Passport Photo and Fits! (day12)

This morning we got to the babyhouse and there was one open spot out front under the awnings… so we grabbed it… Olga reminded us that the photographer was coming today to take Anthony’s passport picture. She must have told us yesterday during our meeting about court… but I didn’t hear her and Jerry forgot to tell me… I think I was doing something with Alex and missed that part of the conversation! So we were there only a few minutes and the guys came… same guy as last time with the same ancient camera… poor guy! We went inside, Alex stayed out with Misha, and we had to hold Anthony up in front of the wall… oh my was that difficult… since he can not sit up on his own I had to support him and hold him up high enough to be in front of the plain white wall… Jerry and Olga tried to get him to look at the camera… but that was impossible!!! He was trying to look around the photographer to see Olga and then the other side to see daddy… the photographer was waiting take the picture when Anthony was looking directly at the camera! He had to take 5 pictures!!! It doesn’t sound bad, but it took so long for him to take one picture that this was a good ten minute process… seemed longer! He had to load him film in the camera and he had to manual advance the film! He had a little reflector and a flash that he stuck on top of the camera! I was so surprised to see such old stuff… but it was the same stuff as he had last time… Although Alex was much easier to take a picture of (almost 2 years ago) he could sit up on his own! By the time we walked out of the room we were all sweating like crazy! It was that blasted hot Music room!!! :) we went out and played for a while,
Finally Anthony got tired though and fell asleep… he fell harder asleep than the last couple times, though, because he let his thumb fall out of his mouth and both hands went down to his sides! He sleeps with his little mouth hanging wide open! It was so cute!! We took some pictures and jerry practiced all the stuff he has to memorize for court! Yikes! Then it was time to go in… Olga said I could take him in and lay him in his bed. Woohooo!!!!

We thought that we wouldn’t get to go into his room. But Olga got the Doctor and she came in a gave us a “tour” They have a play room and a bedroom. We could take pictures of the play room but not the bedroom, because all the babies were sleeping… but they let us take a picture of his crib and him in it… ok… so I laid him down and he woke up and looked scared and started SCREAMING!!!! Oh my! I felt horrible… he was waking all the other babies up! There was a pacifier in his crib so the caregiver tried to give it to him and he just kept screaming… so she ran out and got a bottle… looked like apple juice, but could have been tea… that quieted him down… I can hardly believe how loud he screams! Little squirt… There are 11 babies in his group right now. So the room is full of babies! So cute! They had all been passed out in their cribs! Until loud screamer boy came in! Good grief! So anyways… back to the rooms. Their rooms are very nice and perfectly clean and organized! There were a couple play pens in the play room and a rug and a cushioned mat. Very very nice… not a home, but very nice anyways! The caregivers all seem very sweet in there too. Then the doctor offered to show us the cribs that we bought last time as our donation. Six of them were in the infant room, the youngest babies, and four of them in Alex’s old group. They also had enough money left over from the cribs that they purchased a couple smaller playpens and 2 stoves for the kitchen! Goodness! We only gave them about $1400 last time! This time we are not going to be able to give even close to that much, but we are waiting to see what they need. Hopefully the doctor has a list of medicines that she could use. We were not able to take any pictures of the cribs that we had bought but we did see them and just maybe Anthony slept in one, as well as some of our friends’ children! That was very rewarding to see babies sleeping in them!

So we headed off to the indoor playground again… Erik and Birgit (the Belgian friends) had invited us to meet them there today, so yesterday the other couples called and wanted to meet us there after our afternoon meeting, so we had told them that we were actually already going there at lunch time… they wanted to come too! So everybody was there! I guess 3 other families from Canada were coming in today or tomorrow… and I think some families from Germany were coming in this weekend too, so there will be a lot of families her pretty quick! We leave here next Sunday, and Erik and Birgit are supposed to leave Monday right after us… the other couples… I am not so sure about… I think one is supposed to leave this week and the other is still in the bonding period so it will be a little while for them still, at least they will have some company after we all leave. Birgit said little Askhat is doing better now… she said the first few days were hard… he didn’t want to sleep and he was just kind of out of sorts, but now he is doing pretty good and sleeping all night and eating well, and happy… today I saw him grinning like a crazy baby and looked across and his daddy was smiling at him and saying things to him from across the table! That was so sweet. He seems to be very happy and he smiles pretty easily now… they said he hardly smiled for them at the babyhouse.

We had lunch… pizza today… we ordered a Marguerita pizza which should be tomatoes and cheese you know… well… it had tomatoes and cheese alright… along with Blue Cheese! It was so strong… I don’t really care for blue cheese anyways… so I will not be getting that again! :) After eating one piece Alex was off to the play room! and he played in there almost until time to go.
When Misha and Olga picked us up, she had the pictures for Anthony’s passport… oh my does he look crazy!!! It is hilarious! He looks mad and scared and curious all at the same time… he is going to hate it one day! We all were laughing! If I remember… when we get it, I will take a picture of it and post it… your going love it!

Back to the babyhouse… we sat under one awning that had a rug left on it… it is so much better when you can sit on a rug and then put your blanket or sheet over that. So we played… Alex had to have his usual potty break… he seems to have to go in there every time we are there! Jerry practiced his court stuff again… The main thing that happened this afternoon is that jerry was Laying on the floor… he had some of the stacking cups… that he had stacked on the side of his face… I know he is goofy… but he was trying to get Anthony to see them… but Anthony already had a blue on in his hand was trying to chew on it and stuff… he just was not seeing the cups on jerry’s face… I took the cup out of his hand and stuck it on Jerry’s’ head too… figuring he would follow his cup and then see the others and go knock them down… Oh NO! he let out a piercing scream instantly, and didn’t even see where his cup went he was so mad… then he went into full crying! Oh brother! I picked him up, made him look at me an told him “No!” and just told him that was naughty to scream like that and just kept looking at him… Jerry sat up and told him no as well. And we were both very serious faced and pretty soon he was just looking at us… I could tell that he knew he was “in trouble.” That was interesting… so I took the stacking cups and put them away… and I just held him for the rest of the time… Soon Olga came and took him away… We packed up our stuff and just then who came walking in? the Judge’s son, Damir! It was funny! He wanted to chat more with us, and apparently Olga had brought him some English books to help him study. So we talked for about 15 minutes about stuff… he is going to Almaty in one week to try to get his Visa to go to England and then he will go to England in September. We chatted about the economy in Kazakhstan and the opportunities that they have here to make money, by way of business and “new ideas.” So then we decided that he will come again on Monday afternoon… He thought that our meeting was at 4-5 so he was coming at 4 but our visit is 3-4, so Monday he will come at 3 instead, so we have an hour to chat. Jerry is going to give him a crash course in personal finance! This should be fun!

We then came straight home because Luba and Helen were coming for a photo-shoot around 4:30-ish… but they never showed up… slackers… we were going to do the photo-shoot and then take them to dinner at Kamelot… finally at 7:45 we went to Kamelot without them. Oh well…. It’s 10:30 and we still haven’t heard from them.

Olga called and she had something come up and won’t be able to come with us tomorrow to the babyhouse and stuff, so on Monday afternoon we will go to the seed store. Just think… Monday afternoon, pre-court will be over!!!! Yay!!!!