his first name and keep his first name as his middle name. We didn't know if this would offend anyone. (When we adopted our dog Sydney, she was originally named Misti. We didn't like this name and had planned all along to change her name to Sydney. Her original foster mom that took care of her until we adopted her was very eager to hear how she was doing....until she found out we changed her name. Then we never heard from her again. So we didn't know if this situation would repeat itself.) We should have known it would be no problem since most all adopted kids receive new names upon joining their forever family, but you just never know who might be offended (especially since he is not officially ours yet). But we were really excited when we heard them refer to him as Max (our translator had told them of our intentions). So maybe soon he will start to answer to the new name.

In the afternoon, since it was such a nice sunny day, we took a stroll around our neighborhood which is actually the center of Aqtobe. We walked past the Mosque/Mall.

We saw the baby giraffe that lives out in front of the mall (very bizarre). There is a sort of mini-amusement park with 4 or 5 kiddie rides and next to these are the giraffe and two cages with peacocks. Right in the middle of the city (kinda sad for the animals).

We walked past the football (soccer) stadium where it sounded like a match was going on.

We walked to the nearby sculpture garden.

Here's a typical Kazakhstan apartment building.

But here's our fancy new building (we're located on the 12th floor).


We're back on our afternoon visiting schedule tomorrow.

Bonding Day #3

Today was kind of a low-key visit. It was our first visit in the morning and apparently Max is not too active until he's had his morning cup of tea. He seemed to have just been awakened before he was brought into the bonding room to see us, so he was a little lethargic. We played with the cups and rings for a while and did some crawling and walking, but for the last half hour to forty-five minutes, he was very mellow and just wanted to be held. And we were okay with that. He's a good cuddler.




It is 10pm here at the moment and we just got back from dinner out with the O'Briens (our new friends from Alaska who are adopting a little boy named Dmitri, who is one month younger than Max). Jonathan and Shannon have been in Kaz for about a month and a half and Jonathan has really taken to the language (we found out that it helps if you actually listen to the language CDs). He was able to help us decipher the menu and help with the ordering. The only words we have learned are "Spashiba" (thank you, though not spelled correctly) and "Dos vidanya" (goodbye, again not spelled correctly). Jonathan showed us the Russian word for chicken, so we don't have to pantomime "bawk bawk" when we order. The food was decent enough, but it was just nice to be out of the apartment and have a conversation in English.

All in all a nice day. Tomorrow's bonding will also be in the morning, so it may be low-key once again.

Bonding Day #2

We had a great second day with Max (yes, we will be calling him Max although we may keep Misha around as a nickname). He was in a great mood and we think he may have even recognized us when they brought him in (though that may be wishful thinking on our part).

We did lots of exploring by crawling around the room and we even did some walking with assistance. He loves all of his new toys, especially the stacking cups and rings. He likes banging them around and making lots of noise. He had a balloon given to him by a very nice Spanish couple who were sharing the bonding room with us today and he loved squeezing it to make sounds. He likes throwing his toy and then crawling after it. There was a lot of giggling today and we found out he is very ticklish though it is difficult under all those layers. Since most of you are not familiar with their culture, here goes: The Kazakh people are generally very overprotective of children in any cold weather. Although right now, it is springtime and in the 60's, we still see most every kid out on the streets wearing a winter hat.

Max was wearing a (thankfully) thin blue hat. He ditched the girly pink one he had on yesterday. This matched his blue jacket which was on over his overalls which were covering his long sleeved shirt which was over his onesie with feet that were also covered with woolen socks. The poor little guy was very sweaty. We took his hat off (briefly, since this is frowned upon) just to see his hair color (brown, to match his eyes). He must have liked the feeling because he kept tugging on it and we were afraid we would get in trouble. The caregivers just happened to need to keep cutting through the bonding room though we're sure they weren't keeping tabs on us :).

Prior to our visit with Max, we actually ventured out of our comfort zone and went to the market without our interpreter. We took no offense to being followed around and watched by the workers. Since Jenny had her purse, they likely thought she was a shoplifter. Damn Americans! We noticed on our way out that all the women were putting their bags into these lockers, so that may have caused the tailing. Next time, we wi'll not bring the purse and then we'll see if they are still suspicious. :)

We have made friends with another American couple who also use our adoption agency, Little Miracles. They are from Alaska and have been here for about a month and a half. They are very bold and are staying for one loooooooong trip of at least three months. At least they have gotten some of the language down. Our language CDs generously lent to us by Laura Holland have been gathering dust for the last (almost) year. We'll start those some time soon, we promise. Hopefully, we'll be going out with Shannon and Jonathan for a drink later this evening.

