The Day After The Day After the Day Before

So another night (of the full 12-hour sleep variety) and day on the high seas of parenting have been successfully navigated. But when will our “success so far” end? We are praying that the conclusion to our current family serenity will not occur on the long flight home. Please! Please! Which, incidentally, we can now confirm as being on Friday, April 4 on Lufthansa. Less than a week away – should everything go according to plan – with some obtuse comment about mice and men occurring about now. We will leave Almaty at the ungodly hour of 3:20am to fly via Frankfurt (with a 6 hour layover) to Toronto, arriving at about 4:00pm local time. With the time zone changes, this will give us about 26 hours of travelling time, so we will look and feel our best for Grandma Elaine. It will be good to get back to Toronto in daylight. Actually, it will simply be good to get back home after so long away.

Although we had really wanted to get out a day or two earlier, none of the major airlines appeared to be unduly concerned with helping us accomplish this task (do they ever wonder why they spend their entire existence flirting with bankruptcy?). However, we are obviously luckier than some since we are not being routed through Dubai, so far as we know. (Catalina, are you out there?). Consequently, we booked our flights through Eldo Miller at Golden Rule Travel, a “humanitarian aid travel agency” (humanitarian includes adoption thank goodness) who gave us the flights we needed, seats for all of us including our young lady, and a substantial discount over all other available options. If you have not yet formalized your adoption travel plans, here is a HUGE plug for Eldo and a very, very strong endorsement for the use of his services.

Our day together as a new family proceeded normally. Quite naturally, there continue to be adjustments from all involved as we get to know each other. Apparently Zoe has not read the strict Baby House instructions that we received. Or she is presently channeling her inner rebel and choosing not to follow them. But discovering her real, inner being and distinct personality is really quite a remarkable experience for us. Today she demonstrated that she has learned how to unlock, open and close the doors to our balconies (she is not strong enough to relock the door – yet. We still have a week for her to fully master that skill). We are first time parents, so have nothing to really compare this ability to – but is this newfound skill of hers (for a recently de-institutionalized 14 month old) not an abnormally impressive display of a toddler’s acumen? We allowed ourselves to be suitably impressed. For a while. Then the novelty wore off as she kept demonstrating this skill over and over and over again!

Experiencing another beautiful, warm Spring day in Almaty, we went to the playground in the park across the street from our apartment for half an hour of outdoors time (we know that we committed one of those cardinal “outdoors sins” frowned upon by the Baby House, but how could we possibly resist?).

Sergei, our landlord, appeared for our biweekly Pictionary challenge. We were able to communicate our moving out date before forking over our final rent payment. An hour later Tatiana showed up to clean our apartment. Now Tatiana speaks even less English than Sergei, if that is possible, but apparently loves to talk and has yet to clue in that the vacant stares from us mean we do not understand a word she is saying. Pictionary is not a game she plays. She simply talks louder and repeats things over and over, always with a big smile to aid our understanding. Thus it is always thoroughly entertaining to experience our mutual lack of each other’s language. And yet we managed to have engaging discussions about something. And Tatiana really enjoyed meeting Zoe. Apparently Tatiana was also quite amused with the three very different hairstyles of the Yeomans family and, if our translation of her Russian is somewhat accurate, believed that we resembled something akin to Larry, Moe, and Curly. Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck indeed!

On the adoption front, Zhaniya, our in-country coordinator, leaves for Moscow today to perform the final part of our paper chase at the Canadian Embassy in Russia – returning on the Tuesday night red eye. Hence, from Wednesday onwards, we will have been fully processed for our departure (inshallah). Finally, after two months in Kazakhstan, the end is now firmly in sight!

Anyhow, that is basically all that has happened on our latest day of excitement in Almaty. Obviously, we have now managed to become run-of-the-mill, boring parents.

P.S. To those who have asked how we manage to keep up with American Idol – it is actually a quite straightforward process. We simply use the remote to turn on the television, where the show is broadcast “live” here. And repeated four times every Wednesday and Thursday. The fact that we get at least six English language channels is probably one of the benefits of being in Almaty. In addition, we also receive multiple channels showing round-the-clock football (soccer) games from every conceivable European League – Sara is simply delighted that Julian has managed to find something to distract him from the burdens of his daily work requirements. Of course!