An A-typical Day

It was back to the baby house this morning. I was so glad to see MLM, two days seemed like such a long time. He was very happy to see me. Yulia and I think there is a new little one in the room who wasn't there before. Maybe he has come to fill the space left by L and A's son. We'll have to look in the cubby tomorrow.

When I arrived MLM didn't have a diaper on. I left 15 diapers on Wednesday, but I guess they'd gone through them all already. He was very helpful while I put the diaper on. Then he wanted to look out the window. We were in the little classroom today. The window looks out to a small street. We could see my driver's van. MLM started playing peek-a-boo which is called coo-coo here. He would put his hands on the window so he couldn't see the van, and then move his hands and say coo-coo. Another new word for MLM. Too bad my driver couldn't see him. We told Andre when we got back into the van.

MLM was VERY thirsty again today. He nearly drowned himself trying to drink all his juice. He couldn't get it fast enough with the lid on, so we took off the lid. They don't drink from sippy cups here, they go from bottles to regular cups. I had also brought a bottle of drinking water for him. Well, who needs to bring a toy when you have a bottle of water. I had to teach him how to open the bottle (I was wondering if this was a good thing to be teaching him, but oh well) Then I struggled to teach him how to drink from the bottle. He kept trying to put the entire opening of the bottle into his mouth. We fought a little battle over the bottle. Finally I showed him how to sip. 1 model and he was in the know. He of course struggled with the amount of water he got into his mouth, but by the end of the 30 minutes he could sip a bit without soaking himself or choking.

After the baby house we went to the hospital to visit my coordinator. My poor coordinator has been in hospital since last Tuesday night. I think she might have flu or something, her head is spinning and she has a fever. She wanted to know what I was doing with regard to my airline tickets, I think she is very relieved that I plan to stay a while. And that I understand that MLM's passport will take time to be prepared. She also was arranging with me to pay for my apartment for another month and to pay the internet and satellite t.v.. She is working even though she is in hospital, poor woman. She did want me to know that everything is going well for court and that I should have no problems. I also learned today that my translator will probably be translating for me in court.

Oh, visiting in a hospital means standing in a tiny foyer with all these people and then the sick person comes out to the foyer to meet with you. We stood not far from the doors and spoke with my translator, driver and coordinator. There were about 8 women who were sick in the foyer and their friends and family.

Tomorrow the owner of the apartment will be coming to collect some clothes. It should be interesting, she'll come around 6. She will speak to my coordinator, who will call my translator, who will call me to confirm the time. Luckily I have seen her a couple of times, so I know what she looks like. But it does mean I'll have to give everything an extra little cleaning tonight.

I just checked my iGoogle page and it tells me the weather in both Toronto and here in Uralsk. It is -3 C in both places. That happened so many times while I was waiting to travel. Lately though it has been much colder at home. We've been lucky with most days above freezing and very little snow.

Tomorrow I get to go to the baby house again. Only for 30 minutes but it is much better than no minutes. Today when I was saying goodbye MLM held on so tight to my neck and cried and cried. He didn't want me to go. Little did he know that I didn't want to leave either. It will be difficult leaving him every day for the next month, and even harder to leave for the 2 or 3 weeks that it takes to make his passport.
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