Sunday May 14

Wow, what a night last night. We had about 5 calls in the middle of the night, all in Russian, all wrong numbers. By 0400 I had had enough and unplugged the phone. Of course I then regretted that action when I checked our email that next morning and read that Ian wanted to wake me up on Mother’s Day to tell me that he loves me very much! He even tried staying up until 2100 but then finally he fell asleep. I love that little boy more than I can ever express to him or to anyone else. Although I am very sad not to be with both of my boys, I like the sound of that) I am very happy to witness the overall growth that Sam exudes daily. As I’m writing this Sam just came over to investigate what I’m doing and asked, “Mama please kiss” 5 kisses later, he’s still smiling. What better a gift for Mother’s Day than for a mother to witness the transformation of her son from a person devoid of showing any sort of emotion to a wonderful, happy, and well adjusted child capable of receiving and giving love.

Chingis, our in country coordinator came over to collect the rent and to explain next week's schedule regarding receiving Sam’s new passport, birth certificate and adoption decree. Chingis said I could even possibly have an appointment at the US Embassy in Almaty on Friday, but if not, I definitely should be in Almaty by Friday night!! Yippee, the sooner to Almaty the better. Perhaps we’ll even be out of Kaz before the 27th. I’m not holding my breath about any of this, because I have witnessed to many times many delays within the Kaz bureaucratic system. I’ll just hope for the best! Chingis, made it clear about making certain we did our yearly post placement reports and stated that until Sam is 18, perhaps one of their government officials may come to visit us and see how Sam is progressing. I highly doubt that would ever happen, but if it did, so be it, because we know we can and will give Sam a great life, both in terms of standard of living and having the opportunity to become part of a family and thrive as a person. He also asked if I would email a picture a picture of Sam monthly to see that he’s ok. I’m thinking to myself, whatever, but, then again, if my following of the “rules” enables more people to adopt some of these children, older children like Sam, then it’s the least I can do. Plus, I love taking pictures of my boys!! Well, it’s sunny out and that means we have to hit the park and enjoy the day!!! We did just that! Once again we walked to the big park with the lake and played soccer in the grassy area!! We had a blast, I love to hear Sam say, “goal.” We then sat next to the lake and enjoyed a bit of sun and watched the boys swim in the very cold and very dirty, trashy, water. Sam said, “Mama, silly boys.” We also walked passed by the giant fountain to get to the park today and many children decided it was a great makeshift swimming pool as did the pigeons!! We then headed back to Trash Park. It was early evening and the park was packed and today had a very strong smell of gas and burning trash. Most of the American’s will be having court tomorrow and then leaving Tuesday morning, so this was the last time we would all see one another. The park was also packed with Kazakh kids, so it was nice to see so many people having a nice time, despite the horrid conditions of the park. Jo and Agnes came back from a few hours of shopping alone. Jo then secretly handed Sam a “sveetok, a.k.a, a flower”, and then had him hand it to me for Mother’s Day. How sweet was that!! Kuddos to Jo!! We took a photo for posterity’s sake at Trash Park. Unfortunately you can’t get a good feel of how nasty trash park truly is because you can’t see the nasty pipe that Sam and I are sitting on, and we’re blocking the view of 1 of the 6 or so dumpsters once again on fire. Sharon, Ivan’s mom, was nice enough to give us her extra Flintstone vitamins, as Ivan is going back to the detsky-dom until she’s allowed to come back and pick him up and more than likely he would not receive them on a daily basis if he were to bring them back with him. We then ventured back home for a breakfast style dinner of oatmeal, bananas and banana yogurt, yum, yum and a few books before night-night. We did receive a call from Daddy and Ian. It was great to hear Ian’s voice and I could tell that all was truly well, without me. This was a really good sign, well it’s 99% good, and 1% hard for his Mama to take because she misses him 99% and is only ok with all of this about 1% of the time. But, that's another day down from Asia, hope all is well with you and yours.