Day 10

Yes, Little sister slept the whole time again. She is better, but not completely over her cold. Plus I think she just likes to be held. We were inside today again because it was cold outside(upper 70s) this morning. I did find out that Little sister can snore when she sleeps deeply plus when her little nose is still congested.

I got another big smile from Big sister when she came into the room. Whether it is for me or the toys, I'm not sure yet, but I'll take it as for me. We were observed today by the lady from the Minsitry of Education. Big sister did not want anything to do with her. That is the first time that I have seen her not go to anyone who calls her name. Maybe she just wanted to stay with mama?? I think she really looks like my sister in this picture!

The BEST toy of the day was the ziplock bag of shoes I brought to try on the girls. Once again, she took the shoes out of the bag and then put them back in the bag-repeat. Maybe she can organize all my closets when she gets a little older. She certainly likes to have everything organized and put away.

Actually, getting the bag open and the shoes in the bag was good pratice for motor skills as it is hard to hold a zip lock bag open and manage to get the shoe in it at the same time. Of course, we were doing this when the lady from the Ministry came in and I had to explain it to her in my non existant russian what we were doing. She figured it out though so we are ok.

I think I heard Big sister say mama today. She was looking at the photos and said something that sounded to me like mama when she saw my picture. I tried to get her to repeat it, but couldn't. She was saying a number of things today, but very quietly so you couldn't really make out what she was saying.

I didn't post much yesterday as I was finally tired. I think I am finally relaxing(after almost 2 weeks). I actually slept most of the night last night for the first time.

Yesterday, Abby and I went back to Mozerella(my favorite restaurant) and I had a fillet and french fries and garlic bread. It was very good. Afterwards, we stopped at the grocery store by my apartment. I got a few items and grabbed some Kazakh ice cream bars. they were very good-mine was cherry ice cream around vanilla ice cream. It is a very nice store- typically of the small stores here- they may only have one or two of an item, but they have a little of everything.

Today for lunch, our coordinator took us to a Korean restaurant. Yes, my first time eating korean food was in Kazakhstan!! The food was different, but very good. Balzhan was afraid it would be too spicey, but it was not a hot spicey more just a lot of flavor spicey. There was a soup/noddle dish, stuffed rice bread, and a meat/soy tofu dish. All were good, but it was a lot of food. The bill for the three of us was about $12.

Between yesterday and today, we watched the first season of Burn Notice TV series. Abby had never seen it yet and it had been a while since I saw it. Tomorrow, I will be going to bonding by myself for the first time. Abby has court tomorrow so she will not be visiting Jake. I am wishing her well and hope the judge gives her a quick positive verdict.