Appeals Period - Day 4

Life in Kazakhstan - As much as we love our time with Max, outside of that it is fairly mundane and sometimes downright unappealing.

SLEEP - I am still not very well adjusted to the time difference. It is taking me much longer on this trip than last time to get acclimated. Jenny is not having too much trouble, but this morning I was up at 3:30am and wide awake after only about 5 hours of sleep. That is very atypical for me and I'm also not sleeping straight through when I am getting to sleep. Anyway, it is difficult being so exhausted all the time.

BOREDOM - When we are not visiting Max, we really do not have much to do. We took a walk to the big market today, but that's about it. We spend much of our down time (and there's lots of down time) watching TV (or occasionally reading). No Kazakh TV of course, but stuff we brought with us on the computer (episodes of Mad About You, Ed, Just Shoot Me, Entourage, Better Off Ted, Everybody Loves Raymond, various movies). But we haven't attempted to watch a movie yet because we have been too tired and figured we would fall asleep in the middle of it.

BULOT - Our new driver Bulot, while a nice enough guy, is a frickin maniac behind the wheel. We think he was trained by NYC cabbies. We refer to his car as the Death Cab. Most people slow down as they approach a stop sign or pedestrian, but not Bulot. He came awfully close to hitting two people today, one of whom was crossing in a crosswalk (just not fast enough for Bulot). The thing is, he is typical of drivers in Aktobe. On the way back from the market this afternoon, we actually saw a car bump a woman because she had not gotten all the way across the street when the light changed. That is why we never try to cross unless we are in the middle of a crowd. Safety in numbers. We miss Talgot.

SMELLS - You have never truly experienced an offensive odor until you have smelled what was wafting through the babyhouse today. It is usually pretty bad (especially around meal time), but today was particularly foul. Once we caught a whiff of it, we tried to hold our breath and hustle up to the bonding room (which strangely stays pretty much odor-free). I accidentally inhaled before we got there and started gagging. And the odors are not exclusive to the babyhouse either. The smell outside of our apartment is usually pretty rank as well. Basically, anytime cooking is going on, we have to hold our breath. Sometimes, the air outside isn't too fresh either. Last night, we thought we sensed the aroma of burning garbage and this morning it seemed more like rotten eggs. Just one more thing that makes us miss home.

All right, enough of that.
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When Jenny got up this morning around 6:30am (I had already been up for hours at that point), she pointed out that we were shrouded in fog. It was very strange. We can usually see a great distance out our window, but visibility was greatly reduced. It burned off after a couple hours, but it was eerie for a while.

We were on our own at the babyhouse again today. The Natashas were with the new American couple (The Joneses) because they had court today. We love our translator Natasha, but we much prefer to visit Max by ourselves.

It was another good day with Max. He wanted to walk a lot today, but honestly he is really just taking a couple steps and diving toward one of us. He is becoming more and more confident in himself. While walking with one of us, he will sometimes let go and walk solo for a few steps. He does stand up by himself now without needing a chair or the bench or a hand from us.

We brought a stuffed dog that somewhat resembles our dog Sydney. We hope that he gets along with Sydney as well as he does the stuffed animal.

He has been babbling a LOT more on this trip than the first one. He also imitates sounds that we make. If we make the sound of a car while playing with the car, then he tries to mimic it. I was whistling while opening the lid to the drum today, and when he opened it himself he kind of hummed the same sounds I was whistling. It was very cute.

Max loves to knock down the cups that we stack for him.

11 more days until we receive custody!!!