Day 11--November 5, 2008

Day 11—November 5, 2008

Aidar is becoming quite the sly little guy. He loves to scatter his bowling set (something I’m sure that he is not allowed to do inside the orphanage), and he is getting braver about walking away by himself. When we say “Stop”, he does stop, but doesn’t turn around—he just pretends like he can’t hear us. He is speaking a little English; he has “Again!” down quite well. He also says (as he signs) “I love you”. He points out Karis in the photo album, and says “Sistah” and tries to say “Karis”. He really is trying to communicate with us more than he has in the past few days. We’re very excited about that.

He slid down the circular slide today; John took him by the waist and slid him up it again but backwards. After that, Aidar was saying something (we could not make out the words), but he pointed, and we knew he was saying “To the top!!! To the Top!!! To the Top!!!” when John only slid him backwards a little way :-) He loves to let his car go down the slide, and he still loves the bubbles. Again, though, he only likes the really big bubbles, so we have to get skilled at blowing bubbles very slowly. He laughs hysterically when the bubble pops before John finishes blowing it, and John makes a face. We’ll be sure to get that on video for you.

He has been in the same clothes for three days, and that is a bit discouraging, but I guess not unexpected. We’re anxious to get him home to start improving everything in his life.

John and I went to dinner tonight, but had to leave one restaurant and go to another since we (i.e. “I”) didn’t have a clue what was on the menu. We did go back to the first restaurant for dessert. Again, dessert was fabulous. Unfortunately, John is not as good at choosing desserts as I am; he chose an elaborate “Moon Pie” the other night (thinking it was cream, but it was really marshmallow), and tonight he chose what we thought was pecan pie, but was something with maybe a lot of coca in it. It was pretty bitter. We walked for hours today, and I was hoping to maybe lose some weight, but that won’t happen with these desserts.

We’re still working on our paperwork while we’re in Kazakhstan. It’s frustrating, but we’re fortunate that we can do what we need to do during the day, and then take care of things in the U.S. during the evening. We’re up to date on the election, but not on local politics. The U.S. election is on around the clock on the BBC channel.

Thanks to mom, Jane & Mike, Lisa and Mike, Barbara, and Marsha & Ray for taking care of Karis. We miss her terribly, and know that she is in good hands. Thanks to Chris for taking care of Boo for us. That is a huge help as well! Thanks to everyone helping with the birthday party. We hate that we will miss it, but know that it will be good for her to see her friends.