Moscow- day 26

I know you can't tell by my blog, but we are taking lots of pictures as we go sightseeing with the boys. Once I can use my laptop and wifi I will load the pictures to the blog. Today we went to the circus (it is supposed to be the best one around). We made it through the first 30 minutes and then Ruslan got quite scared from all of the dark and light changes and then got upset when the bears driving the bicycles left. Our driver tried to explain to him that everything was okay but Ruslan would have nothing of it. We sat out in the lobby for the first half of the show. During this time Ruslan was sitting on my lap with his sucker but he might as well have been a million miles away. I felt so disconnected with him as he was crying and although it seemed he felt better when I held him it just wasn't enough. I figured out that I knew how to talk about sleeping in Russian so I told him the bears and bicycles had to go to sleep. He immediately stopped crying but still did not want to go back into the circus. During the intermission Chad, Pasha, and Vladimir came out and Vladimir tried talking to Ruslan again. I suggested that maybe Pasha should talk to Ruslan and this did the trick. Pasha told him not to be scared, that the circus was beautiful and not to cry. The second half of the circus there were times when Ruslan grabbed my hand but he kept telling Pasha he wasn't scared. I praised him after the circus for how brave he was.
After the circus we headed to a memorial park which was built to commemorate all of the soldiers lost in wars. It was beautiful and built in the early 90s. The boys were able to see tanks and get their picture taken on one. We then headed to the Papa John's we had spied earlier in the week and ordered carryout pizza. It was not exactly like home, but pretty close (and now Chad is laying on the couch holding his belly from eating too much). We had to bribe the boys with dessert to get them to eat their pizza; hope this attitude changes as it is a staple at our house.
Tomorrow we are going on a boat ride down the Moscow river to see the Kremlin and Red Square. That should be it for our tourism as Tuesday we will be busy cleaning up the apartment (although we have kept it pretty tidy) and packing for HOME. That's right, folks... it is no longer a distant memory but a reality. I am going to head to the children's store that is close by and pick up a few new toys for the plane ride home. Oh, I am being called. I will post more tomorrow!