Day 12

Little M is very grabby with toys and tends to completely fall apart if we tell him no or take something away - even for a second. I guess it’s inevitable and of course we’re trying to look at it through his eyes, but all the same -- kind of rough. Particularly when we're here being watched and the last thing we want is for him to have a bad time with us. It is made worse by the fact that Matt is here too because he can't handle it when Matt gets a turn at something. Poor boys! I totally understand that being raised in an orphanage takes a normal little kid behavior and makes it worse, but still...it needs to get better. Anyone with suggestions for adopting older kids and dealing with the language, sharing and siblings issues??

We had a real treat last night! A friend of Pashas who is a massage therapist came to the apartment and gave us Russian massages for an incredible, really, really low price!! It was very different from Swedish or anything else you can get in the states but very good all the same. Neat experience.

Guess what.... we turned in our book for the judge today and heard that our coordinator here will definitely be petitioning the court on Monday. Whohoo! We will be prepped for court over the weekend or Monday latest.

After lunch today we went to the Semey historical museum. It was pretty neat except the nuclear testing part was really disturbing. Out front they had these great stone statues that were “cultural monuments of ancient nomads“.

On a more random note, we saw this today...

Now it's not every day that you see a tree growing out of the middle of the street! Actually, it's a tree that someone put there to warn drivers and pedestrians of the danger. You may have seen Matt's post on manholes, and if not you should check it out here. I guess someone had finally had enough of the madness!