Tadoosh

'Tadoosh' is the sound that Ethan makes when he's pretending to have a sword in his hand. So I obligingly play along, saying 'tadoosh' every time I slay my small dragon son. Right now he's putting on his dragon costume, complete with two sets of red-clawed hands.

Earlier today we visited papa at work along with his grandma and grandpa who are in town visiting. Ehtan brought his small sunglasses, his Red Socks baseball cap, and his Spiderman backpack filled with cars -- quite the American he's turning out to be. That, and people are getting him used to American fast food, like Cheese-Its (papa is responsible for that one), and potato chips (grandma) and high fructose corn syrup (hidden in the yogurt mama thought she was doing a good thing in buying).

Grandma and Grandpa brought Ethan 57 small cars yesterday. (I believe that this is what heaven is for a 4 year old boy, by the way.) He lined them all up in a row by color, then put them carefully into the truck car-carrier that grandma and grandpa gave him as well.

'Tadoosh' -- woops, just got killed by the dragon.....

Banana Boy

Sad to say that my son is a much healthier eater than I am. Ethan loves fruit and vegetables, sometimes even passing up cookies (but not candy) for them. I like to call him Banana Boy because he eats so many bananas -- I ususally limit him to three a day, not sure how many he would eat otherwise.

We had our first doctor's appointment the other day, and Ethan seems to be very healthy. The doctor was psyched that he eats so many fruits and vegetables. (We'll see how long his preferences last when surrounded by American eating habits.) Four injections, half a cup of tears, and six lollipops (kept at the doctor's office for emergencies) later, we were all set.

We had a good holiday. The decorations never got up on the tree, but at least the tree itself finally made it vertical after about a week at our house. A few lights, and voila, here we come holidays. Ethan's big sister gave him a train that talks, which kept him busy all of Christmas day (it sings the ABC's and letters of the alphabet). A few presents later in the day, and Ethan was quite the happy kid. He pointed to his presents and kept saying, "Ethan Azamat?" with a big smile on his face, and we said, "Yes, they're yours!"

Two Llamas

Ethan kept saying "two llamas" when he woke up in the morning, which really confused me. He has a DVD called "Is Your Mama A Llama", so I was thinking he might be making some reference to the llamas snuggling up at the end, but it didn't really make a lot of sense, and he seemed pretty upset when I didn't understand. Finally, I figured out that he meant he wanted the window shades opened up. So "two llamas" must either mean shades, windows, or 'open the shades' in some language or other.

Ethan is getting so good at his vocabulary that when I take him into stores, everyone just thinks that he speaks English. At the supermarket yesterday they said 'Merry Christmas' to him, and he cheerily replied "Nerry Horses" back to them, and everyone was happy. Today someone said "ho, ho, ho", and Ethan repeated 'ho, ho, ho" back, and there were smiles all around.

Ethan is watching the movie Shrek for about the three hundred and fifty seventh time over the last few days. It has a dragon in it, which he's fascinated by. Otherwise, he doesn't understand much of the dialogue (except for tiny bits, like when donkey says "pick me, pick me!"), but he's fascinated by it enough to sit for two hours. Kid has good taste. I'm sitting here beside him with my laptop because if I watch this movie one more time I'm going to jump out the window.

We're home!

Well it was a brutal 30 hour trip home with an exhausted four year old who didn't speak my language and we were both sick, but we made it home with all limbs intact (as far as I can tell). Ethan played for 3 hours at the kids play area at the McDonalds in Frankfurt which was a real help. We also ran into a bunch of other kids traveling home for the holidays, as well as another set of adoptive moms on our flights from Almaty to Frankfurt, and from Frankfurt to Boston.

It was all worth it seeing his face when he saw his room. It was clear that he loved it. He pointed to the room and the toys and said his name with a question mark. "Yes, it's yours!" He was also really relieved to see his papa at the airport. He seemed to have been a little worried when he wasn't seeing papa for so long, and was starting to ask about men who looked like Mark if they were his papa.

Mama and Ethan fell asleep last night around 6pm, and didn't wake up until 7am this morning. I'm still sick, but he seems as perky as ever. Ethan and papa are out at the park right now. Ethan at first was worried that mama wasn't coming with them, but I explained that mama was sick (cough, cough), and needed to sleep (head sideways on clasped hands). He understood and went off happily.

coming home??