Here's some video (assuming this works)...

And one more photo. Max has not yet gotten it perfected, but he is currently working on a "trick" that was originally shown to us by Jordan Darnell. Jordan, you'll have to show him how it's done when we bring him home.

Day 3 will be a morning session tomorrow, so we'll see how he is at that time of day.

It's a boy!!

Introducing our son Maximilian Michael Louis!!

He is 18 months old and his given name is Michael (which is pronounced like Mick-isle which is the Russian pronunciation) Fyedorovich (which is a form of Theodore) and then his last name. His nickname in the orphanage is Misha which is the traditional Russian nickname for Michael. He was born in Aqtobe, Kazakhstan but is of Russian descent. He is small for his age, but the doctor at the orphanage has assured us that he is very healthy. Here are some more fun pictures and we'll describe the meeting below.











On Wednesday, we were taken to meet an official from the Ministry of Education (who run the orphanages) for a brief meeting. We were asked our names and our occupations and then we left with her to go to the baby home. At the baby home, we met even more briefly with the Orphanage Director who asked where we were from and then requested our passports. We then were asked to step out into the hallway while they had a short discussion. When the door opened he said "Good Luck!" in Russian and we left for the other baby home for the younger children.





At this orphanage, we met with the head doctor, a very nice woman, who told us that there were not many children available and all that they had were boys. Our only request was for a child as healthy and as young as possible. We sat there for an eternity of 10 minutes waiting for him to be presented to us. A caregiver entered and handed Misha over to us. We played with him for a few minutes and he wasn't too interested in the toys we brought. However, he did interact with us and had good eye-contact. Eventually, we even got him to laugh and smile. While this was going on, the doctor was giving us what little history they have of him and his current medical status. She offered to show us two other boys, but that they were not as healthy as Misha. We declined to meet with them and asked to begin the bonding period with Misha. The doctor was pleased with our decision.





In Kazakhstan, adoptive parents travel without knowing anything about the children available. They choose a child when they arrive. Since we had such an immediate reaction to Misha, we did not want to put ourselves in a position to say no to any child. Once a child is chosen, the bonding period begins and lasts for 15 days. Sadly, we will only be able to visit once per day instead of the previous policy of twice-a-day visits. Apparently, they are concerned about spreading diseases with so many people coming and going. So we will be seeing Misha once a day from 4-6pm.





Today, our visit #1 started a little late at around 4:20. We played with him in the bonding room until about 5:40 when the nurse returned with his dinner, porridge and tea. She asked if we would like to feed him. Of course, we would. However, he did not need our help at all. At 18 months old, this kid is already feeding himself with spoon and drinking from a teacup. I tell ya, this kid's a genius!

We would like to thank everyone that has checked out this blog and especially those that left comments (keep 'em coming!). All of the prayers and support have helped more than you will ever know. We may even have some video in a little while. Stay tuned!

We have arrived!

Just a quick post to let everyone know that we arrived in our region safe and sound. We slept very little on the last leg of the journey, so we're going to bed in a minute (as it is after 9pm here and we haven't slept since Sunday night). We were met at the aiport by our region coordinator Natasha, our translator also named Natasha, and our driver whose name escapes us at the moment (difficult Russian name). We loaded our luggage (barely) into the car and they delivered us to our palatial new digs on the 12th floor (nice view at sunset).

Our beautiful 2 bedroom, one and a half bath apartment located in the newer section of Aqtobe is also near the Mosque-Mall (which we fully intend to check out). Check out these pics.

We also went to the baby house this afternoon, but we have no news to share at this time. Check back tomorrow and we should have a BIG announcement then.

Almost there...

