Sunday

Happy Birthday Pop!!! We’re glad you liked Aidan’s well wishes!

Sunday was true to its name here in Uralsk! We slept later than we have since we’ve arrived in Kazakhstan this morning. Our bedroom has thick curtains that block out the light and we were shocked when we didn’t wake up until 8:00 a.m.! But when we opened up the curtains, it was bright and sunny and just a pretty winter’s day. It smelled like Christmas outside. Really nice.

This morning we were all in the music room for the morning visit. We think Aidan is starting to really recognize our faces and voices when we come to his baby room to pick him up in the morning. At first, he looks at us very curiously as if to say “wait a second, I know you guys,” and then when we get closer he kicks his legs and makes excited noises and is happy for us to pick him up. That’s one of the highlights of our days! He still loves his lobster and his crinkle book, and his “wheels on the bus” toy. Mostly he loves playing up to his audience. He’ll squeal and babble and laugh and then laugh with everyone as they laugh with him. We do think sometimes that he gets over stimulated by all the excitement because he wants to be held, then be put down, then held, then crawl, etc. etc. He does let Scott or me cuddle him and rock him, but for short periods. Then he wants to look around again and see what the crowd is doing! We put him in a cute blue doggie outfit for his picture but it didn’t end up happening today, which is fine. We’ll be ready with another cute outfit when he gets his passport picture taken.

At lunchtime we all decided to take a big walk today up the “main drag” to see what we could see and take some pictures. We were able to see the Uralsk fine arts building, which is new and quite striking, and some nice small parks, and a pretty yellow government building. It was really icy on the sidewalks so we weren’t able to walk as far as we’d like but it felt great to be outside. I do need to buy a hat though because our ears were frozen – it was a lot colder today than yesterday (hence the ice). We were going to stop at a market for some small grocery supplies but forgot and passed it on the way back to the hotel. So we had some leftover bread and cheese for lunch before going back to see Aidan!

In the afternoon, Aidan had a runny nose so we had to stay in the little room by his baby room for our visit. He didn’t have a fever but the caregivers wanted him to stay upstairs where it’s warmer, which was no problem. He was happy and we had a nice time and played with toys and sang songs. We think his favorite tune may be “On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese” but it’s hard to say. As we sang all of the songs he was intrigued and looked at us a little like we were crazy. Our kid thinks we’re crazy? Yep, we’re definitely becoming parents. He was less fussy than the morning and we think that maybe he gets very stimulated with the other babies and families and when it’s just the three of us he feels a little calmer. He does love the Gerber treat container and crawls/scoots around after it wherever it rolls. He also let me cuddle and rock him a little today, which was very nice. Next week we may be able to help feed him and our hour long twice daily visits may be extended a little, which will be great.

We went to the grocery after the visit and got some snacks and lunch food, water and apple juice, bread, cheese, fruit and cookies, for the next several days. We do pretty well at the market pointing and using our limited language skills (and I did use my dictionary a couple of times). The people here are so nice and tolerant.

For dinner we went to the hotel restaurant again because we thought the drivers probably wanted to have an early night since it was Sunday. Tomorrow I think we’ll go to the Atrium, the supermarket/shopping mall facility, so we can look for some souvenirs and a hat, and then maybe find another restaurant for a Kazakh dinner. We also want to walk around some more and seem some additional Uralsk landmarks. There’s a beautiful gold-spire topped church that’s about 20 blocks from here that we might try to walk to and take pictures.

We’ll check back tomorrow!