A German Canadian Adventure: The first month

The first month with Sophie gone is almost over. It's getting easier, but there are days when I do miss her, a lot. I knew she was not going to be with us forever, but after all this time she had become one of us, naturally. Finn keeps saying he wishes we could have adopted her. Our friends keep hugging me (thank you!) saying how hard this must be. Neil keeps telling me that if I can't do this anymore I just have to tell him. (I think I said, "Okay, I can't do this anymore - go get her!" ☺) He meant foster parenting of course. And we ARE taking a break for a few months. Luckily, two more families have agreed to be emergency foster homes, so that it is not just us for the whole county anymore. We will spend all of June in Canada, and the vacation will do all of us good. After that, I think we'll be recharged and ready for another adventure.
And of course it helps tremendously that we get to see Sophie regularly. Her permanent foster parents are the nicest couple ever, and we are so happy for the new little family that has been created. Sophie is clearly thriving there. She eats jarred baby food now, and is as happy and huggable as ever!

Look at those legs! And to think they looked like skinny twigs when we got her.

Last week we gave Sophie her parting gift from us, a little treasure chest to tell her the story about the first half year of her life.

It has a photo book about her time with us, portraits we had done last November, the dress she wore in those pictures and a toy that a little friend of ours, Anastasia from Bad Tölz, made for her as a Christmas present. It's a little whale with a rattle inside, and Anastasia is sure following in her mama's footsteps when it comes to being crafty! By the way, Uschi, Anastasia's mother, is currently fighting the fight of her life battling breast cancer. If you know her and Christoph (which I know many of you do) please keep Uschi and the family in your thoughts and prayers.

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The next few weeks will be busy for us, and before we know it we will board that plane at the end of May to fly to Canada! We are really looking forward to our big trip.

But first Opa Harald will celebrate his 60th birthday in Rostock (we'll go there next weekend and stay for about 5 days), then Lily's 5th (WHAAAAAT?!) birthday is coming up on May 4th, with the big party (at the riding stable, thank goodness!) on May 6th, the weekend after that Neil will leave for a 6-day-business-trip to Japan (really, of all places!), and not long after he is back we'll pack our boots and chaps and cowboy hats to go to Calgary.

And as if preparing for all this wasn't enough I somehow had the urge to change some things up in our house after Sophie moved out. Lily's room: check. Hallway: check. Our bedroom: a work in progress. We got rid of our old wardrobes (no built-in closets in this house) and hopefully we will have our new ones in place in a few days. I'm looking forward to actually fitting all our stuff INSIDE the wardrobes. But where is said stuff now, you ask? Well, the question is, where is it NOT? Looking for a belt, Neil? Good luck. Seek and ye shall find. Maybe. ☺

And, I will leave you with a few pictures from our patio. A pair of blackbirds (you know, where the mother is actually brown, not black, but of course the species is named after the male) decided to build a nest in the lattice right in front of our patio door, much to the cats' delight. It's the birdie channel, on air 24 hours a day! Once it got warmer we actually started using that patio door again, and I think the birds were as surprised to see us on the patio as we were to see them. And every time I step outside (or look outside) mama bird gives me the evil eye. Like so.

Believe it or not, I even had a nightmare one night where I dreamed I was in the garden with the kids, and mama bird came and attacked me, getting tangled in the hair on the back of my neck. I woke up slightly panicked. Hitchcock, anyone? And if you think SHE is scary you ain't seen papa blackbird with his yellow beak yet. Those yellow-rimmed eyes can stare ANYONE down. Standing behind the glass and casually nibbling on and waving a chicken leg at them didn't help much either. Oh well.

But when mama and papa bird are gone to look for food I sometimes peek in the nest, making sure there is no loose hair at the back of my neck.