Pappy

Jeff and I attended the foster care-adoption orientation on Tuesday night. A lot of people were there. As near as we can tell, the state contracts its services through several organizations. We have to select an organization with whom to work. They will conduct an initial screening, and we'll be attending 30-38 hours of training over the course of a couple months. Then, we have to have a home study conducted ($800). And then, assuming everything goes well, we would be eligible for foster care-adoption.

Adopting a baby through this system is not real likely. There are children available for adoption who are 6 years and older. The younger ones are often adopted through private routes OR they are foster children whose biological parents drop the ball and then become available for adoption. When this happens, their foster parents are given the first opportunity to adopt them. So, the recommended approach if one wants a younger child is to do "concurrent" foster care, which means that you take care of the little one and if the biological family doesn't fill out the paper work or is deemed unacceptable by the courts, then you can adopt. To be honest, the whole process at the orientation seemed rather convoluted. It only became clear when talking with one of the ladies from an organization called "A Place To Call Home." She was the one who really explained the details to us. I told her that we were looking toward adoption in part because we have Henry and we want to make sure that he has a stable environment, so I'm not sure having a revolving door of children in and out of the house would work. She said that if we were looking toward a younger child, then the concurrent care was the way to go BUT that often meant taking care of children who have been abused, then having your heart ripped out as they are returned to their biological families, and then eventually getting a child who was meant to be yours (as the paper work falls through on the biological parents' end).

The goal of the foster system is to reunite children with their biological families. They bend over backward for biological families, even when abuse, neglect, and drugs have been factors in the child's removal. As the lady from "A Place to Call Home" explained, biological parents have 12-15 months to complete paper work. If druggie mom is strung out for 8 months after having baby, then decides to fill out the paper work, the clocks starts at the 8 months meaning that foster baby could be taken away from you when baby is 2 years old, having spent those first 2 years of her life attaching with you. Does this sound like a good system of advocacy for the child's sake?

Jeff and I haven't ruled out getting an older child, but we have to think through some of the consequences of that decision (e.g., attachment issues, emotional needs, etc.). Our plan is to pursue the training, so that we'll have many options available to us. We are also amenable to taking care of medically fragile children. We were fortunate that Henry never needed a g-tube and didn't have to come home with an NG tube for feeding, but we do feel that we could handle those situations and/or situations with oxygen. Both of us work so it would depend in part on how medically fragile the child was. We'll be signing up with "A Place to Call Home." Jeff figured it was a good sign when the lady and I hugged at the end of our conversation.

Let's see. Henry took Grandma and Grandpa's house apart. He was difficult to get to sleep when we got home. Then, yesterday morning (Wednesday), he was even harder to wake up. We tried gently calling of his name and rubbing his back. He'd pop his head up, look at us, then flop back down on the bed. It took about 20 minutes to get the sleepy head up. OK. He doesn't look like me, but he and I are simpatico on the sleep front. Stay up late, wake up late.

Yesterday, I came down with the flu. Felt awful. Wasn't able to go to school. Didn't spend time with Mr. H. Grammy whisked him away from the house at 3PM. Jeff picked him up at 7:30PM. Henry played in the living room. The other day, we figured out that he was calling Grandpa "PaPa" (which kind of sounds like PawPaw). So we have Dada for Jeff. And Papa for my dad. On Tuesday, he was running around saying what we thought was "Happy" but now we think that we was saying "Pappy." We suspect that Grandpa is PaPa or Pappy.

I forgot to mention a new behavior of Henry's. He's been mimicking Jeff's golf swing. Jeff often practices his golf swing in the mirror when he passes it (with no club in hand). Jeff also practices his swing in the backyard outside the large glass windows of the living room (with and without his club). He keeps a driver under the porch for his practice swings. Anyway, over the weekend, Henry started putting his hands together and swinging his arms in a full golf swing motion. It is so very cute. Jeff is of course thrilled at this development. Henry is a golfer in the making. Given that Henry's peripheral vision probably isn't going to be the greatest (b/c of the laser procedure) and some people say that ROP babies shouldn't play contact sports, I'm pleased that golf appears to make him so happy.

This morning, we had another heck of a time getting Henry out of bed. Jeff swooped him up in his arms, put him on the change table, and started changing his diaper when he was still asleep. But Henry woke up cheerfully and said "Hi!"

Henry is in a great mood today. Patty, who helps clean our house, arrived, and Henry ran back and forth between her and Jeff giving out hugs. What a sweet guy.