Steve here.  Ok, so today we got a little bit of a reality check.  We've got a little guy who is so beautiful, and so brave, and so scared.  Benjamin Aidos did so well on our travel to Almaty yesterday.  After tears at the baby house, he only cried a couple of times:  the first time I tried to take him to the bathroom in the airplane - a reasonable concern, since he's probably never seen an adult toilet, and when we arrived at our Almaty apartment and put him down while we handled the bags.  

Trouble started when we tried to put him to bed last night.  There was some sobbing, and that turned to bloodcurdling shrieks when we put him into his bed/crib.  We left him in his bed and comforted him there for awhile to no avail, and finally Jen and I (separately) got ready for bed and Jen tucked Benjamin in next to her.  That solved the crying problem, but as far as sleep went, I don't think that any of us got more than a couple of hours.  He is a very loud and wiggly sleeper, and he was up and ready to go at 8:00 am Almaty time (we didn't get into bed until 2:00 am).

We did have a good day today.  Aidos explored the apartment thoroughly.  He loved our flashlight and he really likes to look out the window (we're on the third floor) at the traffic going by on "Ablai Khan" Street.  His first clear English word is "bus" and he loves to tell us every time one goes by.  We ran some typical first day errands - shopping in particular - and met with our coordinators here in town to handle some paper work.  Aidos did great!  We sat in a stuffy office for an hour while Jen filled out forms, and Aidos entertained himself without complaint.  Later, I snuck out for a run while Jen gave him a bath (another success), and made dinner (a real American meal of hot dogs and macaroni & cheese).  

The breakdown occurred shortly after dinner.  It started with a "boundary-setting" issue - he wanted to play on the computer and we wouldn't let him, and degraded from there.  He fell asleep in Jen's arms, but when she went to put him down, he started screaming.  She sang to him for about 15 minutes, and he fell asleep, but an hour later, he woke up and picked up where he left off.  As I write this, he's still shrieking, and Jen is in the bedroom trying to comfort him (he's been going for about 45 minutes so far).

It's so sad to hear him cry. But we are resolved that he will sleep in his own bed (still in our room though) tonight. We all need the rest.