Temporary Father for a Year

Today is Father's Day (at least as I'm writing this). Since Shelly and I have no human children, just the dogs, we don't get to officially participate as the targets of Mother's Day and Father's Day. Of course, that doesn't stop us from using it as an excuse to buy each other a bunch of DVD's on behalf of Rowdy and Bailey.

This year feels a little different though, because yesterday as I was coming home from a Target run, my phone rang with an area code I didn't recognize. When I answered, the person on the other end of the line was Laurin, the German student who's coming to stay with us for the '07-'08 school year.

We've emailed back and forth a couple of times, but actually hearing his voice makes this whole thing very real. He's got a flight scheduled, has had briefings with other students coming here, has been checking out the school's website, etc. On our side, we've cleaned out the garage an have gotten most of the junk out of the guest bedroom to get it ready for it to be *his* room for the year.

As he's arriving on August 22, at which point, we're going to be thrust into being temporary father and mother to a 16 year old for a year. That's been more abstract than it became yesterday. I'm still confident that things are going to go well, but it's still a shift in reality. Both Shelly and I chatted with him for a few minutes and came away with a much more "real" picture of him as a person, not just a profile, introduction letter and some emails.

It's going to be an interesting ride.