Claire tastes freedom.

When we went to Claire’s room today, she was sitting on her potty. She gave us a big grin and proceeded to play with her toes. I asked her caregiver how old the babies are when they start putting them on the potties, and she said that they usually start at six months but they started Claire later because she’s so darn small and kept falling in her potty. My poor baby. At nine months, she still sits pretty low into the thing, but only for 10 more days. Then she won’t have to look at a potty again for quite some time.

Claire’s favorite caregiver (who will flat-out tell you that Claire is her favorite baby) was in the room today and told Asel that yesterday was Claire’s nine-month birthday (which, of course, we knew). With so many babies, I’m sure that the caregivers don’t remember each one’s monthly birthdays, but I love that she knew Claire’s. She asked me, “Mama didn’t bring a cake or presents?” Believe me, this kid has PLENTY of presents waiting for her at home.

We got to take Claire out today to get her passport photos taken. They didn’t tell us that we’d be doing this until we got there, so we didn’t have her snowsuit with us, but the babyhouse lent us one. We bundled her up like we were going to be camping in the arctic, and off we went. She was mesmerized by everything on the way there – the people, other cars, buildings…everything was new and fascinating. I know in her head, she was thinking, “Oh, wait ‘til the other babies hear about all this!” I wonder how long until the novelty of all this “new stuff” wears off. I hope it lasts through our flights home, because she was completely silent and still during the entire trip. Of course, a 30 minute trip might be a little bit different from a 25 hour one.

After our visit, Asel took us to the Eurasia Market, which is sort of like the bazaar we went to last week, only the shops are a little bit more upscale. I bought Claire another pair of shoes (haha, Justin, you can’t stop me!), and we also got eight more Kaz gifts to give her each year on the anniversary of her adoption. We’re up to 12 now. Tomorrow, we’re going to the museum gift shop and we’ll have a whole week in Almaty, so I’m sure we won’t have a hard time coming up with the last six gifts.

Asel has been such a great help to us, and she really speaks wonderful English, but there have been a few moments of confusion. Today we were asking about our landlady, and Asel said, “I am not sure if she has borne her child or if she is still wearing him.” Apparently she couldn’t think of the word for pregnant. We got a good laugh out of that. When Justin and I were shopping with Asel a few weeks ago, she showed us some colored bracelets that looked like they were made of beads but they were soft. I asked her what they were made of and she replied, “Flesh.” Umm…that’s okay. My daughter isn’t going to wear some cannibal bracelet. She meant leather, just in case any of you were thinking Kazakhs make jewelry out of human skin. You don't want the hose again, do you? It puts the lotion in the basket (Justin...that's for you). At the aquarium yesterday, Asel was suggesting to me and my mom that we should check our jackets, but what she said was, “You should take your clothes off and leave them here.” Exactly what kind of aquarium is this?!

Mom has been making me eat healthy. We have real fruit in the fridge now (apparently she doesn’t think Starburst count as fruit). I did lure her over to the dark side with a Cappuccino Ritter Sport (I wonder if I could get a Ritter Sport endorsement deal for how many times I’ve mentioned them on this site?), and I’ve convinced her that any weight she gains here can be called “baby weight.”