Jeepers Creepers

We were listening to Louis Armstrong the other night and burst out laughing when the song Jeepers Creepers came on. “Jeepers creepers, where’d ya get those peepers? Jeepers creepers, where’d ya get those eyes?” How suitable!

Milan’s eyes are so interesting to watch work. As I said before, the right one is dominant and the left one is usually crossed, but there are times when the left one seems to take over and the right one will cross. Occasionally they both cross. This usually happens when he is looking at something up close. You can see all the different eye positions in the “Apple of My Eye” video below. He sometimes gives his head a good shake while concentrating on something, and we imagine it is to “re-set” his eyes because he is seeing double.

It’s funny, we don’t really notice his googly eyes anymore. It will probably be strange to see them straight once they are corrected! It will be a very minor outpatient surgery, and perhaps he will need to wear glasses, but maybe not. We also may have to patch his stronger eye at times to help develop the weaker eye, but we won’t really know until we get him to a specialist. Strabismus has many variations and many different options for treatment.

We went shopping for some summer clothes for Milan because most of what we brought is either too big or too warm. He is pretty small – he wears a size 12 months, yet he needs a size 5.5 shoe. If his feet are the same kind of indication as puppy feet are, then we will have ourselves a tall boy. The orphanage doctor thinks so. We found that what other parents have said about Kazakh kid fashion is true – it is pretty darn hideous. We settled for blue camouflage shorts and found some standard blue and white t-shirts, even though our boy would look good in a paper sack.

Milan is getting more active and gregarious during our visits. He doesn’t seem to want to waste a moment of fun time, and his giggles are music to our ears. He grabs our fingers and takes us all around the playroom. Our walks outside are such a discovery time for him. He saw his first kitty cat today. He does get pretty tired towards the end of our visits, and yesterday he nearly fell asleep in my arms as I hummed to him. He popped that thumb in his mouth, and just as his eyes were getting heavy the door flew open and a caretaker came in to take him away. I never realized how quickly 2 hours can pass. He cried and reached out for us with both arms as she walked out of the room with him. It was the second time he has reacted like this. It’s so hard on all of us, and only getting harder.

Yesterday we started feeling a little homesick. Last night we finally dug into our video stash for the first time. We watched back-to-back episodes of one of our all-time favorites, Scrubs, and laughed hysterically. It helped a little. There is nothing stranger than watching Kazakh television. One minute it’s Paula Abdul’s Opposites Attract music video, the next it’s a B horror flick in Russian, and the next it’s Malcolm in the Middle with Russian overdubs. We’ve seen some freaky fashion shows, random babes and rap music videos sprinkled in for good measure.

We went to the supermarket and among our very safe purchases, like pasta and fruit juice, we included a bottle of camel’s milk, which is very common here. Frank shook it up before he opened it and it kept fizzing up like a soda, so we haven’t tried it yet. We will report on it next time. We ate lunch today at a Kazakh restaurant. It was delicious and so flavorful. We had the traditional fare of "Five Fingers" which is a lot like pot roast, but with big, flat noodles added.

Here are lots more photos and videos below. We are still very happy, even though we miss our home and our loved ones. Our sweet Milo makes it all worth it! Have we told you lately that we are head over heels??? Oh yes, only about a hundred times. Sorry, but I guess that makes us parents, right?

Da-Svee-Dahn-Yeh! (Goodbye!)

Our First Family Photo

VIDEOS:

The Apple of My Eye

Gimme Five (Di Pyet)

Dinner Companions

Under the Table