How Many More Sleeps?

That’s right Max! Only five more big sleeps until the big day! We’re down to only a handful of days until our “gotcha day” and we can hardly wait. So, what does one do when they can’t sleep, partly because of anticipation and partly because our tolerance of the pillows and bed has completely expired?

Well, after our visit today we went on a big hunt for gifts for the baby house. We originally had wanted to find something special for each of the caregivers because they each in their own way have really touched our lives and we can’t thank them enough for how wonderful they have been to Max. However, this was looking to be no easy task because even though we have seen these people often, we realize that we really don’t know too much about them other than their lives at the baby house and we haven’t ever had the chance to meet the night staff. Not that we aren’t interested, but time and language make this difficult, to say the least. So, we decided that a better way to thank them was to find something that would make their days maybe just a little bit easier. So we asked them what they would most like for the room that would accomplish this. And that is what we set out to find. The first thing on the list was easy: a cordless electric kettle (√). The second and third things proved to be much more elusive - a colourful artificial tree and some new fabric for the pads in the playpens, something a little more colourful than what they currently have. First, where to find artificial plants in this city? Even our amazing driver and translator had no clue. We stopped at a few places and each time they pointed us in the direction of another store. No luck. We finally did find some, but they were rather plain and too big to fit into the car, so we decided to call it quits and keep looking another day. We then headed to the Chinese Bazaar to look for the fabric. We definitely found some wonderful fabric, but what they need is something that wears and washes well that was very colourful. We found lots of beautiful and attractive fabrics, but nothing suitable for a playpen. With our time running out, we decided to ask the caregivers if they had some suggestions on where we could buy the fabric.

Since we were already at the bazaar, we thought we’d scout around for a few more outfits for Max and we kept looking for hats, since a few people have made it clear they don’t like the yellow elephant number. Besides hats, it has been difficult to find pants at this time of year. Lots of shorts, but we wanted some pants for on the airplane. We did find some, so we should have enough clothes to get by on until we get home.

While we’re on the topic of hats…

Yes, we did pick the yellow elephant number ourselves, but it’s not quite that simple. When we first arrived here we were able to get Max wearing the clothes we brought right away, but we didn’t have a hat. His room at the baby house had lots of toques and knitted hats, but with the temperatures in the 30’s he definitely needed something cooler, but we couldn’t take him out without a hat (not that we wanted to, anyway) and the only cap they had was much too small. So, after our first visit on the second day, our driver asked us if we needed anything. We needed a hat and shoes, so he took us to a baby store, but he didn’t have much time, so neither did we. Plus, being well into the sunny season, this was the only hat that would fit Max that didn’t have frills and lace. We bought it with the idea that it would only have to last a couple of days until we could find a different one. (good luck) We have constantly been on the lookout for a different hat, but every store in the city seems to have the same stock! We don’t feel so bad because since we arrived there are three other kids at the baby house who are now in the same predicament. In addition, Max is now rather taken with his hat. He wears it every day and we think he has sort of become attached to it. He knows that when his hat comes out that it is play time with Mom and Dad. So we’re not too sure if he will let us replace it, even though we did finally find a couple of possible replacements today. We’ll try them on if we can and then we’ll let the judges weigh in on the decision.

This evening we ventured out with Dale, another adoptive parent from Canada in search of a good Chinese restaurant. Our driver recommended one that is about half way between Dale’s apartment and ours, and he said we didn’t need to know a lot of Russian to order. Sounds right up our alley! We did find the restaurant, but they didn’t have an English menu, which is what we thought Boolat meant when he said we didn’t need to know Russian. However, they did have something even better – a menu with pictures! We were on the hunt for something with chicken and vegetables and we thought we’d found it. The waitress even confirmed it. This dish was big enough for the three of us to share. It was chicken pieces with potatoes and onions in a tasty sauce. Thanks Boolat!

On our way home we decided to walk through Kirov Park. It has changed quite a lot in the last couple of weeks since we were last there. The roses are in full bloom along with a wide variety of flowers and they have soft music playing throughout the park. It was very relaxing to stroll along the paths and under the flowered arches, listening to the water run in the fountains and streams.

