She can’t resist my charms forever

Last night Mee and I had our first full visit with Chloe (two hours). At first it looked like it would be an extension of the first visit (the night before) when Chloe essentially gave the impression that she thought I was a creepy man and wanted very little to do with me. One good thing to come from having a creepy man in the room is that she turns to Mee for safety and security. Said another way, I am facilitating the bond between mother and daughter. But after about thirty minutes she began to warm to me and at one point, when I put out my arms she came to me. Then I was done, caput, finished, and completely wrapped around her tiny finger.

Around the second half of the visit she even began to laugh and smile a bit. It is incredible how smiling and laughing changes her face completely. I am looking forward to creating a world for her where she mostly smiles and is rarely sad.

Mee and I are starting to get on schedule as far as when day is and when night is. We are getting used to the food and even starting to explore the local markets. It is pretty tough in this city–no one speaks English. And when you begin to mispronounce the little bit of Russian you memorized to ask for a loaf of bread they start rattling away in Russian as if they said a whole bunch of words real fast, we would be more likely to understand some of them. We don’t. We just kind of shake our heads and keep saying “da (yes)” and “spat-see-ba (thank you)” over and over. I’m pretty sure we got a great deal on our goat though. It was owned by a little old lady who only milked it on Sunday’s.

Getting There

Our last couple of days have gone like this:

11:55pm
Land in Almaty. I immediately notice how “Soviet” this country is. All of the airport security people wear fantastic olive green, military-looking uniforms with big hats and severe looks. The women all seem to work in five-inch heels, and pretty much everyone is beautiful.

1:30am
Check into hotel. You would never know this was a hotel from the outside. It is a non-descript building that is mainly a beauty salon that runs a hotel service on the side. The room is huge but everything is a bit old. Almaty is full of buildings that must have been built in the 1960’s. They are very much like the housing tenements built in Chicago –large, grey, concrete. Everything seems concrete. [And the air smells sharp and gritty, a result of industrial pollution, I guess. -- Mee]

10:00am
[We checked into the hotel last night with less than an inch of water left in our remaining water bottle. Woke up this morning dehydrated and desperate. At about 9 o’clock, we get desperate enough to drink a bit of tap water. We pray that we haven’t ingested any parasites or bacteria too foreign for our systems to handle.] Meet with agency at main office in Almaty. The people here are nice and professional. It’s good because Mee and I need some sense of security and normalcy. I think we are fine with the “be a leaf in the stream” approach as long as we can see that someone is controlling the stream. Someone is.

12:30pm
Eat pizza at local mall. This is our fist experience being left alone in Kaz, it is also our first experience with Tenge (the local currency). A bit scary at first, we don’t know if we are paying too much for things. [Not everyone is beautiful, but most people here do look pretty sharp. The women in Kazakhstan totally dress to kill with skin-tight pants and stiletto boots and the men either look like models or KGB agents from a James Bond movie.]

1:00pm
Go back to airport to board a 30-year old jet to Kokshetau [only 30?]. This was pretty neat for about 30 minutes. When the novelty wore off, it was just extremely hot at my feet, cold at my shoulders and impossible to find a position to sleep. [We were both experiencing crushing exhaustion by this point.] That pretty much describes the next four hours of the flight. Good cookies though!

6:00pm
Land in Kokshetau and head straight to the Department of Education to meet with someone intimidating. [Zac and I were met at the airport by our driver, Nursultan, and interpreter, Marina. Marina is an impressively capable, no-nonsense woman who only needed about 10 minutes to greet us, hustle our bags and tired selves into the car, collect and cluck over the paperwork sent by the agency in Almaty, and then briskly scold someone on the other end of her cell phone – at least it sounded like scolding to my ears. She could have been reciting a Russian love poem for all I know, Soviet style. Anyway, I really appreciated a take-charge woman at this point, especially at the meeting with the Department of Education man. When he kept leveling assessing looks at us, I got so nervous I almost cried. Or maybe it was because I was so freaking tired.]

7:00pm
Drop luggage off at cottage that will be our home for next four weeks (it’s nice)

7:15pm
Leave for baby house in Shu-shinks (how it sounds, not spelled) [Sweetie, baby -- Tchuchinsk, pronounced SHOO-chinsk.]

9:00pm
After a one-hour drive in the pitch dark, we arrive at the baby house and wait what feels like forever for a guy to walk down the drive and unlock the gate. [Apparently, they have to wake the baby for us. Because we have to get in a certain number of visits before we can apply for a court date and in order to meet our four-week schedule, we have to start our visits tonight. So yeah, WAKE UP THE BABY! What a grand beginning for her.]

9:30pm
Meet our baby girl. OK, so this is the part that is the reason for the trip. It was amazing and very scary. I didn’t know what to expect. Here is this little person who is going to be my daughter, but she doesn’t know that. She doesn’t really care. She has people who take care of her everyday; she doesn’t really need us interfering. On top of that, they had to wake her up to visit with us. I, for one, never like to be woken up for company. I figure they can just get along until I am ready. Anyway, she seemed to warm up to us after a bit of time. She especially took to Mee, she even let Mee hold her which was pretty neat. [Chloe wasn’t sure about us, but she sure was curious. She let me sit beside her while Zac crouched in front of her. And when he went to rummage in our bag, she’d lean forward to keep him in her sight. Smart girl.]

