Court Date

Yeah! We have a court date! On Christmas Eve this year, the Ethiopian courts will hopefully hand down the decision to grant Jeremy and I custody of Marie. The judge has the option of requesting additional hearings if he/she feels they are necessary, we are praying that this will not be the case. After the courts have granted permission we still have to wait for all the documentation to make it to the Canadian Embassy in Nairobi. After that we can go and pick her up! We are still anticipating that we will travel sometime between February and April.

6 Month Birthday

Our little girl turned 6 months yesterday! I was very proud of myself. I didn’t cry. I am just hoping and praying that we will celebrate her one year birthday with her in the flesh. I feel like we are already missing so many of her firsts, I really don’t want to miss that one. In that first year, so much changes. I look at her picture every day, and it makes me sad that already in the one month since we got her photo, she has probably changed and I am missing it. I find myself both attracted to and repelled by other people’s children around this age. I am attracted to them, because I want to know what milestones our little girl is likely approaching. I want to remember what that age is like. Even though I had the boys at that age, it is so hard to remember what it was like in any particular month, it all kind of blends together. Also, I don’t think I realized what a precious gift I had been given. I did not enjoy them as much as I should have. I did not pay enough attention to the details. I did not take enough time to cuddle them and just enjoy them… which brings me to the repelled feeling I have. I don’t want to see other people with their children of the same age because it hurts. I want to tell the parents how lucky they are, how they don’t know what a precious gift they are holding. I can’t take my eyes of them but I don’t want to hold their little ones, because I might cry or say something inappropriate. I guess in these kids, I am looking for some clue, some insight into what my baby’s life is like, but in the end there is no substitute for having her home. Having said that, I am coming to realize that God’s timing is perfect and no matter what, it’s going to be ok. God will bring her home in His timing, not mine and in the end I will be glad that it happened that way… its just hard right now. He is giving us time to get our resources together. He is giving us time to work on her room (yes, we finished the bathroom and are moving onto the baby room next weekend!) and He is giving Ryan and Paul time to settle into their routines at school. In short, our lives are getting sorted out so that we can bring A home into as stable an environment as possible. If I had it my way, she would be home already, amidst the renos and chaos. I would not have been able to go to work and get parental benefits which would throw us further into debt. We also would not have had the van yet… so it’s a good thing I don’t always get my way ... and if any of you choose to remind me that I said that I will deny deny deny!

New Stuff

Until we found out how big/old she was, I tried to hold off buying things for our little one... I satisfied my cravings with window shopping. Since then somehow I have developed a magnetic attraction to stores for little kids... I can be shopping for groceries and mysteriously find myself in the clothing section... and then in the baby section... and then in the baby girl section... I have found some cool little things though. We have found a little soft photo album to put our pictures in and send to the CAFAC foster home. Hopefully the staff will have some time to show her the pictures and let her play with the book. I have also bought a baby carrier. It is pretty awesome. It can hold a kid up to 40lbs (which begs the question: why would you want to carry a forty pound kid?) front, back or on the hip. Yesterday we took a reprieve from working and went to Royal Roads to play with the kids. They had a blast and when Paul got tired I was able to piggyback him in the carrier. We just have to be careful that he doesn't think its for HIM! It worked awesome though. Much less strain then other ways of hauling around a kid who is really big enough to be walking :-). The other bonus is that it is compact which will make it easy to take with us. I also have found a kids cd of music from Africa including some from Ethiopia! Its really neat, the kids like it and so do I. And then of course there's the clothes... I enjoyed shopping for each of the boys when they were born, but not nearly as much as I have enjoyed shopping for our daughter. Some of my friends bought little outfits for me for my birthday knowing that I would love that way more than anything for me. I don't quite have everything she will need, but I am probably pretty close!

Updates

Many people who love us and care about us, have been asking about updates. This is the information we have: We will recieve updates about our file every 1-2 weeks. CAFAC will let us know when we reach a major milestone in the process, but for the nitty gritty details, we just have to trust that they are doing their job and that things are being processed as quickly as possible. In terms of updates on how our daughter is doing, we may recieve one (possibly two) updates during our wait. These will typically come at three month intervals. Some of you have asked me for pictures etc or why I have not posted pictures on the blog or somewhere else. We will not be doing this both out of respect for our daughters privacy and out of respect for the Ethiopian authorities that ask that this not happen. Please keep in mind that officially, she is not yet a part of our family. Today, we got an update from CAFAC that basically said that documents are being put together to begin the process. Essentially, stuff is happening but no milestones (such as a court date) have been reached... and so we wait. Since I have started work life for us has become insanely busy. The boys are handling the transition quite well... probably better than we are. Jeremy and I feel like we work 7 days a week between actual paid work, our Uganda project, renovations and parenting. Already we are dying for reprieve. We struggle through and are barely holding it together knowing that it is only for a designated amount of time. I miss my family though. I miss my sons and I miss my husband and I miss my friends. Stuff falls through the cracks, stuff that never used to and it bugs me. I get dizzy just watching us. Sigh. I try to spend time every day looking at our baby's picture to remind myself why we are doing what we are doing.