A Change of Pace and Trip to the Zoo

Well, this morning Chuck mentioned that he was a bit tired of the same old routine every day. He was in luck. Not one half hour later, the phone rang. It was Jinara, from the agency. She told us to be ready to go in 10 minutes - we were going to the Baby House at 10am. We visited today between 10am and noon. Today was the day that we had our questions answered - Jinara met with Bryce's caregivers to find out more about him. We learned all about Bryce's schedule, personality, likes and dislikes, etc. We also found out more about his group in the Baby House. He is one of 7 in his group. He is also the oldest of the 7 by a few months. This probably isn't aiding his development any, but at least it is temporary. The caregivers say that he is a calm and serious boy, and he seems to be a Baby House favorite because of his sweet disposition. We would agree! We also learned about what he eats, and it seems his current diet includes formula, eggs, ground beef, vegetable puree, juice, and cereal. Also, Jinara asked the Baby House director if we could visit twice per day, so starting Monday we will be visiting for 1.5 hours in the morning and 1.5 hours in the afternoon. Monday, Bryce will also be getting his passport photos taken. Progress!

For today's visit (#12), we spent some time outside on the swings. After a while, Bryce obviously wanted to get down (no way we were going to let him play in the dirt), so we took him inside. We shared a room today with a couple from Spain who were also adopting a little boy from the same Baby House. There was much more activity in the Baby House in the morning than in the afternoon. It was amazing how many people stopped by to say hello to Bryce (aka Timur or as they call him as a nickname Timushka or Timka). We spent the time playing with blocks - the current favorite game is still knocking things over. We are also proud to report that Bryce seems to have mastered the skill of slapping me (Barb) five. He continues to babble to us in Kazakh.

After our visit, we ate lunch at our apartment and then spent the afternoon at the Zoo Park. The zoo was huge, with all sorts of animals, although the habitats were not up to US standards. We walked around to see everything and also paid 30 tenge more to go inside a reptile house where we saw snakes, spiders, lizards, and bats. Out of everything we saw at the zoo, the birds were the best and most extensive. We saw bald eagles, golden eagles, vultures, and all sorts of birds native to Asia.

We ate dinner at home tonight and had rice and leftover Chinese food. We ended up going to a Chinese restaurant last night where we got way too much food! We stuck with the basics, although the restaurant offered frog (they were sitting in a big tank at the front of the restaurant), eel, snake, and intestines. After dinner tonight we walked up to the Ramstore to go grocery shopping. Since it's raining, we will probably call it a night, knowing that we will head back to the Baby House to visit tomorrow morning.