Remember those artificial trees we were looking for? It’s amazing what you find when you stop looking! On our walk home we passed by a small flower shop that we walk by at least 3 or 4 times a week. Right at the front entrance they had these two lovely flowering trees! Somewhat forgetting ourselves and our location, we walked up to the florist, who was standing in the entrance and asked if those trees were for sale, completely in English. Oops! We’re not in Canada anymore, and it was too late to turn around, so about half an hour later we finally determined that:
1. Yes, they were for sale,
2. Yes, they are in our price range,
3. Yes, we really did want something artificial and
4. If we hurried we could get back to our apartment in time to grab some cash and get back before the store closed. Sold!
Oh, but how to get back to the apartment with them? Well, I guess we’ll just have to walk the four blocks back to the apartment with these two flowering trees. Did we tell you that it was windy today? So, we have officially proven that we’ve lost our minds, and there is now a lovely lady in a florist shop in Ust that will testify to this fact! Thank goodness there weren’t too many people out at the time.

We can’t wait to see our driver’s and translator’s faces when they arrive tomorrow to pick us up and we’re sitting on the bench between these two trees!

Oh, and here’s a few more snapshots to fill you up for a couple of days.

Max, Rod and Boolat (AKA SuperDriver) Note that Max is usually rather fond of Boolat, but the little gaffer just got up from his nap, so he was a little on the crusty side.


Dad was aiming for a kiss on the lips, but Max had other plans. At least he wasn’t playing “bonk” today which nearly gave his mother a bloody nose a couple of days ago when she wasn’t paying close enough attention to him.
Max telling Mom exactly what he thinks about the things in the knapsack that he really wants, but can’t have.

Nothing!

That’s what happens when your power goes out. No lights, no telephone, no computer, no TV, no sleep, nothing! But that’s not even the half of it – let’s back up a day or two…

A couple of days ago we made our usual run to the store for a few groceries. Nothing special, but we did decide to treat ourselves to some ice cream. It was another really hot day, so we were looking forward to our treat and walked quickly home so it wouldn’t melt too much. Then it started – we couldn’t get the key into the lock on our door! Oh darn, but we’ll just call our coordinator who will summon someone to give us a hand. But, oh yeah, we left the cell phone to charge before we went to the store! Now we have a problem. Luckily we were able to wiggle the lock and key enough to get the key to fit and all was well. The ice cream was even salvageable. Lesson #1 – Make sure the deadbolt is turned all the way to the side. Lesson #2 - Don’t leave home without the cell phone, not even for a minute! But with lessons learned and ice cream in belly we chalked it up to experience and went upon our merry week, but the excitement didn’t end there.

Our coordinator mentioned she was having trouble getting a letter regarding Max’s medical clearance and was wondering if we could contact our agency in Canada to see if they had any idea of where it ended up. Sure! We can do that, we’d be happy to help. Problem was, no one seemed to have heard of this letter and the description we gave of its contents did nothing to make it clearer. Hmmm, now what to do? Well, sometimes email isn’t the best way to figure these things out, so we though we would just telephone at a time that wasn’t ridiculous for either side and wouldn’t get anyone out of a nice sleep. So, we have a plan, now we can relax…or so we thought!

Last night we thought it would be a good night to do some tidying up before we called our agency. Again, nothing out of the ordinary - laundry, vacuuming, dusting, etc. Then, half of our apartment lost electricity. No problem, probably just tripped a breaker. Found the breakers, nope, nothing tripped. But, we’re still okay, we have power in half of our apartment, so we’ll just use an extension cord to plug the washing machine back in so we can drain it and retrieve our clothes from the front load machine which locks the door until the end of the cycle and then we will use the extension cords to plug the fridge in. Yeah, right! Just after we plugged the washing machine in, we lost power in the other half of the apartment. Clothes still trapped in machine, no lights, no telephone (because there is only a cordless in the apartment) and a fridge full of food that won’t last forever. We made a quick call to our coordinator who assures us that it can be easily fixed but not until the next day. Okay, well, that’s going to be a real pain, so we try to figure things out ourselves. Rod heard voices in the hall, so ventured out to see if anyone could lend us a hand. The people we found all tried to be very helpful and all tried to reset the breakers, but no luck.

