Saturday's Happenings

It’s Saturday of a 4 -day Independence Day holiday weekend here in Kazakhstan, and the streets seem less crowded with cars, but the malls and stores are packed. Just like home!

We’ve been eating breakfast at the hotel, because it’s good and also because it’s free. Scott has discovered that he can order an egg soft boiled, and eat it with toasted bread. Just like his Dad used to make when he was little. Every day there is a little something different at the buffet, and it might not last, so it’s like a little surprise. Yesterday there was butter. We haven’t had butter since we left home, so that was a treat on our toast.

Aidan is still a cutie, and a card. He loves having his clothes changed but starts to cry if it takes too long for us to snap his sleeper up. Of course as soon as we pick him up, he smiles and stops crying. He happily comes to us in the morning, and loves to play with my hair, Scott’s face and all of his toys. He seems more relaxed now. He is happy to sit in our laps and chew on the Lobster and watch what’s going on, or lay on his stomach and play with the Ernie puzzle, or lay down on our shoulders. He’s less antsy and acts like he doesn’t have to entertain us all the time, although we’re also happy when he does. This morning we also received his schedule, and learned he eats mostly formula and wheat cereal, plus a little mashed potatoes/pureed meat at lunchtime. He naps twice a day and sleeps about 9 hours at night. Hopefully when he adjusts to our timeframe he’ll still enjoy sleeping through the night!

Today at lunchtime we went to the Kazakhstan history museum. It isn’t a large museum, but was very nice, and had displays discussing Kazakhstan’s roots as a settling ground for escaped feudal peasants and a place fought over by various warring tribes, including the Kahns. In the 1700’s Kazakhstan acceded to Russia for protection from the tribes, and at that point its history fuses with Russia’s. We saw beautiful tribal frocks and jewelry, tapestries and ancient pottery, and a lot of history about Kazakhstan’s participation in WWII. We enjoyed it and took lots of pictures to share when we get home.

In the afternoon visit, Aidan was happy to crawl around and explore and practice “walking” between mom and dad. He loves to be tossed up and down and to pretend to “fly.” By the end of this visit, he’s always yawning, and as we learned he has a nap right afterwards, from 4 to 6. He likes for us to hold him while he settles down. We can’t wait until we get to actually feed him, give him a bath, and take care of him. Tomorrow we will observe a feeding and will bring a book for his caregivers to write well wishes to him.

For dinner, Ann and Scott and I went to a Chinese style restaurant recommended by Aliya, called the Golden Dragon. The food wasn’t quite Chinese, but tasty all the same. We were the only people in the whole restaurant the entire time we were there, and it was a Saturday night. We discussed this, as we’ve noticed that many restaurants (and the museum, for example) are empty, and decided that Uralsk is a summer “resort” town, where people come to relax and swim and fish. In the winter, there probably just aren’t enough people to fill every restaurant. It is definitely odd to be in a beautiful restaurant with no one else but the wait staff. But we enjoyed ourselves anyway!

Tomorrow is Sunday already and our 14th day of visits with Aidan! It seems like we’ve always known him!

See you tomorrow!