Chris and Sherry's Blog: May 2008

Chillin' in Almaty

After a month in Uralsk, it is nice to be in a big city again. Almaty is beautiful with lots of trees and big parks, and we're in a great location across from a mall with an ice skating rink.

The kids did great on the three-hour flight here. There were babies cyring on the plane, but not ours!

Our interview with the US Embassy is Wednesday, so that should be the last piece of the puzzle, and we expect to fly home Thursday. We only have dial-up Internet in our apartment, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to post again. See everyone soon!

Jonna's first plane flight

Enjoying one of Almaty's lovely parks

Russian Orthodox cathedral

Ice skating at the mall

Happy family

See you soon!

Countdown: 7 Days to Go!

We fly to Almaty in a few hours. The Internet there is dial-up, so I may not be able to post much. But I will try.

In Almaty, we'll have a meeting at the US Embassy as well as an appointment for Jonna at the international clinic (a requirement I think for her visa.)

One week til we come home!

Countdown: 8 Days to Go

Tomorrow is the day we return to Almaty, and one week from tomorrow we fly home!

Internet hasn't been working well enough to upload photos -- sorry! But at least we have hot water again.

Jonna's First Boat Ride

The weather is really warm and beautiful today, so we walked to the big park along the Chagan River and rented a rowboat.

Last night, Jonna had her first ice cream -- she ate the entire bowl and probably would have had a second!

From the menu at Galactica -- read it!!

Kids on an ice cream high

No Hot Water!

We are on our 4th day without hot water. (It's the whole building, maybe even the whole block -- no one knows why, but this is not uncommon.) When we need a bath, we have to heat water on the stove.

Last night when I was putting Julian and Jonna to bed, they decided to have a pajama party. They were throwing their blankets and bears at each other and laughing and laughing. They are each sleeping in a crib, and they leaned over the corners of the cribs to give each other a hug!

Jonna seems attached to her blue bear and named her "Babette." She tucks her in under a blanket in the crib. Yesterday, she put Babette and Bobo (Julian's bear) side by side in the stroller. Sorry I didn't get a picture!

Besides bedtime, the only thing Jonna really doesn't like is getting her diaper changed. (They don't use diapers at the baby house... they just do a lot of laundry.) Julian does his best to make her laugh by dancing around while we're changing her diaper.

Life with Jonna

We feel Jonna's transition is going very well so far. She did go from room to room like she was looking for her old friends and nannies, but she hasn't cried much. She eats everything in sight, smiles and laughs a lot, and also throws little tantrums if we take something away.

Getting her to sleep has been the biggest challenge. The first night she fell asleep in her stroller while we were walking, but she woke up crying 3 or 4 times in the night. Fortunately, she fell asleep quickly again. Last night, the stroller trick didn't work, so we had to turn out all the lights and pretend we were sleeping to get her to stay in her bed. Once she fell asleep, she slept straight through til 8 a.m.!

I was watching her when she woke up this morning. She opened her eyes and looked around, then smiled wide and stretched her arms over her head. It's like she was saying, "I'm still here!"

Now we are waiting on paperwork -- Jonna's passport and then her visa to enter the U.S. We'll be in Uralsk one more week before returning to Almaty. Then we'll fly home one week after that, May 29 (if all the paperwork is done on time!)

Gotcha!

At 8:30 this morning, we picked Jonna up to bring her home with us. In adoption lingo, this is known as "Gotcha Day." Here we are leaving the baby house... forever.

The day has been much smoother than expected. We thought Jonna might be frightened to ride in a car, to be away from her friends and caregivers, and to come to a strange apartment. But so far she has been fascinated with all the new experiences, and she seems content to be with us.

If anyone is interested in a more detailed account of our experience in court, please see my Miami Herald blog, "Birth at the Courthouse."

We Have a Daughter (Almost!)

Court lasted more than 2 hours -- the judge was very thorough in going over our paperwork and Jonna's background. At the end of the hearing, he approved the adoption... so we are now officially her parents.

Unfortunately, we couldn't take Jonna home from her baby house today, because an official who must be present for the "hand-off" was not available. So we'll be getting her first thing tomorrow morning.

In front of the courthouse

Two little dinosaurs roaring away!

Just One More Day!

Court is still scheduled for tomorrow morning -- and we hope to bring Jonna home in the afternoon. It will be a busy day, but I'll try to post an update just to let everyone know that things went well.

