This will be a short post.  It is Tuesday afternoon in Moscow, and everyone else is napping.

Monday went by pretty well.  They both slept all night Sunday night, and got up at a good time Monday.  We took a short walk (this time down Sadovye Kol’tso street) then I got me some mocha and back to the hotel.  Shannon and Nathan aren’t feeling well.  Nathan was and still is running a fever, so we headed back to the hotel room.  They had lunch, I went to the grocery store by myself.  It is getting more comfortable, but I still don’t like it.  (So one of the lessons I’ve learned is being comfortable in a foreign city with very little support from someone who can translate-I don’t like it because why would God give me this lesson?)

We had our appointment at the American Embassy and saw a man named David, who we had met on our first trip to Moscow when we had our medical “exams”.  (For those who are concerned about your Russian adoption medicals, don’t be.  The worst part is spending the money, but it was almost worth it to get a page literally covered in signatures and stamps).  We saw David, who was adopting the brother of a boy they adopted a few years ago- they spent three years trying to find him!  We got our documents, signed the official statements, raised our right hands and swore that all was right.  So they will be American citizens once we arrive back at JFK.  Yet they will still be Russian citizens as well.  They will have dual citizenship for the rest of their lives. 

Last night went really well.  They discovered one purpose of Papa includes piggyback rides and getting to ride on feet.  We had a great time trying to teach them to say, “Go Up.”  Ben caught on, but Nathan just couldn’t get it.  It was really funny, and really fun.  They didn’t have a nap, but stayed up late enough and slept all night.  They did not fight sleep.

Today we got up, and I went to exchange some dollars for rubles (which I did by myself using only the word, “Dollars” and the woman in the Касса using only a calculator).  Sasha came and had me sign the documents to register with the Russian Consulate (so the Russian can keep track of Russian citizens living in America, according to the nice man without a Russian accent at our Embassy appointment).  We will get those documents back tomorrow, then we get to leave Thursday morning.  HOORAY!  After that we went for a walk and had some Кофе and took a walk over one of the Moscow River bridges.  We came back, had a little snack, and then got the boys to go to sleep.

Nathan has been running a fever the past couple of days and it has gotten worse today.  We asked Sasha to help us get some medicine for him, so he walked me to the pharmacy and I bought some azithromycin…for 350 rubles.  (That’s about 10 dollars.)  Over-the-counter.  But it is what we would normally give Sam in the situation.  We don’t think that Moscow is good for him.  He is, as I mentioned, very weak, very light, and Moscow is full of fumes from traffic and it seems that Shannon and I are the only two non-smokers in the hotel.  Tonight we plan to go to eat at Макдоналдс again.  It is a bit odd to see the golden arches across the street from the Foreign Affairs building, what is called one of “Stalin’s Seven Sisters,” which dons a large hammer and sickle symbol.  Sort of like the picture of Phineas and Ferb. (Or the shopping mall on Red Square.)  It just doesn’t seem right, but I can’t put my finger on it… maybe just growing up during the cold war, I guess!

They are beginning to understand us, and beginning to learn rules.  They are also beginning to discipline each other when the other breaks the rules… we need to work on that.  But Ben is mellowing out a bit.  He is very hyperactive, but has touched everything in the little hotel room so many times that he has a good idea of what is acceptable and what gets him in trouble, so our lives have gotten much easier.  Shannon and I actually had a conversation while they were awake for the first time.  So it is getting better, but we are still here in a little hotel room in a city where we can communicate primarily by pointing at things and nodding our heads and we have no kitchen to cook.  And we are two children short!  So Thursday really can’t come soon enough!