Fun with Jacob

Today was a fun day with little dude two. He demonstrated a deep understanding of multi-tasking as he crawled, giggled and clutched the jumpy frog all at once. Don’t let this guy fool you! He may look a tad bit over-served but the dude is fast! We’re also sure we have another climber. Jacob pulls himself up on every table, chair, sofa he could find. In addition, he surprised us by standing on his own. At this pace, he may take his first real steps before we leave Arkalyk. Clearly this little bugger is advanced.

I cannot get over the friendliness of the orphanage staff. Not only do they go well out of their way to give kisses and affection to Jacob, they also allow us more freedom than we imagined. Without asking, they allowed us to feed Jacob lunch and keep him much longer than the stated visiting hours. We’ve also been able to video him sleeping in his crib. Speaking of sleeping, one caregiver laughed when she told us he’d slept two full hours after our first visit today. Guess we’re wearing him out!

On the flip side, we’re about bonkers (already!). I hate to admit it, but I do miss working out at the YMCA. We’ve convinced our facilitator we can make it safely to the city’s track and she’s acquiesced allowing us to go during busy times of the day and only if we go together. So, tomorrow we’ll hit the track. Rumor has it the city has a nice pool. We may try to hit it on Friday. Today, I watched about 5 episodes of Scrubs (thanks, Ro!). Other than Jacob, the highlight for me was the cake slice our cook brought me for lunch. White cake, white icing. It doesn’t get much better!

Before leaving for Kaz, we discovered our Visas would expire before we’d be returning home. Today, we paid more $$$ (we’ve set a lot of new US$100s free in this city), signed a power of attorney and relinquished our passports in the hopes we’ll get our visas extended. In addition, we received what I consider “crisis” news in that our stay will be extended by two days. Apparently, an official has to officially register us as visitors in the orphanage to begin the 14-day bonding period. That official was either sick or on holiday until today so although we’d visited for the last two days, today begins the clock ticking before the bonding period ends and we can request a court hearing. Two days may not sound like a lot of time, but to me, it’s an eternity without home! I really, really miss JC. I miss my dog; Abby and I also miss my daily Diet Coke. So, we add two more days to our stay. Big bummer…

As I begin the sign off, I hear cats hissing in the hallway. I know they are cats but they sound like Cujo. At least the kids shooting off fireworks (I was convinced it was gunshots...go figure!) have cooled it for the night. Tonight’s feature film is Dejavu. Better get it started! Thanks for all of your notes. We’ve loved reading them!