Some days are like this:

Can you hear the bells ringing?

While the Lady enjoyes her first weeks of life mainly sleeping and nursing we are facing the not so pleasant sides of getting a child in this country when only one member of the family has an income and the other one is still struggeling with language, papers and offices. You wouldn't believe how much paperwork needs to be done right now. Most of the stuff I can't even translate but there are insurance issues, child suppport, maternity leave support and sooo much more. I get tired just looking at the heap on my desk.
Maya also recieved her very first official letter, her own tax number! What a wonderful first letter to get in your life isn't it?! I love this country...

Another thing that was supposed to be a very good one and turned out to be rather nasty, is the fact that Nathan got his resident permit in February. Actually a very, very helpful step but for us at the moment it only makes a difference in him having to pay for his own insurance which was taken care of by the asylum office before. We have an insurance duty in Germany, so we can't choose but have to pay almost 300 Euro per month since February which we just found out about now. Yeah!

In order to avoid those costs as soon as possible we decided to get married, soon. I have always dreamed of such a romantic way of gettig married... but when we are married my insurance has to take him for free so that is almost romantic, right?!
Not that it would be particularly easy or cheap to get married in Germany as a binational couple...  They only accept German certificates so everything needs to be translated (for a lot of money). And we would need a bachelor certificate from Uganda, which we have to hand in here and which then gets send back to the German embassy in Uganda (on our costs) and checked there to be right or wrong. To cut an even longer story short: getting married in Germany is not possible for us. Not if we still want it to be done this year anyway. So, we do what most other binational couples in Germany do, we will get married in Denmark.

The whole procedure is rather absurd because instead of the bachelor certificate the Danish only need a simple paper, written by the German authorities stating that we are not married. Do you get the absurdity of it? The Danish accept a German paper which the Germans don't accept themself. But the marriage sealed with that paper in Denmark is then again accepted by the Germans. Sooooo weird!!! But I am not complaining too loud as long as we get the chance to get married at all. The Danish also accept all papers in German and English, so no translations needed. The only thing they want in some of the parishes is that you stay three nights or that you bring your own witnesses. So we rather spend some money on a small family holiday in Denmark than wasting it for German paperworks. And as soon as we figure out the transportation (we don't own a car so we have to find someone willing to drive us) we will we off. 

For the trip across the border, Maya will need a passport so we had the pleasure of taking passport pictures today, which was fun and toke forever. And at the tender age of three weeks she already looks like someone from a "Wanted" poster...

Oh yes, there are so many wonderful ways to spend the first weeks with your new baby...

{this moment}

Joining Soulemama today for (this moment): A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

{this moment}

Joining Soulemama today for (this moment): A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.