Day 8 -- Allow me to introduce ....

My children:



Borya is 13 1/2. He's a handsome fellow, with medium brown hair, dark brown eyes, and a smattering of freckles. He's tall compared to other kids his age in the orphanage, but compared to my kids back home, he's probably somewhere between Patrick and Rosie in height. He has a scar low on his forehead that he says he got from a dog biting him when he was a little boy. But when I asked if he was afraid of dogs? Nyet. He's a talented artist, and seems to prefer drawing to most other pasttimes that we've engaged in during our visits. He's a serious boy, watching the world around him with eyes deep in thought. When he's focused on a thing, he's the picture of concentration. I'm told he's a good student, and he picks up on all that we explain to him and teach him very quickly. His favorite color is green. He gives wonderful hugs, and doesn't seem to want to let go ....



Julia is 10 1/2, a beautiful girl who looks so very much like her big brother. She also has medium brown hair and dark eyes. She is bright, picking up all that we teach her so quickly, but her thoughts are scattered, her attention shifting frequently to whatever interests her (hmmm, this problem somehow seems familiar to me, since 3 of my so far 4 kids have ADHD, lol). She loves to pretend to talk on the phone. She prefers jeans to dresses though her caregivers usually dress her in frilly dresses with her hair done up fancy in elaborate styles with a gigantic bow. She loves horses and dogs. She has a talent for drawing, but her interests generally lead her on to other things. Her favorite colors are pink and red.

Day 7

Borya's too smart for us. We had brought him a Bionicle to put together, thinking it would take him a while, but it only took him a few minutes to finish the thing! For Julia, we brought a bead kit, and we all worked on making bracelets and necklaces. Bella also brought her play cell phone, which is an old one of mine. So it looks like the real McCoy, but it doesn't get any service. Well. Little Miss Julia had the time of her life with it! She had so much fun having make-believe conversations on it. And she would hold it to her ear against her shoulder, talking away in Russian while making a necklace or something. Multi-tasking at ten. At one point she was pretending to talk to Borya on the phone and she asked him what he was doing. He responded, "I'm making a necklace for my Mama" (I'm wearing it now, it's beautiful!). We also made paper airplanes and Bella taught Julia and our translator Olga how to make "cootie-catchers". I made an airplane and drew the American flag on its side and made little paper dolls of Borya and Julia and flew it across the room, telling them the airplane was flying them to America. They laughed and took turns flying it. I can't wait till the REAL Borya and Julia are on a REAL airplane flying fast to America!

Day 6

Sunday was our 6th day of visitation. We brought "pipe cleaners", and had fun twisting them into sculptures, jewelry, animals, etc. I made crosses for Borya and Julia, and they turned them into necklaces and tucked them into their shirts. Julia's hair was fashioned into the most exquisite French braid I have ever seen. It twisted round her head, with a central knot on top. I don't think a princess' hair could have been styled any more elaborately. Though one of the caregivers had styled hers, Julia also knows how to fix hair, and worked on Bella's for a bit. Julia always gives Bella a big hug when we leave, as well as a kiss on both cheeks!

We've noticed a few changes here in Ust since we were last here. For one thing, the caliber of the cars on the road seems a bit higher. We've seen Lexus, Landcruisers, BMWs, mixed with Toyotas, Chevys, and a bunch of assorted foreign makes, and we're just as likely to see the driving wheel on the right as on the left! We ourselves are chauffered to the orphanage each day in a Mercedes, which seems a bit of a paradox to me.

Our driver, "Bebe", whose Kazakh name means peace, wants to know if we'll adopt him, too! I told him to prepare the documents and I'll see what I can do.

Day 5

Sorry it's been a few days since I've added an entry, internet has been sketchy here.

I forgot to mention what we did for poor Bella yesterday since it was Halloween. When she woke up we told her "Happy Halloween" and she ducked her little head and looked so sad. So when we went to the market, we bought some candy for her w/o her seeing it. Then when we got "home", I wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and put her stuffed animal kitty around her shoulders, and had her walk hunched over like a babushka. She knocked on our hotel door and said "Trick or treat" to Fred and he filled her grocery bag with some candies. She was quite delighted!

Day 4, Boo!

We brought some Play-Dough with us today, and our kids had fun playing with it, finding more uses that I ever would have thought possible for the stuff. Borya even invented a game of marbles using it.

I asked today about the spelling of Julia's name, as I've seen it spelled Julia, Yulia, Yulya and Ylia, and it is pronounced with a "Y" sound. They said we can decide how we want to spell it since it differs from the cyrillic spelling anyway. We also asked about middle names. In Kazakhstan, children have patronymic names (not sure if I have that right), which is just their father's name, or a feminized version of it for a girl. Since we'd like to give Borya and Julia American middle names, we asked if they have any they like. Neither did, but Borya said he would think about it. So Fred and I will talk about that tonight and present them with some options tomorrow.

We're falling into a nice, if a bit dull, routine here. The kids from back home call us just before they go to bed, and that is our wake-up call. Best alarm clock I've ever had! Then we get showered and dressed, and head downstairs to the hotel's restaurant for the complimentary breakfast. It's a nice buffet, with a couple kinds of porridge, eggs cooked to order (when the egg chef can be found), yogurt, fruit, tea, many lovely pastries (my favorite part) and a few other things. Fred and I laugh b/c they usually seem to have some "elevator music" playing in the background, which is a loop of Hotel California, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and something else. Then we head back to the room and pack up a bag to take with us to the orphanage. After hanging in the room for a bit, we head down to the lobby to meet our ride. We are usually met at 9:45 by Olga, a beautiful university student who serves as our translator. Such a sweet girl. Olga, our driver, Fred, Bella and I cram into the car and off we drive, over two rivers and through an industrial area and a very poor-looking residential area to the orphanage, about 15 mins away from our hotel. We spend two hours visiting with the children, then we head back to the Shiny River, where we eat lunch on our coffee table. We generally have bread with some cheese or peanut butter, though we've almost reached the end of our PB supply from home, and we can't buy it here. We drink water or some soda or ice tea that we've bought from the nearby market. So then we're in our room for several hours, during whuch time we will do work/e-mail on the computer if internet is up and running, or we read, play card games, or watch Euro-CNN. We've also made a couple trips to the market for bread, water, snacks, etc. A couple afternoons I've done laundry in the bottom of the shower stall, and then I drape the clothes over the radiators to dry. For dinner we head out early b/c our favorite (read only) place starts getting crowded early. It's called Pizza Blue and is only two bocks from our hotel. They make really good pizza, and meatball soup, and they're pretty cheap. After dinner we take a walk along the river, then back to the hotel to pass the time much as we did in the afternoon. We try to make it to 9:00 before we head to bed, but it ain't easy!

Tune in tomorrow to learn the kids' new names!