May 31, 2005 Page

May 31, 2005

When we left the baby house yesterday, Habiba heard the children say Aidana’s poppa has a machinka (a car)

I have been spending some time teaching Habiba computer "ins and outs" so she could read emails and respond back better. I remember getting her email address from one of Marie’s friends on her Yahoo adoption group. Habiba is truly the “Queen Angel of Arkalyk” in my opinion when it comes to adoption and coordinating. I thought no way; we could actually send her an email and maybe get some more information or even a recent picture of Aidana. She told one of her friends in American "she is not so good with Internet." I figure if I can show her how to communicate better over the Internet, maybe someone else could get just a bit of news or a picture about their child. During all of this, we would be so excited to just hear a word or see a picture of Aidana, it always made our day, I would hurry and print the picture up and put it on the fridge for all to see. Most pictures were 6-8 months old as that was all we could get from Marie's friends.

Day 6

Day 6 of bonding (or as we measure it, our first roll of toilet paper finished! We were told toilet paper is scarce but we found out it isn't)

It was the best day ever with Aidana (she will be coming home as Gianna) it started out as usual, kind of mopy then something new, she started to cry! Sounds bad but we let her get it all out. I think that’s what she needed all along. She has never cried in front of us, she was acting like Anthony told me to “be brave, be strong” but what she needed was a good cry. What a pitiful cry she has, she sounds like a little seal, such a deep voice. After that she fell a sleep in my arms. A while later she woke up and it seemed like the weight of the world was lifted off her shoulders. Meanwhile they brought in a little newborn baby. I brought Aidana over to her and when the baby started crying, oh my God, Aidana spoke to us for the first time she said la la (baby) and something else in Russian. Poor thing we are waiting for her to start speaking to us though we won’t even understand what she says. Anyway she is quite the little mommy, she enjoyed me holding her up to the baby’s bed and every time the baby’s pacifier fell out she diligently put it back in. She did this over and over again (she’s gonna like being an Aunt someday!) I picked up the little baby and put it under my sweater and walked out with her (just kidding) I did pick her up and kissed her and Aidana did the same and very gently she rubbed the baby’s head like I showed her to do yesterday. This may not seem like much but in our world out her it’s really a break through. Her gentleness with the baby should mean she was somewhat nurtured as a baby and that’s really good. Once I held the baby again, she seemed to not like it as if she was jealous or something.
Marie

We went to a market after the morning visit to buy fruit for the children’s day tomorrow (a big celebration) It was a little odd, the "malls" were single story "warehouse" looking with small rooms. We were walking through halls and there were all of these little shops with food to clothing, shoes, toys etc. Almost like an indoor flea market. I saw some souvenirs for Anthony. He will just love them.

The afternoon visit was uneventful; the caregivers started decorating the room for the party tomorrow. Aidana was a little standoffish once in a while but was better than the previous days.

We figured out why things take a long time to process, Habiba had us sign some papers for her visa and passport and we went to the train to have the conductor deliver them to Kostanay. No fax machines here or at least they are not used.
We should sign off now as we have many things to plan for the party tomorrow and we want to check our emails! Talk to ya soon…
Bill

Paka paka