It’s Not Mother’s Day In Kazakhstan…But It Is In Uralsk!

Lets us take this opportunity to wish all of our friends and family back in the USA (yes, we have many international readers!) a heart felt Happy Mother’s Day! Especially we would like to say this to our mothers and Joseph’s grandmothers!

Although this may be our LAST Sunday in Uralsk it is Laura’s first Mother’s Day! For the detailed oriented folks, we will finish our court proceedings, and therefore the official adoption, before the end of Mother’s Day in the USA (Pacific Time Zone). So no matter how you cut it, Laura will be an official mother on this day! Congratulations honey! This first photo is one of my favorites. It is just a sweet photo.

Today started like a normal Sunday here in Uralsk and our preparation for our trip to see Joseph. I did set my watch to go off to wish Laura a happy mother’s day in the Eastern USA but I confused that alarm with my alarm to wake up. I ended up wishing her Happy Mother’s Day somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic where I doubt anyone is or was celebrating Mother’s Day! Oh well so I missed by a couple of hours – I reset and said another congrats right at midnight Eastern time! When we got into the car with Igor I explained to him what today was, knowing that March 8^th is when a similar day is celebrated here. Actually they do not have a Mother or Father’s Day here but celebrate a Women’s and Men’s Day so as to get everyone included. Igor was very happy for her and congratulated her. Following getting Olga, we informed her of today and she too congratulated Laura. It was great.

As if the staff was briefed, Olga came in and asked if we wanted to go outside this morning. Of course we said yes because we love going outside, AND we have not been out in over a week because of the weather and Joseph’s pox. He came into the music room and we all headed outside to the playground. It was a beautiful day! Sunny and warm! Laura and Joseph did a lot of bonding and checked out all of the blooming flowers in the yard. This next photo shows Laura and Joseph checking out the blooming lilacs. He is so very curious and even more so when he is outside. He does not make much noise but just soaks it all in – the flowers, the birds and even the passing cars. After being outside for a bit, we asked Olga to take family photo and then we surprised Laura with some cards and gifts from both Joseph and me. I brought them with me without Laura even knowing or finding them. I helped Joseph fill out the card and book. He just dictated to me what he wanted to say! She was surprised and thanked both Joseph and I with a kiss. I am sure Laura’s future will be full of sweet surprises by Joseph. Although we were having a lot of fun outside, we were running out of time so we headed back in to end our morning visit.

When we made our way back to the car Igor was, as usually, doing something with his car. Igor went to shut the trunk when he produced a big bouquet of freshly cut lilacs for Laura! We were all shocked and so happy. Igor is a great guy and although we can not communicate very well with words we have had a great deal of fun and I feel have made a connection with him. I acted like a true American and requested a photo of all of this so here it is – Olga, Laura and Igor. The lilacs were just beautiful and had a wonderful scent. Both Laura and I remarked this would one of the only times we could have flowers in our house as Lucy, our cat, normally eats them and gets sick. Therefore we can not have flowers in our house! We had a couple of things on our morning agenda but nothing too exciting to report – bought batteries, baby food and made reservations for our celebration dinner on Monday. The restaurant we are going to serves a traditional Kazakh dinner. The translation is Five Fingers but I forgot the Kazakh term but will get it for you tomorrow! It sounds like a concoction of meats, vegetables, and noodles. One of the traditional meats is horse but I will report to you tomorrow what we actually get.

After lunch at the bakery, we met Igor and Olga and made it to the baby house where Mr. Joseph was in a GREAT mood! He was so full of smiles and laughs it made the time just fly! He was sitting on his own like a champ. He would smile and then do the Joey Dance by swinging his arms up and down and kicking his legs. It is hysterical and just makes Laura and I do whatever we did do to get him to do it again! We listened to Danny Zane and pushed the ball back and forth. He really seems to like this game of ball so we are doing this each time now as he looks for it. It is also one of the games we all do during which we really feel we are having purposeful communication. Before we knew it we had to go and conclude our celebration with Joseph. We will only be making one visit tomorrow as we will be in court in the morning. Come Tuesday and it is time to go – he will leave with us!

We did not have any shopping etc to do so we headed home to prepare for court tomorrow. I have to do some memorization to kick off the proceedings and we both have to work on our speeches. These speeches will be at the end of the proceeding and are to convince the judge that his decision to approve the adoption will be a good one. While we were rehearsing and preparing for tomorrow, I setup Laura’s cards and gift on top of the TV for her to enjoy and to celebrate how far we have come over the past few years. It is a simple display but it means so much to our family. Happy Mother’s Day!

Da Zavtra!