{bits from} the week.

a few more things i am grateful for…

{a relaxing week off}

{projects completed. thank you again prudent baby!}

{a garden that won’t stop giving. this time it’s bananas…i never, ever thought the tree would really give!}

{baking thanksgiving pies for family. i am grateful that we have food to share with others.}

{a good home. period. but it’s nice to be all decked out for the holidays, too.}

{the means to give presents. and, yes, they are all wrapped and ready to go.}

{my family. i am truly blessed. this is j trimming his own little tree in his room.}

{signing the all-important adoption paperwork. one step closer to being official, people!}

and you…the blogging community. you are generally a quiet bunch, but i know that you’re out there. my sitemeter tells me you are reading from ALL OVER THE WORLD. i am amazed and grateful for you. if you could just say hi sometime this month i would love it!

i hope this holiday season is a joyous, blessed one for you! i’ve been learning a lot recently that has been adding to my appreciation of the season. i’ll share more later…

faith.

{via the photographic dictionary}

of course we knew that adopting from the foster care system would be hard. it would be long. it would be heart-breaking at times. boy does it test your patience. i think adoption of any kind does that, but fost-adopt is unique in its own way. at different times we’ve just thrown up our hands saying, “are you kidding me? what else could happen?” and then it does. every time we’ve expected something to happen it hasn’t, so not a whole lot surprises us now.

the reason i don’t update about our adoption of j is basically because nothing new has happened. and the sad part? our state is one of the “quickest” to want to place children in permanent loving homes. so that means that thousands of children around the country just linger for a very long time in foster care. so despite it being heart-wrenching, if you are in any position to give a child a permanent home, or even a temporary one, then please consider it.

in the meantime, i apologize for the heavy posting on food. it is fall, however, and food and cooking is a form of entertainment around here. that and decorating, and maybe a little fashion, but decorating and fashion cost more money than food, so there you have it. oh wait there’s gardening. maybe i’ll post about my garden. i don’t know, but i am uninspired and a little jealous of some of your blogs. anyway, if you’re here about adoption, do check back later. if you’re here to listen to a crazy woman ramble, then thank you for listening.

we were supposed to sign adoption paperwork last week, but some paperwork from sacramento was delayed so now we wait a couple more weeks. of course. people ask me all the time, “how do you do it?” let me tell you what gets me through it: FAITH. plain and simple. i know that some of you might not believe in a higher being, but i do. big time. i believe that j was meant for us. i believe that God brought him to us. and i have faith that God will bring us another child (and maybe another one). i have no idea how many children we are meant to parent, but i know God does.

and if you really want to see how faith plays a role in adoption, see love’s story about adoption here. you’ll want to follow their journey for sure. and see here for katie’s work in uganda. truly amazing what faith can do.

taking it one moment at a time.

 

{via around the bend}

i saved this image some time ago and thank goodness, because yesterday i definitely needed to hear this from somewhere. work was great, my classes are well-behaved, hard-working, and all-around good kids. my own kid, however, was a jumble of moods, happy, then mad, then sad. i was at a loss as to what to do, for none of the usual tricks worked, and ended up putting myself in a time-out. i found myself yelling a lot, and i can’t stand  being that kind of a parent. my heart goes out to single parents. i don’t know how they do this day in, day out, but with a being gone A LOT due to football coaching, i have even more respect for the job these parents do (and this is coming from someone who grew up with a single parent). so…today is a new day. and we will start over and do our best.

an epic summer.

it’s good to reflect when something good comes to an end, and this summer has definitely been an epic one. that’s my new favorite word. epic. among other things it means majestic or impressively great, and that’s the only way i can describe our first summer with j. it was a dream come true, topped off with a great trip to hawaii.

every morning j woke up, looked out the window, and said, “mommy, daddy. the beach is close!” it was like he couldn’t believe it, and every morning had to check if it was really true. despite all the things we did he remembers the beach, his friends natalie and isabel, and his cousins elijah, carson, and frankie being there with him.

while in hawaii, there was a column written by andreas arvman in the honolulu advertiser where the writer discussed a trip he and his wife planned to sweden with two young daughters. despite the many activities they planned, their eldest (2 1/2 years old) remembered running around in her grandmother’s backyard the most. the article made me think back on my fondest traveling memories, and yes, like the author discussed, it was the people that i shared them with that i remembered the most. and i’m sure it will be same for j.

it was a summer of long leisurely mornings, al fresco meals and a (re)discovery of good, slow food, hours of looking at the pacific, playing in the sand, journeys to see new and familiar family, little adventures, sharing joy and laughter with good friends, and, most memorable, becoming one step closer to being a forever family. summer, we will never forget you!

we’re pleased as punch.

 

okay, that’s a HUGE understatement.

because today something BIG happened. we are one HUGE step closer to finally adopting our little boy. parental rights were terminated, and j is on his way to being part of a forever family. forever and ever and ever.

we can’t stop grinning from ear to ear. and occasionally break into tears of joy.

we now contact a lawyer to start the process of adoption…

thank you for all your words of encouragement…thank you for your prayers…thank you for your kind words…

they mean so very much.

filing de facto.

