Hanukah

The babies are 6.5 months old now. They are finally, very occasionally, sleeping through the night. (Sleeping through the night is defined as sleeping 4-6 hours in a row without waking up.) They sometimes even do this at the same time.

This is a marvelous thing.

It doesn't happen consistently. I am still very sleep deprived and maybe a little stinky. Showers still aren't easy to come by!

I am again relying on the professor to gift me the time to post this on the first night of Hanukah.

I am also excited to say that today we had our appointment with the Canadian immigration folks. We can now transition from being on work permits here to being "Permanent Residents." This is huge. It means we can be sure that we'll stay in the same country as our little Canadian citizens. (see these photos for who I mean...)

(The professor's work permit relied on his job, which meant he might have to leave if for some reason, he was no longer a professor here.) This is even more important because although the twins are also US citizens, we still don't have passports for them. It's a long story, so I won't go into it here.

Instead, I will mention a brief encounter I saw this summer. Each morning, I get the chance to leave the house every day to walk my dogs. Sometimes this 20 minutes a day is the only outdoor, baby-free time I have all day or all week.

It was summer, about 9-1o in the morning. An older gentleman, 75 or so, hailed his friend as he crossed the street. The older gentleman (OG for short) had a British accent.

"Hubert," he said (I think it was Hubert, but it might have been Herbert--forgive me, I'm sleep deprived), "How are you?"

"OY!" Hubert said. "I'm Shvitzing! It's already 26C out here! It's going to be so hot today!"

"Yes," OG, nodding. "I know. Quite. Hot."

I walked on, smiling. First off, 26C is really not that hot. (79F) We were maybe aiming for a high of 90F?!

Second, I realized I'd had a special, uniquely Canadian encounter. A man emigrated from Britain. Another man emigrated from Eastern Europe. I walked by, and I'm here from the U.S. One in five Canadian citizens is born outside of Canada.

Today I got a potential chance to enter that club someday. In any case, my two babies? They are those other Canadians--you know, the 4 out of 5 born in Canada. That was my realization.

Neat gift on the first night of Hanukah.