10:00pm
Just when little Chloe starts to not mind us, it is time for her to go to bed and we must head back to Kokshetau and the cottage.

11:00pm
Get a flat tire about 45 minutes away from cottage. The driver had no problem changing the tire in the complete darkness and approximately -30 degree wind chill. I didn’t want to be a schmuck and sit in the car while he changed the tire, so I stood beside him in the freezing cold out on the Kazak tundra. It was a bitter reminder that we are indeed in a very different place. Different place and all, I didn’t want to look like a schmuck. [I didn’t mind at all.]

1:30am
Sleep.

Frankfurt Airport

After wandering around the Frankfurt airport looking for information about our connecting flight to Almaty, Kazakhstan (no ‘fense to the Germans but … very user unfriendly airport, Frankfurt is), I’m sitting at our gate looking at the little Russian phrase book I brought with a sinking feeling. All of my cocky plans for becoming fluent during our next flight (based on nothing actually, I’m terrible with languages) are dying a quick death. By no means do I assume that all things relate back to America, but seriously, Russian reads like a practical joke on Americans. Or possibly like military code during wartime. Or like a practical joke masquerading as military code. The Cyrillic alphabet uses some letters that are identical to English letters, but with different pronunciations: “c” is pronounced as an “s”, “p” is pronounced as “r”, “B” is pronounced as “v”, “r” pronounced like “g”, and something that looks like the number “3” that’s pronounced like our “z”. And there are also a bunch of hieroglyphics thrown in for good measure. All the words have about 14 syllables in them and I have to concentrate really hard to even sound out the phonetic pronunciations much less the actual Russian words. I haven’t felt this stupid and clumsy since I clomped around a YMCA gym floor during a ballroom dance experiment. Zac sums it up aptly: “We’re sunk.”

BTW, the gate is filling up with slick, well-dressed people. Zac and I look like Dumpy and Shlumpy compared to the other passengers.

p.s. sara-email zac at his home (comcast) address. thanks (zac)

Traveling, traveling, traveling

We just landed in Germany and managed to get lost in the airport almost as soon as we stepped off the plane. Not to worry though, everyone here speaks enough English to help us rubes find our way. My real concern is for when we get to the rural areas of Kazakhstan, where no one but our translator will speak English.

Right now, Mee is studying the Russian phrase book. Evidently there are no words with less than four syllables. For instance the word for “no” is “no no-godplease-no” which in Russian looks more like “BOA3YT” or something.

Our flight over was uneventful, the way a flight is supposed to be. The time change is a bit difficult though. I am writing this at 11:30am German time, which is 4:00am Chicago time. What I know for sure is this “it is time to take a shower”. I’ve started to offend myself.

Leaving with everything (I hope)

Here we are, about to head off the the airport and I can't think of anything that we forgot, but am pretty certain we forgot something.

The one thing pulling us through is the thought of seeing our little girl in a couple of days.

[Mee here:]
Or coming back mid-trip so that Zac can do his duty as a responsible citizen and show up for jury duty. Yep. Got the notice yesterday. Great timing, that. Don't worry though. We got it postponed, though not without suffering a few conniptions.

We're off now with three huge bags and two carry-ons. What? You try packing for a month and all contingencies. Besides, I NEED four lip glosses. What if I run out and they don't have lip gloss in Kazakhstan? Tragedy! Anyway, if Chloe doesn't see that her old mom made an effort for her, she might not want to come home with us. Paka paka, Americanskis. Next time we write, it'll be in Russian (and probably a few days from now.) Don't have too many wild parties while we're gone.

Today we have some final errands to run including one big one. Take our precious boys to Milwaukee to stay with my sister for four weeks. I'm pretty sure they are going to make themselves at home, especially Porkchop (the blue eyed one) who tends to dominate all social situations. I'm more worried about Mee and I and our ability to get on without them.

We will make it up to them by bringing home a sweet lil, tail pull'n, dress putt'n on, attention and affection stealing princess. Kitties beware!

Hey, did you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world today? No? Well, here she is.

Chloe Madina
Age 1, aquarius
Hobbies: adroolin, apoopin, abreakin hearts.

We're leaving to meet her on Wednesday and unlike weepy Zac below, I don't plan to cry at all. Nope. The thing about kids is, you can't show them your weaknesses.* If you do, they'll exploit them and then you're toast. Parenting is a battle, you know and it's really best for the kids if you win. So though I might be crying on the inside, I'll be stone cold on the outside. I'm going to be a fantastic mom.

Anyway, you might be wondering where she is. Lemme see if I can pull a map here.

Basically, the other side of the world. We'll be gone for a month, back home for a couple of weeks, and then go back for a week to bring home our princess. The weather promises to be frigid, -16 degree winds. Now where did I put those long underwhars?

* see Mee's Big Book of BS, any page.

Here we go, we are 'bout to get on to Ka-zacky-stan and get us our baby girl. We have spent the last twelve plus months jumping through insane hopes only to come out the other side facing another hoop.

But... by the end of this week (no whammies, no whammies) we will be rolling around on the floor with our brand new (one year old) daughter. We can't wait to meet her. I can tell from our referral photos that she has a bit of a chip on her shoulder, the first thing that I am planning to do when we meet is give her a "time-out". It is never too early to demonstrate firm but fair parenting.

Actually, Mee and I will most likely be crying uncontrollably because we are overcome with emotion. And our daughter will most likely be crying uncrotrollably because these two weird people are sitting next to her and crying.