Great grandfather, grandson and great grandson.

A few weeks ago Jrock flew back to Saskatchewan to visit his family.  He met up with his brother D, his wife R and their new little baby.  What a cute little munchkin.  They drove across the province to go visit their grandfather… now a great-grandfather!

Jrock found it interesting travelling with a little baby.  He was amazed at how much diaper fill a small little guy like that could produce.  He also commented how exhausted his bro and sis-in-law were, since the baby was up breast-feeding every night. Mostly it was just funny what a softie his brother has turned into, obviously totally heads over heels for his son.  J came back looking forward to fatherhood himself – they aren’t that far apart in age, and I think he really felt for the first time that his peers/brother are also in that stage of life.

the proud uncle

We got another call from his Grandad last week – wanting to know how things are coming along with the other grandkids-to-be.  Soon little D will have some cousins – funny, they will most likely be a little older than him, even though he was first to arrive!

I work a lot.  Most of my adult life, I’ve had a few jobs, and usually work overtime… It’s not really because I love to work 24/7 – It’s because I like the variety of new challenges and change. And I also have generally a lot of energy.

Over the last year, I’d slowed down quite a bit – two jobs, but really only a full-time job all put together.  I was spending time gardening and cooking and taking pretty good care of myself and my family.  I had found a simpler groove.  But the last month, I’ve been working too much again… not really my choice this time, either.  My garden has been suffering, and it hasn’t been great for training a new puppy!

This past weekend, work finally slowed down and I decided to take two days off.  Friday after work, my husband dumped his exhausted body onto the passenger seat of our truck and we drove off into the dark to Ellison Park, near Vernon.  A quiet supper, 13 hours of sleep and a hike with the dogs later, we felt refreshed and revigorated. 

When we got back Saturday afternoon, we went for a coffee, shopped for shoes for J, and spent another quiet evening, this one at home, watching a good movie. Sunday I got to hang around the house, try a new French stew receipe, baked some German Zuckerkuchen, drank loads of herbal tea and a couple glasses of wine, played with the dogs, read a book cover to cover, (Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears… really good,) and saw an evening movie (Religulous – ) at the theatre with Jrock.

I could get used to this….

There has been a lot of speculation on how old our kids will be, and what gender(s)…

People have had dreams about our kids, I’ve seen a (sketchy) psychic – heck, these are extremely reliable sources! Together we should be able to figure it out. So since we are hoping to hear sometime in the near future, why don’t we have a poll?!?

What do you think?  Our request is two kids under 4.

• How old will they be?
• Two boys, two girls, or one of both?
• AND, the most interesting… what leads you to think this? (dreams, premonitions, divine insight, just a guess?!) 

Hopefully we’ll have the real answers soon!

Well, here we are.  Thirteen months and counting… and still no referral.

But there is hope… we are getting little tidbits here and there from our case worker.  She is very careful not to tell us anything we shouldn’t know, but I think she has taken pity on us a bit and is dropping a few broad hints. Mix that with gossip from the on-line groups, well! then you have a veritable truth!

So what do we THINK we know? (aka: Stuff we can tell you on the pubic internet!)

We’re almost positive our kids are alive.  I mean, they have already been born.  Since there was no bottom age limit, any point in the last 13 months, we could have had one or two kids still not in this world.  But we’re pretty sure they exist now. 

We’re pretty sure they are coming from the orphange in Nazareth, Adassa.  This means that English will be their THIRD language, as they will have first learned (of course, depending on how old they are,) their birth language, such as Oro.  Then, they will speak and be spoken to in Amharic at the Transition Home… and then English here.  And we want to put these kids into French Immersion one day!  Whew! Well, they are still young enough to absorb and learn multiple languages at once, thank goodness.

We know that the agency is tracking down paperwork for several children. And the rumour mill says that the director of the agency is or was recently in Ethiopia. (And stuff tends to happen while she’s there.) That’s just rumour though! 

So, the moral of the story is that we expect to hear something this month.  It will be a an amazing day, let me tell you. 

In the meanwhile, we just have questions…

Two girls, two boys, or one of each?

How old are they?

Where exactly are they now?  What are they going through? How are they feeling?  Are they happy?  Sad? Healthy?  Well-fed?  Well-loved?

Guess we’ll just have to wait.  And the one thing I DO know FOR SURE – we are experts at waiting by now!