Mom of three

I'm a day behind on my blogging. Not too much of interest happened yesterday- not even court was that exciting. I was nervous beforehand as I didn't know what to expect, but all that happened was that we signed some papers to make it finally final, and the magistrate met with us and told us everything looked good, and best of luck with our new little girl. Didn't even have to into the courtroom. A little anticlimactic, if you ask me! But she is now legally ours, once everything is couriered up to Pretoria where it's officially put on record that we have adopted K.

Now we wait around for her to get a visa, and then we can take her back home. I would actually love it if it came through quickly and we could go home early. Now that court's over I feel like we're just killing time- three weeks is a long time to be away from home. (And a long time to eat out). But we are making the most of it- spending lots of time with K's host family. Yesterday it was a quick visit there in the morning, and today we picked K up before lunch, took her for the afternoon and then went back and had supper with the family. They are such a great bunch, and we are getting to be good friends. The dad already has W playing on his drum set (he's in their church's band) and is impressed with how quickly W is picking it up. Maybe soundproofing the garage is in the future so W can get himself some drums. Unfortunately SA is a bit far to go every week for drum lessons.

Our day with K was spent having lunch at the mall, buying her a few more things- her own backpack for the plane, etc. It was comical- she gravitated to everything pink. Then we came back to the B&B for a nap (just K, not us). When she woke up, you could tell she wasn't sure where she was, but she warmed up after a while and was her old self. She brightened right up when we got to the host family's home for supper- on familiar turf again and was the evening's entertainment dancing to Phil Collins videos.

Tomorrow we take her for good. She'll be sleeping here on the pull out couch, and I think it will go fine. She has grown up very independent because of the schedule at the home. I'm told if you don't send her to go brush her teeth at bedtime early enough, she'll do it herself. When I put her down for her nap, there was no fussing at all even in the strange place. At the home there was no point in crying if you didn't want to go to bed, and no one was going to have time to cuddle with you. Hopefully she'll learn to enjoy a bit of a cuddle, for my sake if not hers.

This weekend is K's birthday party- a bit late, but this way we were able to participate. We're going to pick her up a present tomorrow morning before we get her. Next week we plan to go on a safari- there is one nearby where we can stay overnight and visit a zulu village, which would be very cool. And then there's the marine park- supposed to be fabulous, and it's half price on weekends, so we'll probably go the next weekend. A day at gateway, the largest mall in the southern hemisphere is in the mix- we'll have to see how it compares to the mall of America- I know it's got a water park, so there's one point for it already.

Time for bed- I'd forgotten how busy life with a three year old is.

A Day at the Braai

Well, we are enjoying a quiet evening at the B&B after our Braai (BBQ) with the Devine’s, K’s host family. They had some friends over, so the boys had lots of other boys to play with, and we all had a wonderful time. K has gotten very familiar with us already- more than I could have hoped for. She calls me Mama and E Dada, and can say both of the boys’ names. I couldn’t be happier with the way things went. Within minutes of arriving, E was sitting at the picnic table with her having “tea”, and she was playing and laughing with him for quite a while. They coloured, played on the trampoline and just had a lot of fun bonding. Later, all the boys went to the soccer field with E and Mr. Devine, and the moms and K stayed at the house.
This was my time with K- I took pictures of her bouncing on the trampoline, and then she let me jump with her. Then she sat on the trampoline while I jumped and bounced her, and then I sat while she jumped and bounced me. After that, she sat on my lap on the trampoline and we had a great time. She knows more English than I thought and we were able to communicate beautifully. I started singing “Jesus Loves Me” to her, and she joined in. Very shortly after that, she put her hands on my lips and told me “too loud” (ie be quiet) and sang it to me in Xhosa (her native language) several times. It brought tears to my eyes!
So needless to say, she is very comfortable with us now, and we are already in love with her! We are going to pay another visit tomorrow morning, and then in the afternoon we go to court to make her legally ours. Our social worker here feels that we will be able to have her with us all the time as soon as Thursday. She is a busy little girl, full of mischief as any good three year old is, but she is good and from what I’ve seen so far, quite obedient.
It’s still hard to believe she will be ours. I’m sure it will sink eventually, but for now I’ll just keep enjoying the ride- it’s been a wild one so far!

Our daughter

Well, we've seen her. And she's more beautiful than her pictures! I was not sure how she'd react to us, but we got lots of smles out of her, and E even made her giggle. We had a stuffed dog for her, which she loved immediately- drove it around on her bike for the whole time we were visiting. I almost cried when I saw our daughter. Today we have been invited to a BBQ at their house with lots of their friends- they call it a Briaa (or something like that) here. I am overwhelmed- in a very good way. I cannot believe the blessings that God has given us. South Africa is beautiful. We have seen a different side of his creation here, and I can hardly wait to spend the next three weeks exploring it!

