I feel like I just ran a marathon....

I feel like I just ran a marathon....

I have never run a marathon, but I am convinced it would feel like this!

All I did this morning was cover a total distance of 12 miles...Ha! I even used the metro which took care of probably 10 miles of it. But.......I had little miss cranky pants with me and the sweet little man in the stroller AND we left during rush hour. We left at 8:45 am and didn't return until about 1........just in time for lunch and naps. This is all a recipe for one tired momma!

For those of you who have never been to Moscow let me show through the eyes of a mother of two small children......

Rush hour in the morning, as I understand it, is around 7 - 9 am. I am not sure when it peaks, but leaving at 8:45 did not spare us of the mass of people moving in unison up and down the street and through the metro station.

Everyone is in a hurry and the sidewalks are too narrow for the amount of people trying to get by. Add to this, random holes, construction work, water puddles (soon to be ice and snow) and the gazillion cars that park on every inch of the sidewalk (and ramps) and you have quite the maze to walk through. Now imagine trying to get a stroller and a cranky 3 year old, who insists on riding a scooter, through the crowd. Luckily, before we moved here we were warned that Moscow was quite the stroller-unfriendly place. So, I left behind my beloved double stroller and we only brought an umbrella stroller, which was not designed for the off-roading it goes through around here. Thank goodness, because the umbrella stroller is too wide at times! I am thinking about starting a petition to the government for more ramps and not allowing parking 15 feet from each street corner.

Now on to getting on and off the metro AND going through TWO transfer stations with little miss cranky pants and another in a stroller.....

The metro here is actually amazing. Once you get past the intimidating, very steep escalator "tunnel"that takes you deep down under the city, it is a wonderful form of transportation. To boost, a lot of the stations are incredible works of art.

However, when you have kids and something on wheels with you, it is a whole other story.To get down to all metro trains we have ridden thus far, there are stairs involved. Lots and lots and lots of them. Of course, there are no ramps. And "transfer station" = more and more stairs. Some of the stairways have these ramps that were placed after-the-fact, that look like they are an attempt at making Moscow more wheelchair accessible. Most of these ramps have three different "tracks". I hope they are measured to the correct width of wheelchairs so that someone can benefit from them, because the only way to get a stroller down one is with herculean strength as you balance the stroller on one set of wheels, as the wheels try to go every way but down. It is usually easier to carry the stroller (if you are A) or ask the child to get out and walk down the stairs so you can carry the stroller (that would be me).

I have encountered numerous sweet, helpful people as I trek through these metro stations with my crew. One of my first Russian words was спасибо (thank you), which has been vital to my survival here! It is the only way I can repay the kindness of all these strangers. I am pretty sure my face screams "Please Help, I am a mother in distress!" when I am out and about with miss cranky pants. Russians may not smile to strangers as they walk past them on the street, but they smile at kids and are always willing to help you out when it comes to kids.

So, between sweet people carrying one of the kids or the stroller, we made it through the transfer stations. All 3 of us made it through. ALIVE. I was pretty sure we were going to lose miss cranky pants a couple times. She refused to hold my hand as we walked or on the escalator, she screamed at the nice people who were trying to help out (as in big major freak out) and she likes to go off on her own in the middle of the crowd and dance around. Sometimes I don't think the Russian people understand miss cranky pants - how can she have such an attitude, why doesn't she behave on the escalator, why does she wander away from her mom? I have yet to see a Russian kid act like little miss S.

Once we conquered the metro station, little miss cranky pants brought up a much dreaded word for a mom walking around in Moscow....the potty! A clean, public restroom seems to be a foreign concept. There are a couple places like McDonalds and Starbucks that have them, but other than that, you are left with rarely-serviced icky port-a-potties. AND....you have to pay to use them...YIKES! Little Miss S, was "dying" to use the potty. After roaming around some in an area of Moscow we had never been, I saw the line of pay-to-use port-a-potties. The first time I saw these things I couldn't even wrap my head around the concept. I also vowed to never use them. One stall is occupied at all times by the "cashier" who collects the money. It is quite interesting...they seem to almost make a home out of the place. They probably eat in there too....eeeek! Well one short sight of the inside of one of these places and little miss S lost all impulse to go! I didn't try to talk her in to it much because I put her in a pull up for our adventure out since I had a sneaking suspicion we might run into this problem!

It was quite a morning! Needless to say the rest of the day was at home, movies and naps. We may be taking it easy for a few more days to recover :)