Is there a doctor in the house?!?!

January 31- Saturday
We decided to stay in today. It is snowing and very cold. Elijah is coughing more and more so we wanted to keep him here and keep him warm. We have him dressed in an undershirt, long johns, pj’s, and a sweater with some warm socks on. Well, Luba’s mother was concerned for his cough so she asked (through much pantomiming and guessing on our part) if she could have her pediatrician friend come listen to him. Ok, we have been dealing with coughing and sicknesses for a LONG time. Sure, he’s sick, but we weren’t overly concerned. He doesn’t have a fever, hasn’t had for 2 days. If we were at home we certainly wouldn’t have taken him to the doctor. But we are staying in her home and she probably isn’t going to rest until she is sure he is ok. So we said “yes.”
Sure enough, when the doctor listened to his lungs she said they were clear. And she prescribed, I think, cough medicine. That is where we could use the help. We brought allergy medicine and fever medicine but no cough medicine. So Keith went out with Luba’s mother to buy some. They came home with 4 different medicines. A cough medicine, a lozenge of some sort, a throat spray and I’m not sure what the last one was. When Kostya gets here we’ll have him translate what they all are for sure so we can have more control over how long we give him each of the medicines. Oh, by the way none of these are “prescription” like we call prescription. All of these could be boughten over the counter. Of course, you can get antibiotics over the counter, so take that for whatever that is worth.
Oh, we called our facilitator to help translate the doctor’s visit and he said that the people at the SDA didn’t say they wouldn’t have our paperwork ready. Ok. What does THAT mean?
We had lunch, gave Elijah medicines and laid down for a nap. We all slept for nearly 3 hours. We are trying to be careful and not get all of us sick. We are keeping up on our vitamin C and trying to not get cold.
After the nap, we made our way to the orphanage. The girls didn’t even seem to notice that we didn’t bring the computer. I have been putting everything we bring for them in Elijah’s backpack to carry it over there. It didn’t take them too long to find the package of mini candy bars that we brought. Surprise!! K let A2 pass them around to everyone in their group. K quickly got out the puzzles and proceeded to put them together. Once she got both of those put together she went in the other room and came back with two more puzzles; a 500 piece and a 1000 piece. She then spent the rest of the time doing the 500 piece one. K and A1 had a bit of a discussion that, we think, was a debate on how to say “Dad” in English. We think that they are being carefully schooled in how to act when we come, taught some more English. Now, instead of Mama and Papa, they call us Muzzer and Fazzer (I like Mama and Papa, better ). We are so very grateful for good caregivers!! We’ve heard horror stories of caregivers scaring the children by saying things like: Americans are here to adopt so they can harvest organs, or so they can have sweat shops. I will forever be grateful for our favorite caregiver the day that the social worker and prosecutor came to get the girls’ ok to be adopted. She talked quite a bit with K, telling her how it would be, helping her not be scared. I’m pretty sure that she had already talked to the other 3 as well. I really believe that our girls couldn’t have had a better situation without actually living in a family situation. I also am pleased with a lot of their behaviors. There are some things that we need to work on and then there is the blending of two families that will also take work, but we have a good head start on a lot of ways.
Anyway, A1 did my hair again and put makeup on me while I played duplos with A2. R got all dressed up again to “go to school” with her coat, hat, someone else’s shoes and Elijah’s backpack.
Toward the end Keith picked up first A1 and A2 and then those two and R and carried them across the room. They had a lot of fun with that. He felt it was good to finally get some physical contact with A2, of course, but even A1. So, while it was kind of rowdy it was good.
After walking home in the freezing cold we were pretty cold. It has been snowing off and on the last two days. While there isn’t much snow on the ground it is pretty icy and VERY cold. We had a warm supper with hot chocolate and going to watch some Star Trek (we brought the first three original seasons with us) and then go to bed early.