The boys are having a great time too. W is so excited that he is actually not letting J get a word in edgewise- the opposite of usual!

Our B&B is beautiful too. We have a great suite, and the owner is an excellent cook. We had a full English Breakfast too, complete with cereal, eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, fresh fruit (a lot of which I couldn't identify) and ...mmmmmm....guava juice. It's like grapefruit juice, only it's not sour. It's incredible. I've never seen it at home, but I'm going to look for it when I'm there.

Later this week we will have S's birthday party- probably on Saturday when the lady who runs the orphanage is in town. We'll have to pick her up a present before then. I am going to have so much fun shopping for this little girl.

She is just so precious! Her big brown eyes already have E as putty in her hands. She is a tiny little thing- wears a size 2-3, and will have a few clothes of her own (we're actually going to get some handmedowns from the host family), but BOY am I going to have fun shopping for her!

I will post again tomorrow- I am SO looking forward to spending some more time with her. Our social worker told us she thinks that we will be able to take her on Thursday- until then, there will be lots of visits and playtime. Our court date is tomorrow, and it should just be formalities and paperwork- nothing to worry about, she tells me.

Pussycat, Pussycat, where have you been?

Yes, I have been to London, and I have seen the queen. We flew out of Ottawa on Friday night and all got an hour or two of sleep on the plane overnight. When we arrived at Heathrow in the morning, it was an express train to Paddington Station (no bear sightings) and then the "tube" to Picadilly Circus. J was quite disappointed that it wasn't actually a circus. We took a bus tour that was great- they had about 5 or 6 different routes, and you could ride it all day, hop on and off wherever you wanted, and see things along the way. This took up our entire day, as we added a stop at Buckingham Palace (I was very surprised at how unimpressive it was from the road!) and a tour of the Tower of London. There was a Thames River Cruise thrown in there for good measure, and a good time was had by all. The boys were great and found everything very fun and interesting. We had lunch at the Sherlock Holmes pub (those English really know how to do fish and chips!), and we were in luck, because the day we were there was the Queen's Official Birthday. Apparently her birthday is April 21, but she celebrates it the second Saturday in June. Don't ask me why. So instead of the changing of the guard, we got to see the trouping of the colours and saw the queen herself driving down the road. With Phil, of course, and Camilla was there too. Didn't see Chuck though.

We went from there back to the Airport, only to find out our plane left an hour and a half before we thought it did. Not sure how I got that confused, but we had to run (and as always when you're late, it was the last gate down the last hall) and got on while they held the plane for us. Thus began the 10 1/2 hour flight to Johannesburg, where we all tried to sleep for many hours and some of us succeeded better than others. The smaller ones found it much easier to get comfy in those plane chairs than us adults. Then it was to a tight connection to Durban for a short one hour flight, and when we got there, three of our four bags had arrived safely. The one that didn't arrive, however, had all of mine and E's clothing in it, of course. But it has now arrived safely, so I don't have to go out and buy all sorts of new clothes. Oh well.

We are hoping to go and see K this afternoon, but we can't get a rental car until tomorrow. Maybe our social worker will have room in her car for all of us. We'll see. First priority is to get some lunch. I'm starving. More updates to follow.

A weekend of extremes

As I type this, I am sitting in the Montreal airport, heading home after an overnight trip to PEI. E's sister's mother-in-law passed away, and since E couldn't get off work so quickly I went in his stead. It was a lovely funeral service- one of the kinds where if you had never heard the salvation message before, you sure heard it there. But still funerals are always hard, no matter the circumstances. I had only met this woman once, but I liked her instantly, and although I do not personally grieve her passing very much, I grieve for my family. It is so hard to watch ones you love in pain and know there is nothing much you can do except be there. This lady had been married to her husband for 51 years- they were best friends, and although he knew their parting is only temporary, he misses her terribly. And their one son was so very close to her. Hard.

And through it all, I am supressing tremendous joy. The last time I sat in the Montreal airport- yesterday- I checked my e-mail to find pictures of our new daughter from South Africa! The referral came through in record time- three days after ministry approval. We travel in June! I am already in love with her - her pictures show a happy little girl with a glint of mischief in her eyes- something I am very familiar with in the boys. I think she'll make out very fine with two older brothers. She will be 3 on June 12, so we may be able to celebrate her birthday with her- what a way to start our life together!