Well, it's been a loooooooong day. The flight to Chicago was quick with a short hour and a half layover. The flight from Chicago to Frankfurt was quite long (9 hours). And we were stuck in the middle of the middle set of seats, between some pilgrims on their way to Medjugorie. The guy to my right had a penchant for the "Joe Huber Spread" which, for anyone who has been stuck in the backseat with two other guys and Joe Huber sitting in the middle, you understand the Joe Huber Spread. The layover in Frankfurt was a lengthy four hours and we left for Almaty, Kazakhstan at 2pm and landed at midnight local time (five more hours). We met our assistant coordinator Kate when we landed in Almaty and she gave us our tickets to Aqtobe and showed us where we would be waiting for the next 7 hours and we are currently in hour 6 of that wait. But Jenny saw a sign for free wifi, so we're sending a quick update. Our flight for Aqtobe leaves in about 45 minutes and, once there, we'll likely be taken to our apartment, change, and immediately go to the orphanage. When our Little Miracles coordinator Andrea warned us that we have never experienced exhaustion like this, she wasn't kidding. We've gotten maybe 3 hours of sleep over the last 28 and a half hours and we're running on adrenaline right now. We'll be glad to get a nap after the baby house (that's if we can fall asleep). Keep us in your prayers and we'll keep ya posted.

Checking In

Well, a big thank you to Timmy for driving us to the airport. It was a beautiful day for a ride on the Anderson Ferry. Jenny and I had three bags to check (stuffed to the gills.....thanks Rodg and Krista for the loaners). Needless to say, they were a little over the 50-pound maximum. What we did not realize was that it would be a $350 per bag charge for each of the two overweight bags (international rates). The nice people at United suggested we buy a small bag at the airport store and spread the weight around. Well, a $10 bag carrying 8 pounds of stuff beats the heck out of a $700 charge for too much weight. Live and learn, I guess. It's about 3:30 and our flight to Chicago is about to board. Here we go!

Our LOI has arrived!

After a short 8 days from our last update, we have received the Letter of Invitation that we've been waiting for for so long. On Thursday afternoon, we received a call from our coordinator at Little Miracles (our adoption agency) that she had finally gotten out LOI and would be emailing it to us with our other forms. The date of arrival in country was listed as......ASAP. We quickly arranged with the travel agency that specializes in adoption, humanitarian, and missionary travel and the earliest flight we could get was Monday afternoon. We will be flying out of CVG this Monday around 4pm. Cincinnati > Chicago > Frankfurt > Almaty > Aqtobe. We should be arriving in our region on Wednesday morning. Just enough time to get to our apartment, change clothes, and head over to the baby home. Pray for energy for us.

Our visa application was next-day-FedExed to the Kazakhstan consulate in New York and will be back to us on Saturday. All that is left is to pack everything up and go.

Thanks!


p.s....a special thank you to Mark Groszek, Chuck Knepfle, Ray Heidorn, Chris Nie, Kurt Ruffing, and Rob Oberjohann for covering my classes for the last 9 days of school.

LOI is in the works!!

A few of you have already been told, but I wanted to make sure we kept everyone up to date on our progress. We've been asked a million times "Any news?" and now, we actually have some to share!

On Wednesday afternoon (May 6), we received a call from our adoption coordinator. She was calling to let us know that our paperwork has left our region and was on its way to the Kazakhstan capital of Astana. The Ministry in our region of Aqtobe has signed off on our adoption. After one or two more weeks of processing in Astana, our Letter of Invitation will be sent to our adoption agency who will then notify us that it is time to travel !! The LOI is what we have been anxiously awaiting these last seven months. And now it is almost here. Once the invitation arrives, we will immediately need to make our travel arrangements and send in our visa application. We will have only a few days to get everything together and leave the U.S. Needless to say, we are thrilled and nervous all at the same time. It has been a looooong journey and it never really seemed like we were getting closer to the end, but now it is terrifyingly HERE!

Just to remind you of how the travel works, here goes. Our first trip will last around two weeks. This is the bonding period during which we will visit the baby home (orphanage) twice daily to visit and play with our child. After the bonding period is up, we will return home without the baby for about a month. Then we will return to Aqtobe for court, after which we have the option of returning home or staying in country while the final processing takes place. Since we will be able to visit daily AND it will be summertime (no school!!), we have decided to stay for one longer second trip instead of two shorter ones. We will be staying in Kazakhstan for six weeks on that second trip. We're hoping Sydney (our dog) still remembers us when we get home!

The next thing you'll be hearing from us (hopefully very soon) will be that we are leaving!

Thanks for all the prayers and support,
Scott and Jenny Louis