But hey, we’ve got hot water again (oh yeah, it was off again for a day), so no boiling, we still have granola bars, so breakfast is taken care of and despite Rod’s assurance we wouldn’t need them, Tammy insisted on packing some candles and matches, so we can at least play cards for a few hours until it’s time to call our agency (we can use the cell phone, that’s why we have it) and then off to bed. At this point we can’t do anything about the fridge, so we’ll just have to deal with whatever happens and try to keep the door closed as much as possible.

So, when it was time, Rod dials the phone, manages a, “Hello, how are you today?” and then nothing – the phone shut off. Now what? Well, it seems that international rates for cell phones are nothing short of ridiculous, so although we thought we had about 30 minutes left on our card, it only lasted about 30 seconds because we were calling internationally. Okay, we can deal with this…

We’ll just email back and forth! We’re pretty sure our agent is in the office, so although the telephone doesn’t work, email still will. That is, unless your laptop battery is low! We managed only one email and then it powered off. So although the sensible thing would be to try and get some sleep, the whole ordeal pretty much made sleep impossible. We’re not used to being so dependent on others, and something like this was certain to send us a little over the edge, at least for a few minutes.

So, we went about our regular visit with Max and after our visit our driver was going to look at our power problem. We returned to our apartment where our driver told us that it was a BIG problem, not just a tripped breaker (we’d already figured that out, but nobody believes the foreigners). The owner of the building showed up and repaired the problem, and so here we are, back in one piece, and power on.

Oh, and by the way, the letter was found! It turns out it actually was a letter that needed to come from the coordinator at the Canadian Embassy in Moscow, not our Canadian coordinator. So really, it was never really lost, we were just asking the wrong person.

Once again, it’s all good!

As for Max, everything is going well. We are on the big count down to the day we bring him here to the apartment. (7 more sleeps) We will spend the weekend shopping for gifts for the Baby House, Max’s caregivers and will stock up on diapers, food and a few more clothes for Max.

Who would have thought...

that Elmo Springtime Elixir would be such an excellent drain opener! One thing about our apartment that has made it extra special is the significant time it takes for the kitchen sink to drain. One of our first purchases here was some sort of chemical to unclog the drain which worked somewhat, but never really got things going. But, since we’ve poured the elixir down the drain, things have never worked better! Plus, it was cheaper than the chemical stuff and probably a lot kinder to the environment, even if it wasn’t so friendly to our taste buds.

Yesterday we weren’t in the mood to cook so we thought we try out another restaurant in our area that was recommended, nicknamed the Pancake House. It appears to be a sister company to Pizza Blues and we were happy to see that they also had an English menu. We’ve thought about going out on a limb and going to any restaurant or café and just pointing to a random item on the menu and seeing what we get, but to be honest, we’re just not that brave. The food was very good, but one thing we’ve learned is that food arrives as it is ready. This means that the people at your table may all eat at different times, depending on the time it takes to prepare the meal. Tammy’s meal came in record time, and Rod’s arrives 30 minutes later. It worked out okay because we shared both meals and we were happy to sit in the air conditioned restaurant for awhile. It takes some getting used to menu descriptions that have been translated. There are some pretty funny translations that could turn you off of food if you weren’t creative. Another thing that is interesting in all of the restaurants that we have visited is that you order at the till and then the food and drinks are delivered to your table. Again, we don’t know if it is that way in all restaurants or if we just happen to have picked the only three that serve meals that way.

Max has learned a few new things this week. He surprised himself with his ability to blow razzberries and now his caregivers say he spends a lot of time doing this and we think they are under the impression we taught him this. Nope, but it is darned funny! Today, he also started to give kisses when asked. Rod gave him a kiss and then Tammy said, “Where’s mommy’s kiss?” to which Max turned right around and planted a big sloppy one on her lips. I don’t know who was more surprised. We are definitely counting the days until he comes to stay with us (8 more by the way) and we know the last stage of waiting to get home will be the hardest for a variety of reasons.

As we’ve mentioned, more new families have arrived this week to start the adoption process. It’s always nice to meet new people and Tammy was very excited to find someone who was looking to swap books. She didn’t budget nearly enough suitcase space for reading material and was at the point of having to limit the amount she read each day to make her books last. No worries now, as she’s found someone in the same predicament and with a similar taste in reading.