Now that the funeral is over, I feel free to revel in the happiness that the Lord has led us to- and in a shorter time period than we ever could have imagined. Glad he didn't decide to test my patience here! There is SO much to do before June- paint and furnish a bedroom, get everything we need for a new child, finish school, figure out what to do with the pets while we're gone, the list goes on. But how can I worry? God has worked everything out so far, I think he'll look after these last minute details.

Friends are Friends Forever and other tacky songs

I am so blessed. Found out last night that a friend of mine is going to have a shower for me when we know the age of our little girl and any other details so that people can help me get what we need for this little one (which is pretty much everything...) It never occurred to me that I would ever have another shower (aside from the kind I have in the morning while I hope the boys aren't destoying the house...) I was kind of blown away, that someone would think of that.

I am also wondering at this moment what goes through a cat's mind. As I type this, Max is sitting on my lap with his two front paws up on the computer desk looking intently at the screen. I wonder if he thinks the cursor is a bug that he needs to hunt. Hopefully he won't pounce any time soon. He has taken to sitting on my lap whenever it interferes with something I'm doing- writing in my journal, doing crossed-stitch or knitting (and if he's not sitting on my work, he's sitting on the pattern). Oh, and then there's the moths on the outside of the window at night. Hear that Max? They're on the OUTSIDE. It doesn't matter how many times you jump at the window to try to get them, they WILL thwart you every time. Besides, I don't know how many more times my table lamp can get knocked over and survive.

The latest adoption news is that we will probably be travelling in July. Our agent is expecting ministry approval within 1 1/2 weeks or so, and very shortly after that we should get our referral. The orphange from which we will be adopting is a Christian orphanage who only places children with Christian families. How nice is that? And because these kids are just waiting there, the mission has asked the ministry to put a rush on our home study. A process that we thought would take 2 + years has taken only 6-7 months. Gotta be a God thing. I have started to get Kaylah's (Kayla's, Keilah's, Keila's- any other suggestions, anyone?) room ready. The boys are moved into one room and today I started taping the lines to paint pink stripes on top of the red paint. Man, I hope this doesn't look horrible. I probably won't have time to paint it twice. I'm not touching paint to walls until I know without a doubt that it's a girl, so it will be a quick job when the time comes. So much for my relaxing summer before the trip in the fall. I've even had to find adoptive parents for my veggie seedlings I started. No sense planting them only to be gone for 3 weeks of the growing season and coming back to find them all dead. So I have found a good home for them, and I have been promised that I can share in the harvest when the fall. Hopefully my friend has a greener thumb than I do.

Silver linings

So I look out my bathroom window Saturday morning and I see a clump of yellow things in my woods. I think to myself "those look like daffodils". I sent W out to check on them and they were, indeed about 15-20 daffodils growing in the middle of my woods. No idea how they got there. I figured I never noticed them last year as they were behind what was still burnt rubble. So I head out with my wheelbarrow and shovel, all ready to re-locate the lovely flowers to my front garden where they can be enjoyed. As I started to dig, loving the rich earth in my forest, I realized, it was VERY rich- literally black. Then I noticed it wasn't earth. It was burnt ash. These daffodils had been by the old house. I have no idea how they came to be moved into the woods. No burnt rubble had been put that far back. No plants that had been resuced had been moved into that area. Simply put, God even saw fit to save my daffodils.

Now I know that may sound silly, but I like to think that He knew how much that would make me smile. It's another one of the little blessings that have come out of this.

And I am completely in love with this time of year on our property. I think I missed it last year. We were still settling in to the trailer, and I really didn't appreciate the beauty of the forest while our previous home was in shambles and blocking the view of the woods. I really didn't go in there much last year. Already we're living outdoors every chance we get.

Lots of people have been asking me about the adoption. Things are moving right along. I actually got a call from our agent today, and she said that we need to send in our next chunk of money earlier than she realized. Our file hasn't been approved by the ministy (government) yet, but the head of the mission that we're working with is going away for May and wants to get our file sent off to South Africa before we go. Apparently this is VERY unusal, as it's never sent until after ministry approval is received, but she didn't want any delays while she was gone. Now here's the weird part. My understanding is that as soon as it's approved and sent to South Africa, we can get matched with a child. So if the person at the mission is anticipating that we will receive approval during May, and then all that is lacking is for us to be matched and travel a few weeks later, this may happen even earlier than we had thought- which was already earlier than we had thought at first! So now I wonder if we'll get through the summer before we go to SA. There is a trip out east planned that may be jeopardized... getting ahead of myself again. At least I know we'll be able to go to the wedding- that is not to be comprimised- but here I go again, ruining the family picture that we get done there(every one we have had done has been made out-of-date shortly thereafter by the birth, and now adoption of a child).

For now I'll wait for the phone call, spend time in my garden with my rescued flowers, and dream of life with a little girl.