38 Days In, Ten Days Out
No pictures today guys, you’ll have to muddle along with plain text. Ten more days to wake up in Almaty, ten more days for Otis not to sleep in Almaty. This post may be a little fragmented, but the last 24 hours has been a little fragmented. Yesterday both Zoya and Galina showed up unannounced, within about an hour of each other. One got the feeling they were trying to catch us doing something wrong. Galina was clearly appalled we already had Otis off of the orphanage’s nap schedule. She showed up at 4:00 expecting to find him down for a nap and there we were playing together on the couch, with Otis wearing only a diaper. She had come to get our passports so she could get Otis’ birth certificate reissued in his new name, with us listed as his parents. When we told her he didn’t like carrots or broccoli, she replied: “He’s a Kazakh, he likes meat and milk.” (CD: He has since decided broccoli is tolerable, but carrots may be a lost cause.)
Galina showed up thirty minutes after Otis had gone down for a nap today to take us to get the new birth certificate, so we had to wake him up, get him dressed and run out the door at her insistence, although not before she made me change out of shorts and t-shirt. Sometimes it feels like we’re working for her. Anyway, waking up Otis screwed his sleep up for the rest of the day. Incredibly cranky, spitting carrots at us and refusing to sleep while clearly exhausted. But the real news is that Otis is now officially Otis Charles Rachman Jacobson, with a shiny new Kazakh blue book-bound birth certificate to show off.
I made dinner tonight. I was looking for some American comfort food, so I went out this morning and picked up some hamburger meat and rolls and Heinz ketchup. I hand cut some potatoes and made french fries. I cooked the burgers rare and melted some cheese on them. Sauteed some onions and peppers, sliced some tomatoes. The first bite was heaven, and then I tasted the beef, something in the flavor was wrong, a certain gaminess, maybe I bought ground horse meat by mistake or maybe there’s nothing like US beef. Oh well, the fries were great, if I do say so myself. The one taste of home I don’t miss here is Coca-Cola, it’s actually better here because they still make it with cane sugar.
Re: all the advice coming our way about sleeping, feeding etc. We read the books, we pay a lot of money to an adoption pediatrician in New York, we listen to friends, family and loved ones. In the end we mostly listen to Dr. Aronson and our guts.
Galina showed up thirty minutes after Otis had gone down for a nap today to take us to get the new birth certificate, so we had to wake him up, get him dressed and run out the door at her insistence, although not before she made me change out of shorts and t-shirt. Sometimes it feels like we’re working for her. Anyway, waking up Otis screwed his sleep up for the rest of the day. Incredibly cranky, spitting carrots at us and refusing to sleep while clearly exhausted. But the real news is that Otis is now officially Otis Charles Rachman Jacobson, with a shiny new Kazakh blue book-bound birth certificate to show off.
I made dinner tonight. I was looking for some American comfort food, so I went out this morning and picked up some hamburger meat and rolls and Heinz ketchup. I hand cut some potatoes and made french fries. I cooked the burgers rare and melted some cheese on them. Sauteed some onions and peppers, sliced some tomatoes. The first bite was heaven, and then I tasted the beef, something in the flavor was wrong, a certain gaminess, maybe I bought ground horse meat by mistake or maybe there’s nothing like US beef. Oh well, the fries were great, if I do say so myself. The one taste of home I don’t miss here is Coca-Cola, it’s actually better here because they still make it with cane sugar.
Re: all the advice coming our way about sleeping, feeding etc. We read the books, we pay a lot of money to an adoption pediatrician in New York, we listen to friends, family and loved ones. In the end we mostly listen to Dr. Aronson and our guts.
posted by Candace and David at 7/26/2005 01:35:00 PM
6 Comments:
I take it the G-lady will not be invited to become Otis's godmother?
So, Otis is a chip off the old blocks, what a surprise. David, as you well know, the only way Mom could get you to eat anything green was to allow you to pick your nose. Nowadays you'll eat greens (in the form of hotdog relish), but it's still unusual for you to cook them. Candace's broccoli aversion is another old story. Meat and milk sounds like a disgusting combo, at least given our current heat and humidity; I guess Otis is not going to follow in Julian's footsteps and embrace his Jewish heritage. Oh well; Elliott, this may answer your question ("is he or isn't he?"). Adrianna, the new cleaning person, is here now, and she is doing a beautiful job. She also unearthed two squeaky men, red and white.
Love, Lisa
Lisa, you devil. Actually that was your Brother's question! :-)
We're going to have to schedule a bris.
In all seriousness, you're going to have to do something; in matters of hardware a boy should match his daddy. And while I fully expect Otis to surpass his daddy and his older brother in matters of personal hygiene, there can really be only one smegma boy in the family, and that's got to be Bruno (who was obviously adopted). (I promise to curb my use of italics in the future, but I'm still like a kid with a slightly used toy.)
BTW, I wonder what the Kazakhs would have said if you'd told them that your religion was Judaism, David.
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