Toyland

I'm laughing at myself tonight. I haven't bought a crib, or a stroller, or a carseat, or any other "gear" yet, but oh boy have I been buying toys! And having so much fun doing it! And books. Many, many books.

BTW, what is it with toys these days? EVERYTHING is electronic, requires batteries and makes NOISE -- LOTS of noise??!

My plan really is to bring them out in small installments, not all at once. It's been all I can do to not play with them every night. ;)

Comments

Believe it or not, this is an interactive site! You can leave comments by clicking on the "comments" link in the lower right corner of each post. I'd love to read your comments (tired of just listening to myself!), so feel free to leave as many as you'd like!

To-do List

Making myself crazy with all the things I still need to do before February, and kicking myself for not getting some of this done before now!

• Investigate (hopefully find!) in-home daycare
• Find an international adoption doctor and have pre-travel consult
• Meet with international adoption clinic at Children's Hospital in Denver
• Read up on medical issues/child development to be better prepared to "choose" my child
• Order money (wish it were that easy!) that's brand spankin' NEW bills -- uncirculated
• Get the rest of my shots/antibiotics for travel
• Do all my travel paperwork! This means redoing some in my dossier so they are current when I travel
• Find and buy travel insurance (worth money to get out of dodge in a medical emergency)
• Figure out all the communication stuff -- phone and internet access while in Kaz
• Line up petsitters, stock up on pet stuff, and get Merlin's teeth cleaned
• Mentioning teeth -- go to dentist myself
• Get my other medical appts out of the way -- optometrist, female stuff, etc.
• Figure out how to pay bills (some utilities here don't have online options -- what century is this?), stop mail, etc. while I'm out of the country
• Get my Colorado driver's license (ahem, yes, little late in getting this one done!)
• Find out what I need to do for Family Leave from work
• Learn some basic Russian and Kazakh
• Finish the nursery (loooong way to go on this one!)
• Stain the maple chests of drawers I "invested" in for the kid's room
• Buy all the kid gear (many sublists for this one!)
• Buy travel stuff (sublists for this one too)
• Buy gifts/donations for in-country staff and baby house folks
• Buy coat/boots and other subzero temp clothes

...and then there are the house projects:

• finally get the interior of the house repainted
• buy furniture! (family room, dining room, kitchen chairs, etc.)
• install new kitchen sink/faucet
• install new light fixtures (have 1, need to order 3)
• order rug for family room
• babyproofing -- gates, cabinets, doors, locks, strap furniture, etc.
• hang some pictures on my bare walls!
• strip wallpaper and paint my bathroom
• replace carpet in "water closet" -- I'm hoping for a boy afterall ;)

Now throw Christmas in the mix and, oh yeah, year end at work, which is the busiest time! I've already thought of another 10-12 things I need to do before becoming a Mom, but something, or many things, aren't going to get done. Time is running short. Tick, tick.

Electronics

Along with the bazillion things I need (okay, some are "want") to buy in preparation for my child's arrival, I also needed to acquire some electronics for the trip to Kaz. So, in the last couple of weeks, I bought a new camera, a camcorder, and speakers for my laptop.

My very nice digital Olympus is only 4 years old, but big and heavy, and size and weight matter now. I bought a smaller Canon at a good price and it will be much easier to tote to the babyhouse every day. Of course, now I also need a new case and memory card.... ;)

Picked up the camcorder today. I ended up, after a ton of research, getting a Panasonic and discovered camcorders are more expensive than I had originally thought -- at least for a fairly good one. It has a hard drive and also can use an SD card. Figured between the two I should be able to upload to email. I'll need the video to send to the IA doctor back in the states for the medical eval. Need a case for this too! And then a DVD burner.... but that can wait til I get home.

And lastly (for the moment anyway), I ordered some portable mini-speakers that I can attach to my laptop while in Kaz. There are two, but due to space/weight contraints, I will likely just take one. They haven't arrived yet, but I'm hoping will sound better than the laptop speaker. I don't have an iPod (and don't really want one), so figured this will be good way to listen to cd's and watch movies.

Now just have to practice, practice, practice with them all before I leave!

The Baby House

In my blog-reading frenzy and from what I have been told by my agency, there are two orphanages in Aqtobe (known as "baby houses") that have children in the age range I will consider -- under 2 years. One is for babies up to 1 year old, the other is for 1-3 year olds. As I'm asking for a little boy, healthy and young as possible, I will hopefully be going to the first one. Here are some pictures of one of those baby houses -- likely the toddler house. Ymit in Kazakh (or Russian?) means "hope" and many of the Kaz orphanages have this name. Very appropriate.

Aqtobe

So, a little about the region where my baby lives. Aqtobe (Aktobe, Aktyubinsk) -- pronounced ock-too-bay with the emphasis on the "too" (depending on who you ask) is a rather remote city (2.5 hours flying time in a puddlejumper from Almaty) in the northeastern part of the country. (Thanks for the graphic, Christy! ;))Aktobe is also the name of the province in which the provincial capital (Aktobe, the city) sits with a population of more than 340,000. The province itself has a population 678,900. The province is 300,600 square kilometers (no idea what that is in miles), making it the second largest province of Kazakhstan. Aktobe Province borders Russia to the north and Uzbekistan to the south, and also borders six other Kazakh provinces. The Ilek River, a tributary of the Ural River, flows through the province. The name "Aktobe" comes from Kazakh "Аk" (white) and "rebe" (hill); supposedly Aktobe's initial settlers were able to see white mountains far to the north. The city was originally founded as a Russian fortress in 1891. It is now a major ranching and agricultural region, but energy resources make up the industry. Here's the wiki-link for more info if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktobe

Blog has to go private soon

In order to protect my adoption process, I need to make my blog private very soon until after my child is home. I'll be password protecting it in a few days. If you would still like to follow along, please leave me a comment with your email address or send me an email at bc4alysa@yahoo.com and I'll send you an invite. To post a comment, just click on the Comments link in the lower right corner of the post.

My baby is in Aqtobe!

After several discussions with Andrea (my hand-holding, sanity-saving coordinator at LMI) and a few days of agonizing and just as many sleepless nights, I've decided to travel blind to meet my baby in Aqtobe. Best guess for when I'll head to Kaz is mid to late February.

More later!

Halloween 2007

I had so much fun passing out candy last night! This is the first time in nearly 20 years that I have lived in a place where the kids go door to door trick-or-treating. I decorated the front porch, complete with motion-detecting creepy noisy things, and had a big bowl of candy that seemed to be a hit. The kids were adorable, especially one little pink CareBear and one little green dinosaur, neither of which could even manage to say trick or treat! I think I had close to 60 kids come by. It is wonderful to know that at least one thing I enjoyed as a kid still happens where I live.

And let me tell you, all I could think about is that next Halloween I will have a little "pumpkin" of my own! Maybe too young to trick or treat, but not too young for Mom to dress him up and show him off. I can't wait!