--We have our appointment at the embassy today, and hopefully we'll be flying out tonight. -Yeah!
--Ethan and I are a little sick, with coughs, but otherwise not too bad.
--Met another mom here, Patty, who is adopting a little boy Ruslan and is going to the embassy today too. She is babysitting Ethan right now -- yeah!!
--Yesterday Ethan and I went to the zoo with Anastasia. He saw lions, kangaroos, horses, bears, flamingos and snakes. It was his first time to the zoo, and he was a little afraid of the big cats and the turtles (?), but was ok with the birds (which he called all of them 'chickens')
--Ethan loves helping out. Yesterday at the supermarket, he wanted to carry the groceries home (yogurt, orange, and candy). He carried it home the whole way!
--He doesn't have his own pair of gloves, so I've had him share mine. The other day he came up with a great idea. He put one glove on, and I put one of my gloves on (for the hands we were holding each other with), and then he suggested we put our other hands in our pockets. Smart boy!
--Molly gave us a DVD with a story on it called 'Is your mama a llama?' We have watched this show approximately a million times. He loves it. It's about a llama who asks other animals if their mama is a llama. They shake their heads and say 'noooo'. Ethan shakes his head and says 'noooo' too. When the kangaroo comes on, he gets up onto his legs and hops, pretending to be one.
--Wish me luck today!
--Gwen

Troubles in paradise

More random thoughts, since that seems to work best
--Apparently they changed the requirements here for the paperwork without telling anyone. We now need a notarized, apostilled copy of Mark's immigration papers from when he was here to prove he met with the child. Just a photocopy isn't good enough. Needs to be apostilled. Problem is that will take 3 days to get here from the US. Of course, photos of Mark with the child do not count. His ticket stubs don't count. No, we need this one piece of paper. Welcome to bureaucracy land. Now, don't know when I'll be coming home. Send me good thoughts, I need them right now.

On a lighter note:
--Since this is a mostly muslim country, we were surprised by all the Christmas trees we saw everywhere, even in public places. Turns out these are not Christmas trees, but New Years trees, complete with ornaments and a star on top. They also have someone who looks just like Santa Clause, but who is not Santa Clause. He brings presents, has a red coat, white beard, etc, but has a different name, and comes on New Years, not Christmas. My translater told me you can tell the difference because Santa has a shorter red coat than this guy, but to tell you the truth, they look the same to me.
--Ethan has been trained early to cross the street by running. He's terrified the cars won't stop, which at first mama tried to show him that it was ok when the light turned green. Turns out that Ethan was right -- a light doesn't guarantee anything here. Cars definitely have the right of way, and if you don't jump out of their way they don't slow down, just honk at you. Having a kid offers zero protection either.
--Maybe having the kid does make me look like a native though. I've been asked for directions 4 times in the last day. Luckily I whip out the one sentence I know, which is "I don't speak Russian"
--Today I went with my translater to the English class she is teaching. They asked me tough questions, like why am I adopting from Kazakhstan (not sure at the moment....), how the US deals with immigrants, what I thought of the Bulat movie, what words I know in Kazakh (not many...)
--Yesterday for lunch had a dish made with the local wide, flat noodles. Sort of like lasagne noodles, only no ruffles at the edges and thinner. Quite good. The national dish also has these noodles, and is called 'five fingers', apparently because you lick your fingers after it's so good.
--Ethan likes to help in the supermarket, carrying the bags, handing things to get weighed, etc. He's getting used to asking for a toy, and getting one, but not more than one. Today he got a big truck that carries four helicopters in it.
--WHen we walk down the street he yells everytime we see a truck. Maybe squeals with delight is closer to it. Then he wants to know the color of them.
--He's figured out how to work the remote on the TV. Pushes a few random numbers, but usually gets it on and can change channels

Random Tidbits

Some random tidbits about Ethan:
--He likes to take his cars to bed with him
--Today he took apart his tea bag, made a mess, and was trying to eat what was inside
--Yesterday he ate 3 banannas
--We went to a big grocery store and he helped me pick out bananas, apples, and oranges.
--He tried to peel the orange himself, but needed my help
--I just bought him a batman toy to keep him busy while I do this blog, but it's so badly made that the arms have already fallen off, and the motercycle is split in two.
--This morning he asked an English speaking man if we could have breakfast with him (we had talked with him before), and he kindly said yes. Ethan loves imitating everything this man says and does (to the best of his limited English ability), which luckily the man took in good humour.
--The other night he picked up a bottle, and I had him put it on something so he wouldn't carry it. I said 'good boy', and so he got the idea that it was a good idea to pick up all the trash bottles and put them on the table.
--When you're 4 years old, everything is a toy -- turning the lights on and off, turning the water on and off, flushing the toilet, taking the toothpicks on the table and playing with them, taking the pepper and turning upside down on your shirt, taking the shower caps from the bathroom and putting them on your head to pretend you're a doctor, doing the same with mama so that she is the doctor, taking toilet paper and wrapping it around the handle.

