So this morning, Little Man slept until probably 7am which was a very happy thing for us adults. I walked out after a big fat 8 hours of sleep and Carson was watching news coverage of the bombing in the Moscow airport. She had been watching it since 4:30am when she woke up. Scary stuff. But there is only so much time to focus on such a horrible thing when we have a cruising baby to take care of. And he needed a whole lot of taking care of today. We didn’t have too much on the agenda- just a drop-by from Janara this morning and our embassy visit that got moved up to today at 3pm. So it was a slow, easygoing kind of morning- one of those days when we stayed in our pajamas until noon. And Sweetness was very happy to just hang out and play. And poo. A lot. And badly. He left us a really good one this morning (my first) and I changed it with Carson assisting. The stench coming out of that diaper was like nothing I have smelled before. As I opened it up to see mushy poo covering the entire area from front to back, side to side, it wafted up and hit me. I stood, gagging, as Carson ran from the room yelling “My eyes! My eyes! It’s burning my eyes! Oh my God, I think I can taste it!” It took several minutes and a good 10 wipes to get it all off and him cleaned up. We doubled bagged the sucker and I caught Carson before she could throw it out the window to get the smell out of the apartment. It was bad. But little did he know that he had more in store for us. There was another good one before we headed out for our appointment at the Consul in the afternoon and I thought surely we were done for the day.
At 3:00, we walked across the street for our appointment and relinquished all of our worldly goods to the severe looking lady at the front desk. No bags (had to beg to get my credit card out before they stuffed it in the cubby), no food, no cameras, no phones, nothing, and were escorted upstairs by security. Aibek caught the eye of the security guy and started dancing with him in the elevator. He always brings out the smiles in people. And then upstairs in the consul office, like the DMV there were plastic chairs and waiting until your name is called. Janara was there with us and she took over Aibek duty which gave my arms a nice break. Stinky Aibek, same as Rinat when we brought him here 3 & ½ years ago, barfed all over himself and since we were not allowed to bring anything up with us, stayed in his smelly clothes for the duration. Finally they called his name and we headed to the window to attest that all paperwork was correct. But instead of the lady smiling and welcoming a new US citizen, I hear “Um, there’s a slight problem. How soon is your flight home and how soon can you get in touch with your husband?” Not the words you really want to hear as you are literally minutes away from being done with anything being able to go wrong. Thankfully, after some discussion and brainstorming, it turns out it was something that we could easily change (or rather she said “I think probably immigration will be OK with that.”) but my heart did stop there for a few seconds. So I refilled a form, raised my right hand and said ‘I do’, got the essential sealed envelope to give to the immigration officials as we enter the US, and we were off for a final meet-up with The Sisters. They gave me all of our final instructions and we were officially done with all things adoption related. D-O-N-E, DONE.
To celebrate, we headed up to have dinner at Assorti in the mall. Little man had his first restaurant experience and ate a whole bunch of the mashed potatoes off my plate. He loves his potatoes. But as we sat there, it became obvious that he had yet another gift for us in his diaper. We paid for dinner, beers un-drunk, and found the bathroom. Unfortunately, there was no changing station but there was a long counter where there was a young woman checking her makeup. And brushing her hair. And straightening her clothes. And more makeup. So finally, Carson just plopped down the changing pad next to her and went to town on the diaper. And I am not exaggerating when I say that it was most definitely the worst poo of the day BY FAR. I have no idea what in the world is going on with my child’s bowels but Carson used the entire rest of the package of wipes to get this one clean (Haha, better her than me!). The girl started laughing at us and suggested in broken English and charades that perhaps we should just wash him off in the sink. But there was no way whatsoever that I was going to subject the plumbing to that. The girl ended up staying in there and just watching as we got him cleaned, situated, snowsuit back on, in the carrier, and out the door. Carson couldn’t get over why in the world she wanted to hang out in there with us with that going on. I have just sort of learned that people here just love to watch the crazy foreigners. We are freaks here. I’m used to it, but it was new to her. And so as we headed home, I noticed Carson wasn’t wearing her hat despite being constantly cold here. When I asked her about it, she claimed that she was being incognito because she was afraid that the girl was going to follow us home and kidnap Aibek. I’m not really sure why the girl wouldn’t have just followed the baby in the giant smurf-blue snowsuit, but whatever. So she froze her ass off. But Aibek got home safe and sound and he got a good washing down to get rid of the day’s nastiness and it was down to bed.
Tomorrow we have totally and completely free to do whatever we want. No appointments, no obligations, and- best of all- not one thing for me to worry about on the adoption front. It is a done deal. Kazakhstan and the US governments both agree- he’s ours. Ours, ours, ours.
Love to all, -m
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