Buddha Baby

Technical difficulties yesterday. Dial-up internet is a challenge. Only have a few minutes this AM before leaving for the baby house, but wanted to share a few of yesterday’s pix. We finally go to take her onesie off, and now have proof that Alea is the roundest Buddha baby in the history of the planet. Obviously, babies at the baby house suffer no malnourishment. Doctor told us she is 20% for height, and 75% in weight!!! I just want to nibble her up!

Origins of Alea

Greetings from Siberia! The foreseeable forecast shows not a moment of temperatures in excess of freezing, so our initial coating of snow from yesterday will be just the beginning.

Our visit with Alea today was lovely. We learned today that the correct pronunciation of her name is AH-lee-ah, not ah-LEE-ah as we had been saying. Once we fixed the pronunciation, she was much more responsive to her name. Most of the time, she goes by the Russian diminuitive AH-lee-USH-ka. We also learned that Alea is an Israeli name meaning “immigrant to a new home,” which of course is pretty striking, and perhaps not a coincidence. We don’t know whether her name was give to her by her birth mom (who was very young, and single) or the delivery ward at the hospital. Looks like we’ll be keeping it, though we may modify the spelling to make the pronunciation more apparent to Weserners.

Today, little Alea snuggled against me toward the end of our visit, put one of her hands in her mouth, and used the other to grab my finger, and started to drift into almost-asleep land. At that moment, it was time for me to put her back, and I got all teary-eyed, though Alea was not phased at all. The Baby House provides excellent care given the circumstances – still, this constant lavishing of attention and babbling that she now receives each day from us is a new thing for her, and I’m not sure she knows what to make of it.

OK, it’s time to go ice skating. Thanks to everyone for all the sweet notes, and special thanks to those taking care of the mutts. It sounds like they're having a great time.

The King's Castle

Dear everyone,
Things are going well. Alea is a big, chubby-cheeked, smiley, inquisitive ball of delight, the initial feedback from the adoption doc has been positive, and the group of Americans whose trips coincide with ours are social and fun. Jet lag is slowly becoming manageable. The first snow of the season is falling as I type.

Sal & I agree that Kostonai is thoroughly unlike anywhere else we have traveled. In some ways it is an Asian/European hybrid, but there is something quite singular about it as well that I’ve yet to put my finger on.

Our first night here, immediately following our 30 hours of marathon travel, our coordinator took the stuporous bunch of us to a restaurant called the King’s Castle. The exterior resembled exactly that, down to the larger-than-life sized knights guarding either side of the door. Inside, after checking coats, scarves, hats and gloves (required for outdoor existence) we were escorted to a banquet hall with baroque prints on the walls, red carpet, a crystal chandelier, and a large center table, with thrones at either end and elaborately carved lions and other features on the arms of each chair. The walls were surrounded with smaller booths, for other diners, and then, just behind the throne at one end, was a dance floor, replete with disco ball and colored lights. The menu was a russified version of traditional british fare (served with either vodka, or the regional beer Baltika, which is ordered by number (0-9) depending on how drunk you need to be today). Unlike most restaurants, they had an English menu with dishes such as "Onion Happiness" (onion rings) and "Some kind of Fish, with Olive, Pickle and Mayonaise, In the Fantasy Style." The initial entertainment was an excellent classical guitarist, and he was followed by a long-haired, Jack-Black-esque vocalist who crooned heavy metal ballads in Russian, while a caucasian woman in a flowing red dress and a full set of gold teeth danced with an asian man, ballroom style, and a few other locals did a “bump and grind”. Alternating with the dance music, a group of stunningly attractive Kazakh women did a variety of burlesque dance routines, with varied (but always r-rated) costumes. There was even a belly dance, where the American daddy’s-to-be were fortunate enough to be able to place a neatly folded 2000-tenge note in their skirt or bikini top. By the end of the evening, most of us had gathered the nerve to join our fellow Kazakh diners on the dance floor.

That was our first night here, immediately following the 30-hours of travel. It was a lot of fun. I don’t know what I expected from our trip to Kazakhstan, but it wasn’t this. And it gets better. Tomorrow evening, we are going ice skating.

Alright, now for what you really want – more pix. And there’s a new video, “alea3” at video.yahoo.com. Love to all -t

I'm gooey and melty

We toured the baby house today, and then got to spend about 30 minutes with Alea (whose name may or may not remain unchanged). I'm still too exhausted and jet lagged for a lenghthy description, so I'll try to appease the folks back home with some photos. Man, is she a cutie. Also, you may be able to access a video at http://video.yahoo.com/, and doing a search for "baby alea" . I just uploaded it and it currently says it's being processed. Love to all back home -t

We met our little love today

Today we met Alea. Despite my fears, I held it together and was only teary, as opposed to overtly weeping. We are still waiting to review her case with the adoption doctor, but we have a really good feeling about her. We only got to spend ~ 10 minutes with her today, but she was a joy. Very interactive, interested in us, the toy we brought, and all different sounds. She was born 3/29/07, and is beautiful and healthy. One of the couples who is finishing their month here told us that Alea was in the same room as their son, and so they saw her every day and she is bubbly, happy and inquisitive. I will try and post a pic & video here, but am having some trouble with slow connection speeds, so not sure if the video in particular will work. If the picture field is blank, click on it.

Lots to tell about Kaz, but it’s late so I will save it for another post. Love to all back home!

We're Here!!!

We’re sharing about 10 hours of sleep between us since the last post, but we are safe and sound in Kostonai. It is cold, but not bitterly so. The hotel is lovely, spacious, and much more luxurious than we’d anticipated, apparently with even a gym and spa ($5 manicures!). There are plenty of conveniences within walking distance, as well as a large park. We have translators to accompany us for outings, and have not suffered thus far for lack of vegetarian food. We’ve made a trip to the grocery store, and most of the comforts of home are readily available, though I suspect by the time we’re home we will be in green-vegetable deprivation. Here are pix from lunch today, where I had a really great bowl of borscht:

We were really fortunate to have made the entire trip in the company of another family, who already have a 4-year-old daughter adopted from Kaz. For their privacy, I’ll call them Bill, Maureen and Sarah. Their company has been genuinely enjoyable, and they’ve been incredibly helpful, having already been through the entire process. During the 14-hour layover in Frankfurt, we made a trip to the zoo. In my sleep-deprived stupor, I earnestly tried to convince Maureen & Sarah that a group of grey rocks under were a tree were actually sleeping capybara.

On a practical note, the step-down transformer that I went out of my way to find, is not suitable for laptops – fortunately, Bill & Maureen had a spare converter with them that works, or we’d’ve been out of business, from a cyber perspective. And, since no-one told us, save your boarding pass because you have to present it to the judge at court (and we lost ours). Lastly, the navigation bars on Blogger are magically in Russian, complete with Cyrillic alphabet here, which is a bit confusing.

And the biggest news, (you can now exhale!) – we will be going to the baby house tomorrow, and it sounds like we will be meeting a baby girl between 6-7 months old. We showed the coordinator a picture of Ava, and were told that this little baby really resembles her. I am so full of joy, imagining holding her in my arms tomorrow afternoon, I don’t know how to begin to express it.

We're off

I'm shutting down the laptop and packing it now. Hopefully, they'll be something exciting to tell the next time we post! Thanks to all the friends and family for their good wishes, and we will really love to read some comments, to help us feel less homesick. We'll miss everybody!!!