Thursday, May 22, 2008

Happy News and Bureaucracy

I was so excited to hear from my friend Charmaine today that their baby girl was being born on the 30th, which means that next weeks after years of dreaming of becoming parents their dream will at last come true. The fact that they have found this baby girl to adopt is a true miracle and no one deserves being parents more than the 2 of them.

Yeah Char you are going to be a mommy next week!

You really need to have lived in Belgium or be living in Belgium to truly appreciate how bureaucratic this country is. It's incredible!

Brad's brother Cliff would like and come and stay with us, while studying here in Belgium. In order to get his study visa we need a number of documents from our local commune. The commune is Belgium's version of the local municipal office for each and every neighbourhood. For any documents you then have to go to your local office in person to pick it up. Brad went to go and pick up our "family set-up" document today only to be told that he will not be able to get it. Because he is in the process of registering as "an independent" self-employed he is considered to be unemployed and thus not in any poss ion to get the document on his name. This means that I'm going to have to take a day's leave to go to the commune to pick-up this document on my name. And no, no one is allowed to pick-up documents on your behalf, not even your husband.

I had to go and sign some documents at the bank today and even that was quite an effort. Like in most other countries the banks here are open between 9 and 4 and they are also closed for an hour during lunch. The one good thing that has resulted from this is the fact that I've activated my on-line banking so at least I'll be able to do all my banking from the comfort of my couch from now on.

The next thing to achieve would be getting my kids to eat their dinner without tears and tantrums. Why or why must dinner times be such a torture session? I mean, lasange is really not the worst thing ever to eat, is it? Normaly Rourke has no problem eating and will eat just about anything. On the controry Riley ate it all with the least amount of fuss. Some days you feel like you just can't live with them but you also can't live without them can you. All that's left is to love them even when they drive you insane.

And I do, they really are great!

1 comment:

Char said...

Yay! I am so excited, MJ! Like BEYOND excited. You're probably going to think I'm crazy but I'm even looking forward to fighting over eating lasagne! hehe. Remind me of this in five years time when I'm fed up ok?