First Typical day

Today was our first typical day, the way we will spend most of the next 20 days with Hannah. We got to Malutka at about 1015a and went to pick up Hannah from her room (#9). Right when I picked her up, all smiles! Can’t get enough of those! Again, we fed her, this time Joe tried. Apparently I pushed him into it a little too early and so I took over mid way. Not that either of us really knew what we were doing. Yesterday’s feeding went much better. Today it seemed like as much was coming out as was going in, but she wouldn’t let you slow her down (she’s got a good grip!). Her clothes being completely soaked through, we changed her. Again, we’re learning. In the amount of time the 2 of us changed Hannah, the caregivers could have changed at least 5 babies. Still no diaper changes yet! : ) The caregivers are great and really let you do everything yourself. In her room, there is a large main sitting room with the play pen, walkers, toys, changing table and dressers with clothes and then there is another room with the cribs. It also looks like they have a room with a washer and refrigerator. We have yet to see the other rooms but hope to get to take pictures before we leave. As we were leaving, the caregiver wanted me to get something out of the dresser for Hannah. She kept pointing (she was in the middle of feeding another baby) and finally I got to the hats. OK. I thought it would be rude to look through to find a cute hat to match her outfit (which I of course wanted to do) so grabbed the first one. Blue and white stripes. This was not acceptable to the caregiver, I pulled out another. Still no good. Finally, she got up and picked out the cutest hat that totally matched her outfit! Apparently, Hannah has stylish caregivers!

The rest of the morning was spent mostly in the play room with the other families. Our next door neighbor was in there with her new little girl. We also took a walk around the grounds at Malutka. It was nice to get some fresh air and some quiet time with our girl! She was amazed by the trees and wanted to touch everything. She held on so tight to a bush that she took off the leaves when we pulled her away. We’ll teach her about ecology later. While we were walking we ran into a few groups of the toddlers. So adorable! One group ran right up to us and most said hello in English. Hannah started to get sleepy outside (maybe too much stimulation for one morning) so we went back inside. We were able to talk to our next door neighbor (a pediatrician from Chicago) about Hannah’s eye. It looked to us like it was a little lazy. She thinks she has a “pseudo” lazy eye. It looks like it but isn’t, something about extra skin around the eye. One less worry!

We left at noon and came home to eat lunch. After lunch, and chatting on the phone with a family we met at the airport (only I would still manage to get my phone time in while we’re in Kazakhstan), we walked to the grocery store to stock up some more. We might try cooking….(there’s a pizza place nearby if it doesn’t work out). A little time for rest and then back to Hannah.

We were back at Malutka at 4p and spent another 2 hours with Hannah. When we got there she was just waking up and then we fed her. The afternoon went a lot better than this morning. We slowed her down a little and had a lot less spit up (not even a change of clothes after).

After feeding, we took a walk outside again. We should mention, they dress these babies warm! The babies usually have 2 outfits on (usually 2 sleepers). As we were going out they even gave us a blanket to take with. Did we mention it was 30 degrees Celsius out? Very warm! We can already see a difference in her. She’s been babbling and giggling even more! She even cuddled a little bit today! A great day!