I love my washing machine

What a dork. I almost cried when I opened the lid of my washing machine and started dropping my second-hand-smoke-permeated clothing into what seemed a bottomless drum. Just the sound of the dryer whirling put a grin of satisfaction on my face. It seems my spirit of adventure evaporated in the presence of my Western amenities. I loaded the dishwasher and marveled at how quickly the sink went empty! I paid my bills online and experienced true joy. I unpacked my Peapod-delivered groceries ooohing and aaaahing at all the fresh greens. Then I went out to the real grocery store just for the fun of it. Man, am I sucker for comfort!

BUT as I looked around our house, I was also seeing it thru Nicky's eyes and thinking that after the sparse and methodically organized Baby House, poor boy is going to short circuit. What's all this stuff? It's like eye pollution. Going to take some getting used to for a boy that can be entertained by a popsicle stick and a little pile of dirt.

And our schedule? What schedule? Let's see, if its sunny, we go to the pool, and if its not, the library. Is that a summer schedule? Need a marker? Here are 50. Want a cracker? Open the pantry and chose from five varieties. How am I going to do this? I need to have a major Good Will run. This is ridiculous. I mean just on the desk where this laptop sits there's enough stuff to overload our little man.

Anyhow, enough stream-of-consciousness. Here are the facts. I will travel back to Ust-Kamenogorsk on/around June 15. We will leave the Baby House, Nicky's first time out in about 16 months, on June 18 or 19th. Once we receive his Kaz passport and new birth certificate (with his new name, birth date, and parents), we fly to Almaty to the U.S. embassy for medical exam and interview.

Nicky and I will fly home on or before June 27 which also happens to be the day my visa expires. I really hope I don't have to renew it--that'll be another $250. However we're saving a lot because I'm flying back to Kaz alone to retrieve Nicholas. As God would have it, our good friends the Brossards have seen their move date pushed off repeatedly. Connie Brossard is like an aunt to Isabelle and Katrina so they will stay here. Connie and Joe have four boys of their own, but has never stopped them from opening their home to our girls and countless other kids! She is truly amazing. She can seriously bake cookies from scratch, pull a kid out of the street, and answer my phone call simultaneously. And genuinely smile while doing it!

Speaking of people I can learn a lot from, at the end of July we'll do our regular trip to the Outer Banks with the Reeds. I plan to observe closely and ask outright how it is that Melissa has two of the best-behaved-but-not-mamas-boys on the planet. Whatever she does, I need to learn to do, even with the language barrier. I can already tell Nicholas is one of those boys that will need a ton of love and equal amounts of discipline. He's just like his father :)

We miss our Nicholas terribly and talk about him all the time. Sophie can't wait to meet him--she's seen the video that we took of him on the playground one day. By the way, she did great without us. Kept her grades up and was really mature in taking care of herself and going w/ the flow at the Iskowitz' and Beauchamps. God is good. Will write more in a couple of days...

Goodbye for a while

We said goodbye to Nicholas today. Assured him that I would be back to bring him home soon. Through Sveta, our translator, who has been so sweet these past few weeks, we told Nicholas that we were going home to get his things--his suitcase, with his clothes, toothbrush/toothpaste, pjs. I asked him if I should pack a swimsuit for him for playing in the water ("da"/yes), shorts? ("da"), markers ("da"), a puzzle ("da"), candy ("da!").

We also put the light blue, silky blanket that Grandma Barbie sent, on his little cot. The caregiver, my favorite one (Mama Vieira), was in the dorm room when we were doing this and warned us that when it goes thru the laundry, it would get the orphanage stamp on it. All the better, another memory for him.

Anyhow, got to pack now, very hard to leave, and not much for writing. We did have a lovely Kazakh lunch today at a round low table outside with shear curtains draped all around us and exquisite food. We, including Sveta and Aidar, the driver, were all reclined afterwards on the pillows and could have easily gone to sleep but Isabelle was prancing about like a fairy, in and out of the shears.

I really hate to leave. The weather is beautiful, flowers in bloom everywhere, the city is bustling... but I have so much to get done at home, beginning with Nicholas' health insurance, 3 weeks of mail, and wrapping up the school year for the girls. And we miss our friends dearly.

Thanks for all the love and support. Tomorrow we're off to Astana, Kaz (the new capital of the country), then connect to Frankfurt, overnight in the airport hotel (whoopie), and on to our beloved Chicago where we arrive shortly after what is midday there and midnight here!

Next post will take about a week is my guess. Thanks again for all the comments and prayers!

Mission Accomplished

Oh dear, perhaps I should start with a better title since W has jinxed this one. How about: Court Hearing Success



Stephanie and I cleared the greatest hurdle on our way to adopting Nicholas today. We also made an impassioned plea for the court to waive the 15 day period during which the judge’s decision is subject to challenge. We were told these requests are almost never granted, except in the case of a life-threatening medical condition. Still, we’d been prepared for stiff opposition from the prosecution (unreal, I know, but they fight for deadbeat parent rights, even if it means keeping kids in the orphanage) and we thought it a good idea to make the request. If nothing else it would give the court something to refuse.

It turned out I think we benefited from providing a face-saving opportunity for the court. The judge still refused our request to waive the waiting period, but we ran into another problem...

We had a very tense few minutes in the middle of the hearing. The prosecutor took exception to our claim that the police had gone to reasonable lengths to locate Nicholas’ birth mother. She demanded the judge postpone any ruling until a thorough search for the boy’s mother could be conducted. This would have been heartbreaking--the cultural and geographic divide would have been very difficult to fight from Chicago.

