May 06, Part I

May 06, Part I
I was feeling adventurous tonight and walked down the street to the internet cafe. I'll be walking home without the translator, but it should be an easy walk....stright to the futbol stadium, then hang a right. There's a huge free futbol game tonight, so it should be hard to get lost-- just following the screams.

After a hearty breakfast of Russian CoCoPuffs and irradiated milk, we headed off to the orphanage. The cereal even came with a toy, and they are smart enough here to pack the toy seperately in the box so you do not need to dig to the bottom. The toy was a little soccer player, where if you hit his head he will kick a ball/disc. Oddly enough, the toy looks like CN #2 (Cool Neighbor #2- Chip McGibb).

Today was an awesome day with junior. Yesterday we noticed he likes noise all the time, if we stop talking he would cry. As hard as it is to believe that either of us stops talking, it did happen. So today we tried the uber-yuppie thing of classical music. We hooked up the iPod to a portable speaker (a la Radio Shack that I got before I left). I am now a believer in the classical music crap thing. Junior came in, and we immediately sat down on the floor and started playing "Daddy attacks junior with the Dinosaur". BTW, the Dinosaur shall no longer be referred to as the Jeff Gordon dinosaur; he will be called the BGA'o'saur (Big Gay Al Dinosaur--- if you watched South Park during it's hey day you know what it means; Lions and Tigers Oh My!). After some Dino-Attacks, junior was fascinated with himself in the mirror, so I scooped him up and we played peek-aboo with the mirror that goes from the floor to about 4 feet high. After about 5 minutes of baby squats, the sqooshy mats were calling me. Next we headed to the wall with all the balls on rungs. It's hard to envision, and when I update today's post tomorrow I'll include some pictures. He was mesmerized by the balls and let me sit him down on the floor without so much as a pout. We spent the next hour examining all of the balls and throwing them, making Daddy fetch them. Then the little bugger thought we were not looking and he freaking stood up! To top it off, he grabbed onto the rungs on the wall and scooted about 5 feet. This is the same little guy that 4 days ago pretended he could not sit, crawl or exist for more than 5 seconds without being held before crying. I think he realized the jig was up and continued playing.

I got the digital camara out, and he was instantly fascinated with the little string wrist loop. So fascinated that he was doing a Lone Ranger lasso move with the camera. Before mass destruction occured, we grabbed the camara and gave him another toy.....Rob's wrist watch. He spent 5 minutes trying to yank the cloth strap to make the little pin come out and the watch come off. By the end he figured out how to twist it to make it happen.

As is that was not enough excitement, he was eying up the ball pit. We sat him on the edge of the pit and started throwing balls, he caught on quick and slid off the wall and into the pit....without one whimper. He was having a grand time, then he realized the more balls he threw, the deeper he sunk. He was about up to half his chest when he started to panic and turned to us. So we rescued him from the Quick Sand pit of balls. But he was a good trooper and 30 seconds later he was back in the pit. I think it was Rob who was getting more concerned than Junior.

So back we went to the mat to play basketball with the soccer balls. Well, actually it was more like "Let's watch mommy miss the hoop, and i'll just throw the plastic hoop across the mat". He was so into his playing today that he bonked his head a couple times on the wall and didn't let out a cry. It must have been the magical classical music. We got a lot of smiles and giggles today, and a lot more almost-talking noises. Can anyone translate "Da Ma gurrrrrg huhaaaaa " ? We got a lot of good pictures today that we'll post after court in a couple weeks.

After an hour and a half of intense playing, he was tuckered out. And by HE I mean Rob who took a nap on the mats while we played. We, Mommy and Junior, sat on the windowsill and watched the trees blow (it's very windy here all the time). Just wait until he gets home and can watch trees and birds at the same time.....the cats will need to share their outdoor viewing areas.

By the last 15 minutes of the 2 hour visit he was ready for a nap, so we picked him up and let him fall asleep on our shoulder. It works out well becuase our play time is followed by a nap time.

After the visit we all (Jen, Rob, Aishana, Murat, Baheet and our driver Dima) headed back to the apartment for more paperwork and to wait for the cable man--- why yes it does take 5 people to do that. Rob helped Aishana with the English version of some court papers......so when we get them at the end of the process we'll see if his grammar for official court documents is better than his blog. Then the committee of 5 decided we only needed 2 people to wait for the cable guy, so we went out for lunch with Murat. We wanted a 'fast' lunch so we could get court papers filed by 6pm (yes, the court house is open until 6pm on a Saturday). Well, our fast lunch, which took over an hour, was a very tasty chicken with stuff inside and croutons on the outside. Uber tasty.

When we got back to the apartment the cable man was there and gone, and we had cable but no internet access, so we will have to wait until next Tuesday because the next couple days are holidays. But we can watch Dick Cheney visiting Kazakhstan on TV (can you beleive he did not have the good manners to call us, since we were in the same town? What a Dick :-) ), and vintage cartoons in Russian, and Weather in Europe.

Robbie was feeling a bit peaked, so Aishana and I headed out to do some shopping. I think the thought of shopping with 2 women put him over the edge. I bought some mystery pizza and apple thingee to take home to Robbie, along with a bunch of Russian snackie bags-- kinds of like potatoe chips but I have no idea what they are. Daddy Robbie needs snackies in our backpack so he does not get grumpy.

A few words about our apartment. First of all, it rocks. The refrigerator is musical. Whenever you open it , it plays a little song. So there's no snekaing into the fridge. If you leave it open too long, about 15 seonds, it plays another song, only this one more angry, over and over. It really annoyed Rob when I was rearranging the shelves to fit the food and drinkes we bought. We have not 1 but 2 'doormen'. The first is a little old lady, Babushka, that sweeps the stairwell every morning....and don't even think of walking out the door without your coat buttoned up--- the evil eye transcends language barriers. Our 2nd 'doorman' is an even older woman who sleeps in a booth by the elevators. She looks at us sternly when passing by. If she were to stop us, I am sure I can out run her. I have no idea what she is asking us, but it does not sound pleasnt.

The elevator is awesome (we live on the 8th floor, but oddly enough our apartment is # 174). The elevator floor has torn up linoleum that I trip on each time. The air freshner is a half eaten apple that someon was wedged in teh broken ceiling tile. And you literally need to run IN and OUT of the elevator because the door will close on you. And unlike an American door that will bounce back, these doors procceed to crush you like that trash compactor from the original Stars Wars (admit it, you know what I mean). So with all that running, and the number of people in our posse that we run with each day, I need to run into the elevator and usally end up facing the back of the elevator. There is one universal elevator rule we have found, the Kazaks are just as impatient as us. When waiting for the elevator they first hit the button for the direction they wish to travel and it lights up.....then they hit it 3 or 4 more times in 2 seconds. Then they hit the opposite direction they wish to travel. Then continue to randomly hit both until the elevator car arrives.


I'll let Rob give his side of the story when we stop by the internet cafe tomorrow morning....and I'll try to post some pictures.

Today's name for junior: Kobe Taylor (I don't know what it means, but it's written all over the place in our apartment building). Either they dig Kobe Steak, the LA Lakers, or it's a wicked profanity.

Wish me luck on my first Kazak journey down the street.