Day 9 - Just a Whisper

Although we prefer yesterday's performance, today we realized that the 2 year old class was apparently the less celebrated new years pageant. There were tons of people their to watch the older kid's performance. Even some serious looking military people. We were able to get some great video of the other kids who are being adopted by families that have now had to go home.

Each of the blogs seem to be getting shorter than the last because some things have become redundant and although they are incredibly special to us, we know that it does not make for the best read. So, for the most part she was the same as yesterday: loving the lotion, stroller, coloring and music box. A couple of new things did happen. She was in the stroller (her favorite place to be) and she started yelling "NYET!!!" very loud. Please know that this is not defiance, but rather what she says when she is excited, or happy, or playing, or mad, or defiant or... Anyway, Chris bent down to her level and put his finger on his lips and asked her to shush. She then leaned toward him, and carefully said "nyet" in a very low whisper. It was so cute and great to have her listen to us. Apparently shush in Kazakhstan is the same as America.

Later she was playing with yet another toy in the play room that has no battery. This one is a little keyboard book. I started trying to sing the notes that she was playing. She told me "nyet" and then started singing the notes herself. There was a lot of this kind of behavior today. She has started copying our behaviors which is a great sign of attachment. She did not eat again yesterday at lunch. Everytime this happens the caretakers think that we fed her, which we do not do. We did not even give her water yesterday. We are worried that the stress of us leaving everyday is causing her to not eat. Please pray for her, that this will not be such a difficult transition everyday.

You might be wondering what we do with the rest of our time here. We go out exploring most days but today we fell back into the dreadful naps. I hope this does not mess up our sleep at night. We will typically go out to dinner since both of us can eat for under 8 dollars at most restaurants around here. Tonight we are going to have pizza, or rather "pizza". We have been told that this is very different from American pizza. There is no tomato sauce and they will use sandwich meats and mayonaise on several of the menu items. This should be interesting. In general the food has been great and our free breakfasts put continental breakfasts to shame! There is also a market with outdoor clothing and shoe shops. They have whole fish just laying out frozen because it is so cold here. I am convinced they just pull them out of the river and they instantly freeze. We were joking yesterday that if you thaw it out it might come back to life. I don't think we will buy one to find out, but it would be a great deal at $3 for about a 4olb fish.

We have also spent a lot of time clothes and toy shopping for our little girl. This, unfortunately, is very expensive here. One store was selling Children's Place clothes for around $50 dollars an item. For those of you who don't know, these typically sell for around $10 at the store in America. We are also getting to know other families that are here for adoption. It is neat to hear about all of their journeys and their children that they are adopting. But, mostly we spend alot of time in our room trying to stay warm and playing games.