Watch Out, Grandma!

At the beginning of our second visit, Danile had arranged for us to have a second meeting with the Baby House Director to ask my remaining questions about Anelya's birth family history. I asked questions about why she was given up for adoption, if she had any siblings, and what her ethnic background was. I also asked if her birth mother had indicated whether she would be interested in meeting us in the future should Anelya feel the need. He was able to answer all but one of my questions. I am not going to share the answers to these questions with everyone. As I said before, I feel that this is Anelya's adoption story and I will let her tell people how she wants to, if she wants to. I will tell you that I intend on giving Anelya all of the information I have about her history and I plan on doing everything I can to help her answer the inevitable questions about her identity which will arise sooner or later.

I can tell you that her ethnicity is 100% Kazakh, which I am thrilled about. I love this country and am so excited to share her culture with her as best I know how. I also look forward to bringing her back to Semey to see the baby house and the city where she comes from, if she wishes to someday.

We had another great afternoon with Anelya. By the time we were done with the Baby House Director, she was just finishing up her lunch. I was happy to see that she was giving her caretaker a hard time too ;-) When she saw me, she gave me this GIGANTIC smile. I really hope we will be able to catch this on camera at some point because this smile is just amazing, but she makes her serious passport face he second she sees a camera. You can see how she smiles with her eyes though...


I brought a new hat with little watermelons on it and it was a hit. The caregivers went bananas and so did the Gilpatrick/Clarks. Look at my angel.

We finally got a decent picture of the three of us. It took a few tries.

Anelya is becoming very Mommyish right now and will only go to Baba for stints.

I am sure that will change once we are home and Baba gets to take care of her for several hours in a day, quite often.

We were asked, once again to take Anelya outside for a walk. It was much warmer today and I had forgotten the baby carrier at home, so we only did two laps around the baby house.

As you can see, someone loves her bink.

Baba did some baby massage. This kid is going to be a spa hound like her mama.

Anelya was exhausted again and fell asleep in my arms with about an hour to spare.
Kalamkus thought it would be a great idea to come wake her up.
We caught her before she succeeded.

I just love when she falls asleep on me.
When she wakes up she looks up at me and plays with my face or hair.
I.... MELT.

She slept for a solid half hour before she woke up. She was nowhere near done sleeping and finished her nap in the baby group room.

After the visit we asked to go to the drug store to buy diapers for the next several days. Everyday when I arrived, I supply the caregivers with 5 diapers for the day. They run out fast! WOW! Nobody had the big pack, so we will try again at the end of the week. I also bought Anelya a sippy cup to give her some water. My baby is a CAMEL and it's been hot, so some water ought to do her some good. Other than that, I am not sneaking her anything.

We dropped Tammy, Bob, and Sarah off at their apartment and went to the little vegetable stand outside their house. I bought some tomatoes and plums which were SO GOOD. We haven't eaten any fresh veggies or fruit since we got here and since Bob has been eating the ones from there and has been fine, we went for it. Afterward, we took the following shot of Sarah and her Kazakh friend, whom she has become acquainted with over the past 3 weeks. They don't need an interpreter. They communicate through playing.

We headed home after that. Poor Pasha is crazy busy driving us around and dealing with errands for Olga related to our paperwork. We haven't seen Olga in several days, but I know she is busting her tookus doing paperwork. You would not believe how hard these people work for us and the hours they put in.

Mom is super punchy and can basically not complete a sentence. It's pretty hilarious, actually. She has been making Tammy laugh all day. Between that and the fact that she is convinced that she picked up someone else's eyeglass prescription... she's a mess. LOL. No, she is fine, but it's pretty funny when we're walking in the bazaar and she's about to get run over by a car backing out and Danile jumps in front of the car and 6 year old Sarah says, "Watch out, grandma!" Yes, she is now everyone's grandma in Kazakhstan!