We have a court date!

Yesterday we spent the morning cleaning the apartment in preparation for movie night. We were expecting to visit Matthew in the evening and were actually thinking that might be a good plan as it would be cooler. Then we got a call from Aliya saying the time had been switched to 2pm. We had to boogie to be ready in time. We also had to go to a pharmacy to pick up some oil that the doctor wanted us to get for Matthew's diaper rash (it turned out to be just plain old baby oil). We went to two that were closed for break, but as Aliya said, "three is lucky"! When we got to the baby house, we saw Tony and Maegan & Marin and Peter still waiting in their van. How nice of them to wait for us!!!!!! Just kidding! They had been told to wait there and their children were brought to them. Annette was told that she was only allowed 1/2hr with her daughter. Turns out we had the same time limit. I think there was an inspector coming at 5. We were all pretty upset but what could we do? We just enjoyed our brief visit and thought, they could have sent us home without a visit at all.
Last night, the guys decide that they were going to play basketball on the court beside our building while the girls watched a chick flick. Imagine that, they were willing to forgo the movie in favor of basketball! Apparently they surprised the young Kazakh guys they were playing against by winning (Michael says they ANNIHILATED them) the first game! Michael says to add that these guys were half their age and two could dunk! In all they played four games and really had a great time!
Today we were placing bets on when we would get to visit! Michael called Aliya to see, and she had heard that it would be 2pm. She also let us know our court date! We go on Aug. 13 at 5:30pm! Yea, it is later in the day, but still the 13th! Since we had time before our visit, I decided to do a little shopping for gifts for court so I took a bus to the Eurasian mall all by myself! Michael decided to get a hair cut and was amazed that he got not only get a cut, but a wash and head massage for 800 tenge! My shopping trip was successful, but it was sooooo hot coming home. Everyone around me on the bus seemed to be immune to the heat while I was melting into a puddle. We got another call from Aliya not long after Michael got back home. This was to inform us that our visit was pushed back to 6pm. Since we had time, we decided to go to the river and rent a paddle boat. It was very relaxing. The water was very calm. Of course, it started to rain right after we got onto the river, but it didn't rain hard or last long!
Today's visit was a little more quite, as only Annette and Kate (her daughter) were with us. Apparently the others visited at 2pm. Don't know why they have split us up. We had fun playing with the little man. Since it was cooler and we were going outside for our visit, we were able to dress him in the little "farmer" jacket we found and just couldn't resist buying, simply because it had a farmer on it! We got our full two hours today. We watched Matthew for a few minutes when he didn't know we were there. He was in a walker with two little girls standing beside him. When he saw us, he got very excited! He grinned, threw his arms in the air, arched his back and pushed himself backwards! Then he got a concerned look on his face when we left his sight to get his diaper! We get so excited ourselves when he shows these signs of being happy to see us! We decided to get busy and take some pictures of Matthew and his caregivers. What really amazed us was the HUGE smile the usually VERY serious caregiver wore when we indicated we wanted her photo. It was cute to see her sit on the couch and then turn to check her hair in the reflection in the cabinet glass! It must be hard for them to take care of these babies for many months only to have them leave with people who are strangers to them, never to see the children again. You can tell how much these babies mean to them by all the caregivers actions. Sometimes the caregivers won't let us even change our children ourselves, and it is very hard to just stand back and watch. But we try to remember that the children are still entrusted to their care, and in just a few weeks, we will be charge 24/7 and probably wishing for one of those caring women, even just for a few hours! We can't wait until we get to bring him home full time. Well, me anyway, since Michael will have been home for at least a week by then. We are hoping that we will be switched back to morning visits by the time Michael leaves next week, so he can get one last visit in on the morning he leaves. It is still looking like he will be leaving Astana next thursday the 16th to catch his flight home from Almaty at 3am on friday the 17th. It is hard to believe we are almost at that point. I am not looking forward to that day. At the same time, I am looking forward to Sarah coming over! At least I have her here with me after Michael goes home!