This week we will start getting some things together for when Max comes here and will do some shopping for gifts to give the caregivers and baby house. It isn’t expected of us, but these people have a really hard job and have done wonderful things with the kids here, sometimes with very limited resources. They have also been very kind to us and have gone out of their way to accommodate our visiting schedule, even if it messed up their daily routine a little. If there is anything we can do to make their days easier, it will be our pleasure. Even though we are eager to get Max and get home, we will truly miss these special ladies who are a very important part of our family. Of all the times we wish we could speak Russian fluently, it is when we are trying to tell the caregivers just how much we appreciate their work and their kind hearts.

So wish us luck as we venture out to continue nesting in our home away from home and go on one more taste test adventure to try out kefir, a dairy drink that we know Max has every day at the baby house. We’ll let you know how it goes (if it goes, that is).

Not All Ideas are Good Ideas

This is an interesting week to be hanging around the Baby House. There are many new families arriving and we, along with the other family who are staying through are the “old guard”. We are the families the new families look to as proof that someone has made it to the next level. At the same time, we have had the opportunity to meet a few returning families who have come back on their second trip to pick up their children and return home to be a forever family. They are the ones we look to as proof of the next level. Congratulations to those families who are on their way home with their little ones. We can’t wait to walk that ever important walk down those Baby House steps. We know it will be as amazing for us as it was for you.

Yesterday was a pretty quiet day for us. We thought it would be a good day to catch up on some needed rest and recharge our batteries for the next little while. We stayed in and watched a movie on our laptop, did laundry, tidied up our apartment, and other everyday stuff that we’d been putting off for a few days.

Today, we decided to tour across the river and check out a few other landmarks we’ve seen on our map. The cooler weather has given way to another wave of heat. Today it is about 33 degrees, but it also seems that we are starting to get a little more used to it. Plus, we’ve learned to plan our routes according to the shaded sides of the streets and the breeze. We didn’t find much, we thought we were headed to a large park, but it ended up just being a statue and some flowers in the middle of a traffic roundabout. We couldn’t even get a good picture, because it was in one of the busiest roundabouts we’ve seen, so we decided against risking our lives for a photo-op. We’re pretty sure our travel insurance won’t cover us for acts of stupidity!

Max continues to be ever entertaining during our visits. We hope we are as entertaining for him. We took a larger blanket today to sit on so he had a lot more room to move around, which he enjoyed and took advantage of. Here they frown on kids crawling on the ground, and so some days it has been tough for him because he just wants to cruise, but he doesn’t quite know what to make of the sand or pavement, so he is limited to the blanket and where we carry him. He will be so excited to be in an area he can cruise in, we’re sure he’ll wear out the knees in his pants just checking this place out. He’ll probably wear his parents out a little too, but that’s okay, we’re looking forward to it. Anything to help us sleep better!
Here are a few pictures from the last couple of days (if you don’t mind, that is)

Here’s Max modelling his Canada shirt (the only one we could find in the Toronto airport).


Airplane, one of Max’s favourite activities with Dad, especially because Dad makes the best sound effects.

Max making the most of his lounging time. He spends a little time each day like this with either Dad or Mom. We’d love to say he was holding the book for Dad to read to him, but really he was just planning which page to chew on next.

Now, on to the title of our blog. We don’t know if it was the heat, but today when we went grocery shopping, this bottle caught our attention.

Part of this trip included us being open to trying new things, especially if we can at least get a little information about what we are about to try through some English or pictures. This bottle of “ELMO Springtime Elixir” intrigued us, including the description “carbonated dairy drink”. Yes, bubbly milk. We like milk, bubbles are okay too, so what could go wrong? Well let me tell you… there is nothing good about fizzy milk! I don’t know why we were surprised by this, but if you want to recreate the experience for yourself, take some milk, add some water and a whole bunch of Alka-Seltzer tablets, and you too can have ELMO Springtime Elixir! I don’t know what springtime brings to this part of the world that makes this a good idea, but it must be pretty bad. It also didn’t help that Rod somehow forgot the effects of shaking a bottle of carbonated liquid, so we also got to enjoy an ELMO Springtime Elixir fountain in our kitchen! Like we said, not all ideas are good ideas. We managed one sip of about a teaspoon each and the rest went down the drain.

Hope your day is filled with good ideas!