2013, the year of Hanna?

So, it is March 08th today. It is 1.11 in the morning, so I guess it is March 9th. Andreas and I are sitting in the living room and each is staring at his own PC screen, a wonderful alienating, fascinating world. We went out tonight, it was good fun. Xanthippie and George are now 7 & 8 and it hard to imagine how life was with two small demanding children. Cause they are not small anymore. Nore are they demanding. Of course they have needs! And naturally there are times they are tiring, especially after they ve said mum a thousand times. But, still. They have grown up! They are becoming more independent as each day passes. They share the company of each other and as a result, Andreas and I have more time to ourselves. In the mornings when they wake up, let's say at quarter to eight, they play for a good one to two hourse before they start complaining about fulfilling some sort of basic need ie food or WC.... Sometimes they even prepare the food for all of us to eat. It is just so unbearingly sweet! 4 years ago I felt agitated. After some thought in to it, I realised I wanted another kid. Andreas was absolutely negative. Whatever I said or did, would not change his mind. Threats, mood swings, cunning romantic gestures or other tricks, all failed miserably. And as they failed, I was more and more desperate. Then,one day as I was cleaning the shelves of our home IKEA library, I found a folded piece of paper. I opened it. It was from a seminar I took at Shell a long time ago. We had been asked to write down 2-3 things we wanted to do in our lives before we die. I wrote, I want to climb Matsu Pitsu (God knows why), I want to adopt a baby and something else too, that I can't remember, hence it was probably not that important. Then a week later, I visited my childless and incapable of having any children, cousin and she mentioned reading an article about a guy who had adopted two children from Ethiopia. She thought it was great. Something clicked. Next morning I visited the Ethiopian Consulate in Greece which was situated 5 minutes from our house (is that carmic or what, Neni?) and I asked about any information they had on Ethiopian adoption. They gave me a long

to do

list. I went home and I opened an excel file in which I typed every item of the list. Afet I carfeully studied it, it was time to speak to Andreas again. Certain that he would disagree, I was ready for a big fight. Somehow the fight never came. He was not instantly open to the idea, but he was sceptical. I would see that he was processing the idea. I knew that if he agreed , my motives would be different to mine. I couldn't care less. My motives had to do with me having a third child. His, with saving an child. Fine, lets move on! In the next few blogs, I will share the whole experience from that visit in the Consulate until today... Goodnight everyone!