June 12 (Kaz)

June 12

Today was the hottest day yet but we toughed it out outside. I brought the stroller I bought last week and Andew fell asleep in 5 minutes....not the smartest this to do in the first part of the visit. So I woke him up he was grumpy and hot, and we played on the rug outside-- they have a couple oriental rugs outside in the playground. He got kind of hot and tried to break into my water bottle. After studying it for about 5 minutes he thought he could drink through the lid.....so maybe I am one step closer to a sippy cup. He still prefers to drink directly from a tea cup (they use fine china at meal times) or one of the stacking cups that I fill with water.

After it was clear that we was not getting into the water bottle he resorted to the teething ring. I have had it for about a week now and he has not taken an interst in it; hopefully he will figure out he likes it and chew on that instead of every other toy that is not intended to be put in the mouth. In case you are wondering why he wears the same clothes every day, they just put on whatever is in his locker. I had about 10 sets of clothes that have migrated to other lockers and I think he will be sporting these clothes stolen from the locker next door until I leave.


Last night I realized I need to buy shoes for him before I can break him out of the orphanage in a couple weeks. We found a couple cheap places by our apartment so I bought 2 pairs.One pair is kind of ugly whitish shoes. Yes they are ugly and do have a spider (not spider man) on them but they are very bendy which they seem to like. The other pair is dark blue sandals (no he will not wear them with black socks like the Kazaks all do). Those 2 shoes should get us through all of our shoe needs this summer since he will be wearing nothing on his feet most of the time at home.

In our continuing theme of 'bad Kazak meals' that we prepare, here is our latest: Mexican night. He had mexican beans with some kind of weird sauce, salsa, noodles with a soup that we added 1 liter of water instead of 5 liters so it was too strong, and left over pineapple. With the tablecloth it is a bit difficult to identify the food plates.....good luck with Where's Waldo's Food.




This afternoon we also tried to have our phone turned back on. We went to the phone company. I thought I had figured out how to act in public here be pushy and observe no sense of personal space. We were second in line at the window and I was standing so close to the lady in front of me that she cold feel the warm breath coming out of my nostrils on her neck. Well I guess that was not close enough because some other lady butt in front of me. I grumbled and huffed but she was oblivious. If you see the picture above with Mexican food from the night before you would think I would have been armed with BM Energy to clear the room but I did not want to take out innocent bystanders. So I waited, paid about $30 for unknown charges and we are still wating for the phone to be turned back on. Geez without phone or internet access from the apartment we feel at a loss, but with a sense of quiet calm. We hope for some utilities tomorrow, and pray tha the AC does not give out.

Stay tuned for tomorrow which will be Fountain Day---- Celbrating the fountains of Astana, at least the ones I can walk to in the heat.