The First 48

So, it’s been about 48 hours since you last heard from the German Trio. We have all managed to sleep, eat, play and handle diaper duty. We live in an equity family, so everybody has a job to do when it comes to diaper duty! Some of us fill them, some change them, some of us deal with the aftermath which might include rushing them out the door. Okay, too much information, we know. But many of you wonder what we are up to, and this sums it up.

We are doing our best to try to figure out Max’s life and he is doing his best trying to figure out ours. He’s been eating and sleeping fairly well and seems to be enjoying having the opportunity to have preferences for some foods as well as negotiate bed and nap times. Although we asked many questions of the caregivers about his daily routines, routines aren’t that easy to follow when you change as much in his life as we have.

Yesterday went amazingly well for our first full day as a family. Max ate everything we prepared for him and went for naps and bedtime when expected. He’s slept through both nights and had an absolute blast in the tub. Today was a little more challenging. He’s been a little fussier about food and not so easy to put down for naps. We know that it will take time to develop a routine and to get to know one another, so we are thankful that we have the opportunity to focus on being parents right now.

We are also excited to learn even more about our little guy. For example, we now know that when he is settling down to sleep that he rotates his ankles and kneads his toes into the bed (very cute). We also know that when he shakes his head “no”, he really means it and any attempt to override his decision will get launched across the room.

Max is also learning about us. For the most part he accepts that our glasses are off limits – no exceptions. The last thing we need to happen is to break a pair of glasses. We are both completely helpless without them and didn’t bring an extra pair (not that we probably would have even if we thought of it beforehand). We can just imagine the disaster it would be trying to navigate the streets here and airports with one of us needing the other as a seeing eye dog!

Now, for those of you who only come for the pictures:

Dad gave Max his first bath here at the apartment.

Max likes to sleep with his bottom in the air.

Max checking out all the features of his new stroller (or planning his method of escape).

Gotcha!

Today was better than Christmas, Easter, and birthdays all wrapped into one. Our day started pretty low key with us having the morning to tidy a few things up, duct tape a few things closed and just imagine the day ahead.

At 12:30 we headed off for the registrar’s office for Max’s new birth certificate and another paper which we think is his official change of name. After a couple of more stops for our coordinator to rush around to do paperwork on our behalf, we were off to the baby house to collect our little Max. We arrived around 2:30 and signed him out. After a quick change of clothes and fast goodbye with today’s caregivers we rushed off to the passport office. We barely had time to snap a picture of our last decent down the front steps of the baby house. After the passport office we were returned to our apartment, but this time as a family of three!

Max was very good during the car rides. We thought he might be either a little overwhelmed or very squirmy, but for the most part he simply sat on one of our laps and watched out the window at all of the things going by.

With all of the sudden changes we expected him to be quiet or unsettled back at the apartment. At first he wasn’t too happy about sitting on the carpet in the living room, so we spread out the blanket that we have been using to sit and play on at the baby house. He was okay with this and quickly dove into the toy basket which held the familiar toys from our daily visits, plus a couple of new ones that we kept here. After about 15 minutes of quiet play, he crawled back and forth from the living room to the kitchen as fast as his little legs and arms would take him for the next 30 minutes or so. The whole time he was chatting and laughing. Then he decided to check out the bedroom, mainly to empty the laundry basket and play in it for awhile.

Then we stopped for a bit to have snack, which only fuelled the little guy up again for round 2 of Max’s raceway. We stopped for supper around 6:30 and Max was so tired by this time that he could hardly keep his eyes open while he ate. So around 7:15 we got him ready for bed and set him into his crib. He fussed for only a few seconds but then started to settle himself into bed. After 45 minutes of him playing with the bars on the crib, the zippers on the suitcases that are behind the crib and smiling at us and the baby in the mirror, he finally gave in and fell asleep. We decided to stay in the room and quietly lay on the bed and floor until he fell asleep because he has never slept in a room by himself. Every few minutes he would roll over, see that we were there and then settle back down with a smile on his face. He’s been sleeping now for almost 2 hours and we’ve probably peeked in on him at least a dozen times to prove to ourselves that he really is here.

So all in all our first 7 hours of official parenting have gone pretty smooth.

We had a pretty good chuckle at our little guy’s expense yesterday. When we arrived at the end of the hallway that leads to Max’s room we could hear him howling all the way down the hall. We didn’t know what to think. Was he sad? Was he hurt? What could possibly be going on to cause such a commotion? We rounded the corner to find that he was being wrestled to the ground by a little girl in his group who wanted a little face time with the caregiver that Max was chatting with! So in the end, really only his pride was hurt, but he sure made an issue of it!

