Current mood:

pleased

A new week begins
Greetings from the Ostrich family! (In Russian, Straus in its alphabetic form translates as “ostrich.” Weird, eh?) Another leisurely morning, as our pickup was not until 11:20 am. Today’s lunch was at Nautilus, a submarine shaped hamburger joint that has terrible hamburgers. At least that’s what we were cautioned against. I had borsht and crepes, and Sarah had dessert (crepes with crème caramel). It was all pretty good for under $4.

We had another good visit with Asel. They were feeding her when we got there, so we were able to witness the rapid fire shoveling action of her caregivers. They have to feed lots of kids, so they do it like there’s a race against time, and if she’s not fed by 1 pm, she turns into a gremlin (and not the cute Gizmo kind). She’s starting to eat solid, albeit mushed up food. Today’s lunch was some sort of meat and potato puree. Mmmm, good! They also give her water from a shot glass. At least, we think it was water.



She’s starting to get over her cold, but since she just ate, she was very content to sit with us or be held and take in the wonder of it all. We shared the room again with the Cashette family. When our visit was over, she cried a little as we walked away. It was very sad, but we also were happy that she didn’t want us to go. Awwwwww.







After our visit we met with the primary doctor and the orphanage director to go over her medical information to date. For some reason the doctor reminded me of the dentist from Marathon Man. Thankfully, no one was hurt. Asel has a clean bill of health, and Eugene our translator says that the “final” diagnosis information is as good as any they ever see. So we’re pretty stoked about that. They have not discovered any allergies to food or medicines or American parents, so that’s good too. There is very little known about her birth parents, other than they are both Kazak, and the mom is short (5’1”). But, I have it on good authority that spectacular children can be born from short mothers.

After the medical info was discussed, Irina, the director, presented us with a cushion made by the orphanage staff, and said some nice things about how she’s happy that Asel has found a family to love and be loved by. Awwwwwww. Five visits down, 9 to go until we can head to court.

Dinner was…. uneventful. Have a good Monday.