When Julian saw Jonna today, he said, "We get to take you with us tomorrow! I can't wait to bring you home!" Then he started roaring like a dinosaur. So what did Jonna do? She roared back! Two T-Rexes we'll be raising...

Traditional yurt at the History Museum of Uralsk.

All Smiles

Jonna was so happy to see us today, she couldn't stop smiling -- even while she was eating her snack and drinking her juice! She now says Mama, Dada, Mimi, "Doolian," up, down, banana, apple and yellow -- this is simply amazing to us, considering how quiet she was at first.

Gas pipes run above ground here -- they are everywhere.

Today was Victory Day (WW II) with a parade & fireworks.

Monday's the Day!

We had our "pre-court" hearing today, and our court date has been set for Monday at 11:30 a.m. If everything goes smoothly, we will become Jonna's legal parents when the judge issues his decision -- and we'll be able to bring her "home" from the baby house Monday afternoon!

We hope Jonna will be happy to come with us, but of course it will be a big adjustment for her to leave her familiar surroundings. When we arrived for today's visit, she ran to Chris with a big smile, so that's a good sign. But when we said goodbye, she went back to her room without looking back at us. So we're not sure what to expect on Monday. Her caregivers are telling her that her Mama and Dada will be taking her home soon, so hopefully she understands a little.

Family of four

Learning to share

"Take me down the slide again!"

Wheeee!

"No more hugs, Mama!"

Iris in bloom in the baby house "garden"

Getting Closer...

Tomorrow we have our pre-court hearing, where the judge will go over all our paperwork. We'll post an update after that, but if everything goes well we hope to have the final court date Monday.

In the mean time, Julian thinks the country should be renamed "Catzakhstan" because there are so many cats! Four years old and punning already -- a chip off the old block.

Also tomorrow (Thursday), I will be on the South Florida radio program "Topical Currents" to talk about my book. You can tune in to 91.3 WLRN from 1 - 1:30 p.m. Eastern time or listen online.

Thanks again to all those who continue to post comments -- we love hearing from you, and are happy that you are sharing this journey with us!

Two Weeks Down

We have now finished the required two-week visitation period! Hopefully we will find out our exact court date later today. Our translator thinks maybe Monday, and after that we'll have Jonna with us all the time. In the mean time, we continue to visit her at the baby house...

Yesterday our translator gave us a short tour of the city. Below is a typical wooden house, but most people live in Soviet-era brick apartment buildings.

You may have noticed this blog is mostly photos with very little writing. I've been saving up all my 'deep thoughts' for the Miami Herald blog. Check out my latest post here: http://www.momsmiami.com/?a=profile&u=62&t=blog.

A Note About Jonna's Name

Some of you might be wondering where we came up with the name "Jonna" or why we would want to say it with a "French J" so I want to clarify... We are using her given name. She is two years old and responds to her name, plus we think it's pretty, so we decided to keep it.

This is what her name looks like in Russian: ЖAHHA. The letters that look like "H" are pronounced "N." The first letter has no equivalent in English. It's the sound in the middle of the word "treasure" or the sound the "J" makes in Taj Mahal. It's also a French J like "Angelina Jolie" so that's where we got the "J" from.

If that's all too complicated, it's fine to say "John" with an "a" on the end. Just don't call her "Jonah!"

A New Word Every Day

We are excited to report that Jonna is saying a new word in English every day! Her first was "ball." Now we can add "apple" and "up" (when she wants Chris to bounce her in the air...)

Now for a few funny food stories:

They sure love their candy and cake here. The supermarkets are much smaller than a typical Publix, but the cake section is just as big as the Publix bakery -- and the candy aisle is bigger. In other words, their ratio of sweets to food staples is surprisingly high.

We had a very nice dinner at the elegant Pushkin Hotel a couple nights ago. For dessert, the menu listed "fresh fruit" which Chris ordered. So they brought out a bowl with an unpeeled orange, apple, banana and kiwi... not quite what he was expecting. (I ordered the "pancake surprise" which was a crepe with ice cream and chocolate sauce -- lucky for Chris, I shared! )

At lunch one day, the waitress told us they had three ice cream flavors - vanilla, chocolate, and "cucumber." But the cucumber was pink -- turns out she meant strawberry.

Finally, at lunch today, the dessert menu included "sliced onion." We didn't order it, so don't ask what kind of dessert that is!