December 20, 2008

pictures: Mr. Cutiepie after a bath; the next two eating cauliflower as a 'snack'; the last picture is a sample of the food I prepared for him while at the apartment...yes, he ate the whole bowl!

December 19, 2008
Ermek turns 17 months old today…Happy Birthday!

Well…so much has happened since I last blogged. And the circus continued…

You may have seen an earlier picture of my apartment door from the outside. It is made up of steel and is flush against the plaster walls. On the inside, one must move a ½” steel (or very hard metal) latch horizontally to secure and lock the door from the inside. Basically, when you lock the door from the inside, the key doesn’t work. If you lock the door from the outside, the person on the inside can’t get out. Clever. Then, for sound and I’m sure heat transfer, another door on the inside just pushed shut.

The last few days before we flew out were about us finally getting into our groove. E cooked with me for every meal, smelling all the ingredients from EVOO to Kefir to garlic, etc.

My SCAT (Soviet propeller plane) flight left at 9:30am yesterday, the 18th. Z and her husband were to pick me up at 8am. The birthfather was going to meet us for a few minutes at the airport to meet and say goodbye to E.

I woke up at 6am thinking I had plenty of time. I was running around, but was ready at eight oh oh, when Z called and said the outside door was locked and to come and get her. I took a few small bags, closed the bathroom door & locked the apt so E wouldn’t try and get out, ran down the stairs and let Z & her husband in.

This is where it got fun. When I went to unlock the door, it didn’t open. Then I hear E fiddling with the handle…it only took a split second for my little brain to realize he moved the horizontal latch and locked us out! (trying to help, no doubt…what a good little man, showing mata that he could figure out the door). So here we are at 8:15…8:30…Z’s husband finally shows up with a crowbar and tried to pry the door open. No luck. He phoned a friend of his who showed up with more crowbar looking tools. Then the men started hacking and chipping through the plastered wall. The noise was of plaster smashing and metal clanking in an echoey hallway while it was still pitch black outside and no one seemed awake yet. A good portion of the wall came down by the time they opened the door.

I rushed in and there he sat…3 feet from the door, just watching.

Stinker!

Anyway, we bolt out of there & make it to the airport just in time.

E’s birthfather was waiting with his mother and a brother/friend. The grandmother started to cry, put a bracelet on my right wrist and gave me a bag. We had to rush through. Later, looking in the bag was a beautiful royal blue little boy Kazakh costume which included a hat, a neck piece, vest & pants; along with a leather piece that contained what I believe is something from the Koran…it’s a traditional Muslim good luck charm.

So touching. And so much more special than anything “Kazakh” I could buy for a ‘keepsake’.

The 4 hour flight went well…E slept for an hour.

When we arrived, a man picked us up, dropped us off at our hotel and hung out for a while as he shoved more papers for me to fill out. We missed meal times, nap times, he stunk to high heaven…it was a mess. Finally, after he left, it took the rest of the day for E to get control of himself and fall asleep.

Written December 20, 2008
Yesterday we went to the Doctor’s, he napped and really took a liking to the glass elevator that allows him to see the inside of the atrium as we go up to our room…go down to walk around a little, then back up. He loves to watch the elevators go up and down while we hang out for a little in the lobby/atrium.

Whoo-Wee!

Well, in Jan oil was $100; July ~$150; now ~$35? Holy cow! That’s good for us going into winter. For the first time we didn’t lock in our rates. Chicago just cancelled over 100 flights because of the winter storm. What a crazy world we live in.

I can’t wait to come home.

OH! E knew we were leaving…he said “packa-packa” on the phone to Stas, made the opening/closing of his fist to further communicate this as we were leaving the apartment and on the plane.

He knows!