We have no idea what time Max will be up, or how many times he will wake through the night, so we’d better get ourselves to the Land of Nod as well.

Happy Canada Day!

Hope you are getting ready for a wonderful and relaxing Canada Day. We're breathing a sigh of relief today because our missing medical document finally arrived today. Now we're anxious to get our little one out of the baby house and here with us. One more day, two visits and two nights to try to make ourselves sleep. We're just so excited we can hardly contain ourselves. We don't ever recall even Christmas being this exciting as kids, waiting for Santa to arrive!

In fact, we're so excited we can hardly think, so it's really hard to try to think of things to post about. Many of the other families here are also excited for us, especially the ones that are just getting started or have just had their court date and it looks like this day is so far off. We are living proof that it can happen and it does happen.

We wish you all the same luck and well wishes that we have been so fortunate to have. Your day will come, too.

Somebody Needs Their Sleep

Max definitely didn’t get enough sleep last night. Even his caregivers were quick to warn us that he was overtired and not in the best of spirits this morning for our visit. Yes, he is a real child and we were wondering when we would finally see this side of his personality. Actually all in all it wasn’t too bad, as far as cranky toddler goes. Not that we are challenging him to show us his finest, at least not yet.

It probably didn’t help that his mother and father are a little short on sleep right now as well. As we’ve already noted, the bed and pillows here are not “sleep number” perfect for us and no matter what we do it doesn’t get any better. We’ve actually considered sleeping right on the floor because at least there wouldn’t be any springs poking us in the ribs.

We’re also in the middle of a magical missing document puzzle. Don’t panic, it’s nothing too serious, more annoying and confusing right now than anything. Without getting into too many boring details, we have one last piece of paperwork that we will need in the next couple of weeks so we will be ready to file for Max’s entry visa into Canada as soon as his passport and birth certificate arrive. The document missing is a simple statement regarding his medical information. What’s confusing about the whole thing is that this same letter for the other couple somehow just appeared and no one knows exactly how it got here, so we don’t know how to get ours. Person A says that Person B needs to request it and Person B says Person A should be getting it, and Rod and I are neither A nor B. We’d thought we could maybe make the formal request, since it is a letter for us, but it seemed that no one really knew exactly where these sorts of letters come from!?! It’s hard to make contacts when you feel like your sitting on the outside of the circle and the people in the circle just keep pointing back and forth to each other and throwing up their hands.

As it turns out, there seems to be a really good explanation for all of this confusion. Normally, this letter is automatically forwarded from the doctor reviewing the results of the exam and no request for it needs to be made, which explains why no one knows who to request it from. However, we still don’t know what exactly happened or didn’t happen, but we look to be on the upside of the challenge, so hopefully we have a better chance of getting some sleep tonight. If after reading this your head is spinning and you don’t understand a word we just said, join the club!

We’ve been treated to a couple days of intermittent rains and some wind storms. Being a city set in the foothills of the mountains, weather changes rather quickly and unpredictably. Twice now we have all had to do the mad dash for the baby house with our children and leaving our spouses to pick up the toys and blankets because a sudden dust storm has blown in. Rains happen quickly and for a short time, broken up by bursts of sun before the next rain cloud peeks over the mountains to douse us again. Kind of reminds us of home where, if you don’t like the weather, you just have to wait 10 minutes for it to change!

We are again at the point where we are experiencing both joys and sorrows. As we get nearer to our “gotcha day” we can hardly contain our smiles, but at the same time, we have to say goodbye to even more people whom have touched our lives in so many ways. First are the caregivers from Max’s room. There are approximately 12 of them who rotate through the schedule, so sometimes we only see them once a week. This means that there are some we won’t see again before Thursday, so we have already had to have our goodbyes. Second is Superdriver, Boolat. He has been such an incredible and kind man. He has tolerated our ignorance, helped us search for pretty much everything we have wanted or needed (including, but not limited to: silk trees, plastic cloth, cinnamon, internet cards, bank machines, diapers, etc.) and patiently listened to Rod (Go Riders!) and Dale (Go Bombers!) discuss CFL football, all with a smile and a “No problem, it’s good.” We know that we have been very fortunate to have his company and we know the next family he works with will be blessed to work with him. We know we have.

To each of these people, we know we can never thank you enough. We hope we have somehow found a place in your heart as you have in ours.