In which we part with some of our American gold.
Owen was not up for pictures today. Not up for a nap, either, but he was still as good as gold. He lied down on his mat and cooed at his fingers while his hopeful parents encouraged him to go to sleep.
I'm very tired, my puppets, but not too tired to keep an eye on you. After his bottle Amerikanski, we handed a very tired baby back to the nurse.
Robin's been reading stacks of books on how to get babies to sleep and e-mailing friends back home in preparation for tomorrow night. The books all say not to rock your baby to sleep or you'll soon be lamenting a very aching back. So far, though, that's the only way we can get the young Puppet Master to hit the hay.
Wish us luck tomorrow.
After Owen-- Shopping. Our first stop, of all places, was an electronics store. Last week, during our meeting with Dr. Natalia, we asked her if there was anything we could get for the maternity hospital. It is a tradition that adopting parents give gifts not only to the staff, but to the hospital as well. Often that gift is money, but it can also be items brought from home or purchased in Kokshetau.
With luggage ever at a premium, we planned to hand over a few clothes, buy some diapers (regardless of the other gifts, a big bag of diapers is expected for luck-- Helps the other babies find homes, they say) and then offer to buy something local to help the hospital. When we asked, though, Dr. Natalia declined to tell us anything.
"Dr. Natalia's superstitious," Inna explained. "And it is bad luck to talk about gifts before the court date."
A couple of days after that, however, we were casually asked how much we might be planning to spend. We shrugged and told Inna. A few days after that, she returned with a shopping list: telephone and television. We gulped and said "Okay."
So today we went shopping for a television and a telephone and, much to my surprise, we were able to buy both for less than $200. We'd promised $200, though, so Oleg called Dr. Natalia and she suggested we throw in an iron. Done!
After that, a trip to the bazaar. Who says you can't buy quality in Kokshetau? After wandering the booths, Robin found an awesome coat-- much warmer, she says, than our Eddie Bauer cold weather gear. You can see it pictured at left. Total cost: $41. She looks o-chin Russkaya (very Russian).
For fun, we took a picture of one of the stall keepers. It was quite the to-do. All of the other stall keepers came out to hoot at him while he posed. "They're telling him he will be a famous celebrity now," Inna translated. He came to find us later and told us how honored he was to be in the picture.
We would have looked around more, but our fingers were in jeopardy of frostbite, so we high-tailed it back to the van and faithful Oleg. Oleg looked at Robin's coat.
"What," he asked through Inna. "Greenpeace won't let you buy real fur?"
"Hush, Oleg, and take us to the minks. We are going to set them free."
He and Inna got a kick out of that.
