Day Fourteen - Sunday September 17 2006
Day Fourteen (Sunday, September 17, 2006)
[These photos go with yesterday’s blog but didn’t get transferred between the computers in time.
Did I mention that we “met” Harry Potter?!]
Sundays are the worst days, we parents visiting Malutka say to each other. Why? Because we only get to visit in the mornings. The afternoon is eerily laughter free.
We make the best of it and plan outings for the empty afternoon. But first, let’s show you some of the morning visit!
There are other pictures on Mitch’s still camera and on his video. We laugh and laugh watching the babies in the walkers move so easily. I call to Aigerim across the playroom of Room 4, and someone sooner or later turns around and lights up! Then the toes paddle and the hands go into the air and the “ha ha” hooting noises start and Mommy drops to her knees in laughter with her arms around the little bit of sunshine. We cuddle and laugh and greet each other. While Mitch videotaped this yesterday, we also were visited by other babies in their walkers, making a big happy interested cluster of noise and activity!
We are getting better at baby maintenance. Aigerim was uncomfortable, so cleverly we thought maybe she needed to get a bubble out. Oh yea. On videotape. And my foot. I bet you can’t wait to see videotape :)
And oh boy I knew better but I tried to free the little nugget from the layers of clothes and leave her in one thick sleeper. Like the lightning bolt of God came Galina. Three layers. Stop goofing around with the baby.
That is why her new outfits are on top of her existing outfits: I was not going to dare take off any clothes just to help her get familiar with the clothing I’d bought her for her trip home. I DID dare take off the outer layer of socks, or perhaps she did and I just didn’t dash to put them back on.
Aigerim put up with the new sleeper and the new frilly outfit (yes, I did buy her a frilly pink outfit. One. The frill made her look like Queen Elizabeth or something.) (Elizabeth I, not the current Queen of England, whom I have never seen in a frill, I think.)
You asked for it, you got it – photos of me with Aigerim. The deal is that, not only do I not take pictures of myself with the kiddo, but we tend to do quieter cuddlier activities. Which means no great big lit up grin from the baby. Rolling around on the floor with her is the best way to get her to light up – our little climber.
In the afternoon, we went to the Karaganda province museum. It is packed with bones, prehistory, animals, history, technology, costumes. We found a reference to a “Khaness” whose name was spelled almost the same as Aigerim’s. Hmmm. Our Russian obviously limited us to guessing a lot of stuff but a few things had English titles and we could recognize a lot. Saturday, I asked Olga about some things we wanted to see in the area – the maternity hospital where Aigerim had been, the mines, the churches, all that and she proposed an excursion for next Sunday afternoon. Then I asked about Karlag. The response was a flat “oops”. The museum did not flinch about showing Karlag, the Gulag camp and showed photos of the still-standing administration building and memorials to entire nationalities that we wanted to see. We saw what the photographer saw on arrival in a Nazi concentration camp. We saw the story of the pilot whose statue still tells his story, how he put his plane into the oncoming German tanks after he had run out of ammunition. We saw certificates and photos of shock workers – workers recognized for their extremely high dedication and productivity. We saw space rockets and the Kazakhstan cosmonauts and gold and bronze and iron from 2700 year old burial mounds. We saw a telegram from Stalin congratulating a theatre troupe. We saw goats with faces like nostril-less moose and a very frightening hunting bird, complete with photos of one of its kind taking down a small wolf.
We stopped at the grocery store on the way home to reload. I drank a whole liter of gassy water last night. I feel better, remarkably.
We aren’t sure if this is a logo or a content indicator. Whatever, it sure tastes good.
[These photos go with yesterday’s blog but didn’t get transferred between the computers in time. 
Did I mention that we “met” Harry Potter?!]Sundays are the worst days, we parents visiting Malutka say to each other. Why? Because we only get to visit in the mornings. The afternoon is eerily laughter free.
We make the best of it and plan outings for the empty afternoon. But first, let’s show you some of the morning visit!
There are other pictures on Mitch’s still camera and on his video. We laugh and laugh watching the babies in the walkers move so easily. I call to Aigerim across the playroom of Room 4, and someone sooner or later turns around and lights up! Then the toes paddle and the hands go into the air and the “ha ha” hooting noises start and Mommy drops to her knees in laughter with her arms around the little bit of sunshine. We cuddle and laugh and greet each other. While Mitch videotaped this yesterday, we also were visited by other babies in their walkers, making a big happy interested cluster of noise and activity!
We are getting better at baby maintenance. Aigerim was uncomfortable, so cleverly we thought maybe she needed to get a bubble out. Oh yea. On videotape. And my foot. I bet you can’t wait to see videotape :)
And oh boy I knew better but I tried to free the little nugget from the layers of clothes and leave her in one thick sleeper. Like the lightning bolt of God came Galina. Three layers. Stop goofing around with the baby.
That is why her new outfits are on top of her existing outfits: I was not going to dare take off any clothes just to help her get familiar with the clothing I’d bought her for her trip home. I DID dare take off the outer layer of socks, or perhaps she did and I just didn’t dash to put them back on.
Aigerim put up with the new sleeper and the new frilly outfit (yes, I did buy her a frilly pink outfit. One. The frill made her look like Queen Elizabeth or something.) (Elizabeth I, not the current Queen of England, whom I have never seen in a frill, I think.)
You asked for it, you got it – photos of me with Aigerim. The deal is that, not only do I not take pictures of myself with the kiddo, but we tend to do quieter cuddlier activities. Which means no great big lit up grin from the baby. Rolling around on the floor with her is the best way to get her to light up – our little climber.
In the afternoon, we went to the Karaganda province museum. It is packed with bones, prehistory, animals, history, technology, costumes. We found a reference to a “Khaness” whose name was spelled almost the same as Aigerim’s. Hmmm. Our Russian obviously limited us to guessing a lot of stuff but a few things had English titles and we could recognize a lot. Saturday, I asked Olga about some things we wanted to see in the area – the maternity hospital where Aigerim had been, the mines, the churches, all that and she proposed an excursion for next Sunday afternoon. Then I asked about Karlag. The response was a flat “oops”. The museum did not flinch about showing Karlag, the Gulag camp and showed photos of the still-standing administration building and memorials to entire nationalities that we wanted to see. We saw what the photographer saw on arrival in a Nazi concentration camp. We saw the story of the pilot whose statue still tells his story, how he put his plane into the oncoming German tanks after he had run out of ammunition. We saw certificates and photos of shock workers – workers recognized for their extremely high dedication and productivity. We saw space rockets and the Kazakhstan cosmonauts and gold and bronze and iron from 2700 year old burial mounds. We saw a telegram from Stalin congratulating a theatre troupe. We saw goats with faces like nostril-less moose and a very frightening hunting bird, complete with photos of one of its kind taking down a small wolf.
We stopped at the grocery store on the way home to reload. I drank a whole liter of gassy water last night. I feel better, remarkably.
We aren’t sure if this is a logo or a content indicator. Whatever, it sure tastes good.
posted by Bobi @ 8:05 PM
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