With our translator providing the play-by-play to the judge, Stephanie and I were each allowed to say our piece before he ruled. Stephanie was at her best here, referring to the British family who’s daughter was recently abducted in Portugal. “Anyone losing a child wouldn’t sleep until they’d done everything possible to find him. No one has made a single call to a police station or visited the sole orphanage in town during the 15 months since Nicholas was found.”

The judge agreed and after a short recess we were told of his decision. The prosecutor was salty, and had words for the folks representing us before storming out. It was almost like something out of a movie.

Thank you all so much for your prayers. We honestly believe that it’s been these prayers that have pulled us through and brought us one terrific step closer to getting Nicholas home.

PS: Holy Cow! You North Siders will be thrilled to see Harry Caray is alive and well here in Kazakhstan… Here we’re with two other adoptive parents we’ve met at Harry’s Central Asia eatery.

Court date set for Thursday!

"God will either give you what you ask, or something far better." -- Robert Murray M'Cheyne

Our court date will be on the 17th, at 4:15 pm, about 2:15 am Chicago time—so if you can’t sleep (I have a couple of friends who share my tendency to insomnia) pray for a miracle—that they waive the mandatory 15 day appeal period.

This poor little boy has had a hard start in life, but the day that his mother or father, aunt or uncle, whomever, left him at a bus stop in what was surely freezing temperatures (Feb. here is worse than in Chicago), was actually the day that he caught the bus that would take him home. We don’t think he should have to wait any longer.

Justin gave our facilitator a hardy lecture on the responsibility of a judge to interpret the law. It was awesome. He did me proud. The facilitator was saying that the law is the law. The 15 day appeal period is “the law.” Justin said that he totally supports the grace period, but that in this case, where the child’s parents are unknown and no one has come for him in 15 months, plus the fact that the other party (we) have made a substantial investment of time, distance, and money, the judge can be assured that there is no chance of either side appealing.

Our facilitator was speechless, literally! It might be the first time that she’s ever heard reason undermine practice. I was relieved though when he didn’t finish up with the GE mantra, “I am the CUSTOMER.” We tried that at the start of this adventure, like when the four of us were seated in the back seat of the car because we’d been told we were going somewhere, and then the driver, translator, and facilitator stood outside chatting for 10 minutes. Meanwhile the raindrops on our jackets began evaporating and as the car got steamier by the minute, Justin and I raised our eyebrows at each other.

We are not customers. We are pons! But knowing that we'll one day come home with Nicholas, we just keep plodding ahead to "check mate!"

Mother's Day in Kaz

Today was Day 14 of visiting, my first Mother’s Day without Sophie (missing her!), and my first one with Nicholas. Never thought I’d celebrate Mother’s Day in an orphanage. Seems like an oxymoron doesn’t it?

We had an indoor visit because it was raining and were allowed to visit downstairs, in the Directors waiting room. It was a nice change because there is a small yurt (traditional Kazakh round tent) and Russian and Kazakh dolls dressed in traditional attire that the girls were allowed to play with.
The room also has a short hallway that leads to a cavernous laundry room with industrial size washers and dryers. The pipes are on the outside of the wall and I had my first break-thru in teaching Nicholas a couple of English words without the interpreter’s help. We touched the cold pipe and I said, “cold.” He repeated something like “cole,” and when I said “hot,” he said “haw.” Good enough for me!

But officially his first English word was “football.” It came easy since it’s related to the Russian, “futbol.” ;) Hmmmm, ok, we’ll enter it in the Baby Book…first word: football.

For lunch, we went with two other couples to a traditional Kazakh restaurant. Our private room was like a Genie bottle, round, full of cushions, round table with huge, lazy susan, no shoes. Very comfy. Yes, horse was served; no, we did not eat any. I don’t need to be trying any funky type of meat—I have a hard enough time with beef. Food was quite good and champagne was really good. Much better than the Kazakh wine we poured down the drain the other night.

That was after I had spit out some cheese that tasted like it was completely soured. Katrina thought it was so funny to see Mom spit (because I’m such a lady), that she started cracking up and inadvertently inhaled her mouthful of pasta. Good thing I’m an experienced Heimlich administrator (Sophie, 2003, cheese stick). I did the Hymlich and pasta shot into the living room. Never a dull moment.

Tomorrow we turn in our request to adopt Petr Petrovich Ivanov as Nicholas Peter Holland. On Tuesday morning, we will be notified of our court date. We can leave right after court so we’re praying that will happen miraculously soon.

Day 12

Here's darling Nicholas (he no longer answers to Peter say the caregivers) discovering Dora. He knows all his colors and shapes, in Russian. I hope the language comes along quickly. My mom likes to say that I learned English in a month--it might have seemed that way. I hope so.

We kind of hit a wall in our stay today. We're about two weeks into it and are missing home. Justin's going a bit bonkers. This afternoon he was totally vegged, watching LA Confidential in Russian. Not a good sign. I have a smokers hack from the second-hand smoke that fills out apartment from the ventilation system (a pipe connecting all the bathrooms in the 10 story building).

But we're trying to stay positive. These are a couple of things I've heard my positive-thinking husband say, "nicotine in the bathroom is a great diarrhetic," and "pollution makes for great sunsets." Let's hope we can continue to stay on the sunny side. We miss everyone, especially our dear Sophie, SO MUCH!