We made it to naptime

Here, I begin typing during nap time.  I am posting this at 2pm Moscow Time.  We are not having a fun day; we have two little boys who still don’t know what parents are, and that every contest that they get into with them will result in total loss for children.  But they are both very strong willed, and it is wearing out the parents greatly.  But the parents have the power of God who is granting patience and strength and compassion.

Last night went pretty well.  Nathan slept all night- he went to sleep about 9pm and slept through the night until about 7am.  That would be a normal night in the orphanage for him.  Of course, it was really 4am Vladivostok time that he fell asleep, but he slept the night.  Benjamin, on the other hand, had some issues.  He was so exhausted from the long day that he fell asleep pretty quickly at about 9pm.  He woke me up about 3:30am (so he could have been awake 5 minutes or 2 hours) in his bed singing.  We tried to tell him to sleep, but again-language barrier.  Finally I asked Shannon, “What would we do if Sam was acting this way?”  And so we put him in bed with us.  He didn’t like it at first, but we played some music on the computer (we only have two songs, so we looped them) and he fell right asleep.  Shannon has discovered that he really likes music.  He slept really well until about 7am, and then had a bad dream.

Our morning was pretty nice.  Breakfast went wonderfully.  I went to the store by myself last night.  It’s only across the street from the hotel, but wow that feels like an accomplishment for me.  (I went to McDonald’s earlier yesterday, too, by myself.  I’m so proud! But I do regret not spending enough time in Rosetta Stone!)  So far today was not too bad until nap time.  Nathan only got hit with a book one time, and so far nothing in the hotel room is broken.  (Well, the TV doesn’t work, but that is only partially their fault-it involves the cable being attached with electrical tape so that once it came out it wouldn’t go back in).  The boys behaved pretty well, but again, not good.  But not like they were demon possessed like on the first night.  We watched a little TV (it was still working then) and read a couple of books.  Shannon went down to the lobby and asked a couple of questions and had a cup of coffee (which we can only drink in the lobby-we can’t bring the cups up to our room), then I went down and checked my e-mail and had some coffee myself.  Sasha came and got our documents ready for the embassy.  We have an appointment on Monday to go for our interview so that we can get visas for the boys.  By doing it this way, the boys will be US citizens as soon as we land at JFK.  So that leaves us in a foreign land for 3 days (the rest of today, Saturday and Sunday and half of Monday) alone with nobody really to help us with two boys who can’t speak to us.  We are really afraid.  We then have Tuesday and Wednesday to register with the Russian consulate office.  Why it takes so long, I do not understand.  We need to get home!

Naptime was, what’s the word… traumatic? I think that’s a good choice of words.  For some reason, Benjamin hates to go to sleep.  He fights it.  Erin fought it, and so I would walk her around the house and sing to her.  So maybe fight isn’t the right word.  It is beyond fighting.  It took an hour-and-a-half of working with him to get to sleep, and he was so incredibly tired!!  It involved screaming and spitting and hitting but in the end we won (note he was the one hitting and screaming and spitting).  It was a hard battle, but he is so tired that he simply cannot function.  He must sleep.  Kirill is fought it as well, but understands naptime a little better, and so gradually (once new brother wore himself out to sleep) fell asleep on his own.  Shannon went right after that, and we have decided to sleep in shifts.  Hopefully they stay asleep- Moscow traffic is horrible, and for reasons only known to Muscovites, they enjoy laying on their horns when they aren’t moving.  All of them at the same time.  So we are staying on a major loop around the inner part of the city, and there may be a hundred cars honking at once.  Just for fun, I guess.

So we have another half of a day to go.  I will be so thankful to be back at home, where we can speak to people we understand, and our support network is available.  At home we have doctors and social workers and friends and family who can help us.  Here we have facebook messages from everyone and prayer.  So thank you thank you all!  They are very helpful!  We appreciate the messages and the prayers; right now that is what is keeping us going.  Because we are limited in internet access, we have very little access to Erin and Sam (aka “our children who already speak English”).  We haven’t spoken to them since we left on Sunday, and that has been extremely difficult.  It doesn’t help we are so very tired.  I think I am actually doing better than Shannon, but this has been such a busy and tedious 3 weeks for us (30,000 miles is circumventing the earth more than once) in multiple cities, states, and countries.  Countless lines to get onto planes and get through immigration and eating what we can find because we don’t have a fridge and pantry of food (although we do have a fridge, and we have made us a little pantry in the closet.  Right now it has two bananas, some shortbread cookies, and bread.

The language barrier isn’t moving much.  A funny example, I tried to teach Nathan the word “Bread”.  I said, “Skaghee bread.”  (Say bread). And he responded with “Hlep” the Russian for bread.  I said, “No, b-r-e-a-d.”  to which he responded, “H-l-e-p.”  It was great.  So they aren’t getting far very fast, but we are working with them.  We are saying the Russian (which is oh, so limited) and then the English.  We are doing the same with their names.  When I blog, I sometimes refer to them with their new names and sometimes with their old.  Right now they are interchangeable.  Nathan is Kirill and Benjamin is Yarrig or Yaroslav.  So far we haven’t called them much by their new names, because they just don’t understand.  I wonder if they will still remember Russian after a few months.  They do, after all, have each other to communicate with.

But make no doubt, this is a difficult time for us, but we are not discouraged.  We are at the most difficult time in the process.  And we are making it.  Day-by-day and moment-by-moment.  We are getting there.  But believe me that Thursday cannot come quickly enough.