Ethan has been wonderful. He seems to make friends wherever he goes. He walks up to random people and says (in Kazakh), "my mama and papa gave me these clothes", or "we came here on the airplane", or "what's your name". People either seem to like him and start a conversation with him, or else he gives them a big smile until they melt.

We finally talked to papa today. Ethan asked if papa had his bicycle ready, and told him that mama had bought him a "yellow truck" (which he named in english). Right now he's talking a mixture of Kazakh and English with the man who works here (one of his many friends), which I'm hope will last a few more minutes. It's actually great because Farucke is helping him learn a few more words in English.

It's quite an experience going to the restaurant with him. He's pretty flexible about food. If it's something he doesn't recognize, he sniffs it and either takes a bite or shakes his head no. He likes to peel his own boiled eggs, and tried to cut his apple with a knife (managing to get his clean boston redsocks sweatshirt completely dirty in the process, well also with the help of trying to drink his tea with a fork.

We're having a great time. He's quite an amazing kid. Very brave. Can't wait for everyone to meet this special little guy. Ok, got to go.

I'm a mom!

Ethan is right behind me in the internet room, playing with some dinosaurs and getting bored and bothering the guy who works here, so this will be quick. Our flight from KyzylOrda to Almaty was actually on time today (what a concept), and Ethan was very brave on the flight. He's being a total sweety. He gets quiet when we get in the car, but he seems to be handling everything incredibly well. He doesn't seem overwhelmed with all the changes, and he's been excited to be with me today. Through the translater, I found out that he likes our hotel room.

Right now he's chatting with the guy who runs the internet room, speaking in Kazakh. He told the man that his mama and papa bought him his new clothes. It's really hard to write this because he keeps interupting -- guess that's what life is going to be like for the next decade or so. Anyway, we're doing great. I'm a bit sleep deprived and jet lagged, but otherwise so good so far.

Travel Woes

This trip has been unbelievably brutal -- not because I'm alone, but because of all the trip delays. First we got diverted to Astana because we couldn't land in Almaty. We arrived at around 3am. We ended up staying in the airport for over 25 hours since all the hotels were full. We didn't get much rest since they kept saying we might get out, and we had to go stand around waiting for their announcements. There also weren't any restaurants in the airport, and Lufthansa only fed us at 2pm and again at 10pm (bread and cheese).

The upside of delays is you get to know people you might otherwise not. I met three other couples here on their first trip to do adoptions (not in our city, but other cities). I also met Anastasia who grew up in Kazakhstan but who lives in the US now. She was unbelieavably helpful, translating both language and culture for us. She also inspired another couple and I to got exploring Astana, which was a treat since I've heard a lot of things about the city. Turned out to be very nice city, at least what we saw.

Then when I finally did arrive at 2am in Almaty, the coordinator wasn't there because he went home to go to sleep. Anastasia and her parents generously put me up at thier house in Almaty last night because the airport hotel was so freaky. That was a life saver! They had a wonderfully warm and friendly home, a welcome relief from all the other stuff I had to deal with.

I got about 1.5 hours of sleep in a real bed at Anastasia's house, then went back to the airport at 7am to get on a flight to KyzylOrda. Unfortunately the flight didn't end up taking off until 3pm because of mechanical delays. Of course we never knew when it was going to take off, so couldn't really go anywhere. At some point at around noon we got on the plane only to get off the plane again.

I arrived finally in KO tonight, and was wisked off to the BabyHouse to give gifts to them. It was great to see Ethan. I tried his clothes on, and most of them fit. And tomorrow Ethan and I are scheduled to fly back to Almaty -- yeah!!! I could have taken him from the baby house tonight, but didn't think it advisable given my sleep deprivation.

I have no idea what my access to internet will be like in Almaty, plus I'll have Ethan, so if I don't post again soon, that's why.

This is incredibly exciting to be getting Ethan tomorrow. Now the real fun begins!

Going Over Alone!

The other mom, Christy, had a medical emergency this morning, so I'm heading off to Kazakhstan by myself. Please wish me good luck. I'm currently a massive swirling vortex of different feelings, with a big dose of adrenallin making it all seem ok. I miss Ethan so much and look forward to his hugs and kisses -- about 48 hours from now. At the same time the trip seems scarey, with language issues, etc., plus missing Mark.