{does this happen when a little one climbs into your bed?}

we are off to court again on monday and, per usual, we are not expecting much to happen.

prior to the 4th of july we received notice of this court date, but, this time, the envelope was much larger than usual so i was reticent about opening it. what was inside resulted in my mini freak-out, for it was a request from bm’s lawyer to reinstate family reunification, which had been terminated over a year and a half ago. my mind reeled to the worst possible places, beginning with him having overnight visits (with pretty much a complete stranger) to possibly losing him. it was terrible. the claim was, as bm stated to andrew last time at court, that she had completed all necessary court requirements, but that they were not recorded correctly. it set us into full force motion as to what we could do to protect j from once again having his world disrupted. we decided that we would file for de facto status.

we first learned about de facto from another foster parent in our support group. this is another piece of information that the necessary foster parent classes don’t offer, but a very important piece that a foster parent needs in his/her arsenal. it basically gives the foster parent a voice, being under the assumption that the foster parent is doing what is in the child’s best interests. i have no idea how de facto works in other states, but in california a foster parent can file for de facto after a certain amount of time that he/she has had the child in his/her care. back in april, after bm’s aunt withdrew her name to request adoption of j, the team of social workers said there was no need for us to file de facto. we took their advice, but always had the nagging feeling that it was something we needed to do anyway. this latest hearing, along with the absence of any calls or visits from bm, forced us to take action. there’s always a risk in doing this, for the biological relatives sometimes begin to see the foster parent as adversarial, as trying to take away their child. thus far, we feel we have had a good, although limited, relationship with j’s bm. it will be interesting to see if that changes. we feel good about doing this, like we are doing everything in our power to protect j, and we’ve also heard from the social worker that the classes in question were not court-approved.

truth be told, i very rarely think of losing j. every day is a blessing with this child, and he fits in so perfectly with us that i can’t even fathom him not being here. i have every faith that things will work out.

orphan boycott.

 

via cara at my tori bug, i heard of the boycott on the movie orphan. at our fost-adopt support group last week we discussed this movie, and like the bad seed, this sends terrible messages about adoption, particularly for older children. there’s no way i’d ever see this movie anyway, but, if you’re into horror flicks, please boycott this one.

per cathy doheny’s article, the statement “it must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own” is included in the trailer. ridiculous.

see cara’s post for what you can do.

nothing. nothing. nothing.

only posting because i told friends i would.

just talked to husband. he’s on his way home from court because they will not hear the case today. he has been there since 8:30 a.m., and nothing. he wasn’t even told when the case would be heard.  i am livid, but not because they didn’t hear the case. i will wait to relay the stories concerning bm and her lawyer until i hear them again from andrew in person. i’m just glad i didn’t take the day off.

Updated:

So…we have no clue when the case will be heard. I’m assuming on Monday? We won’t be there.

As far as bm’s lawyer, she’s just not a courteous person. Twice, she’s been the only one outside of the courtoom to ask a simple question. The first time was to ask what court date the judge had set, and then husband asked her on Friday what time the judge told everyone to be back. Both times she has been plain out rude. I know she’s not supposed to talk to us regarding the case details, but she not tell us a simple date or time? Perhaps we are just ignorant of matters like this. She told husband, i don’t need to tell you, you don’t even have a lawyer. Another reminder that we mean nothing, and now we are regretting not filing the de facto paperwork because the social workers said we didn’t need to.

J’s birth mother once again asked for the picture book. I just haven’t had the time to sit down and make her one, and the more we have to deal with her the more I procrastinate. She cried when they told everyone to come back after lunch.  She never did show up after lunch, but did call Andrew and asked so what happened? Did she really expect Andrew to tell her um, your rights were terminated. Andrew thought it was pretty cocky of her not to come back in the afternoon, but perhaps her lawyer told her not to. So we know for sure she still has our phone number, but hasn’t set up a visit for over a month now.

Another frustration is that J’s social worker was supposed to be there, but wasn’t and didn’t return our phone calls. Grrrr.

talk to yourself.

{via i can read}

all parents know that parenting can be hard. it’s so very rewarding, but at times, really, really hard. if you’re like me you tend to be hard on yourself sometimes. for those really, really hard days i like to look at this blog. it is chock full of letters that can help on days like this. the last letter posted was about what the writer would say to herself if she could look back some years:

“I would hug my 30-year-old self and tell her I love her. I really do love her. And then I would tell her one last thing:

You are better than you think you are.”

i’m allowed to get on my soapbox every once in awhile…

i am all over the place recently with my scattered thoughts. i worked on several posts yesterday to post this week, and some are serious, but most are fluff. i am trying to think fun and lighthearted in the midst of disappointment over last friday’s result.

the good news is, i finished my last research paper! the hot topic in research this year for my juniors? prop. 8 of course.

we had so many interesting conversations in class when my students were choosing their topics (controversial issues). it’s a fine line when discussing these topics, because a teacher really needs to be careful that they won’t be perceived as influencing her students in any way. teenagers are curious and sometimes nosy. they asked everything from who’d you vote for? to what do you think about gay marriage? my answer was to assure them that i would be grading their writing, not their views. i would be looking at their support, or lack thereof, for their arguments. when pressed, i simply told them that i have gay family members and i want no more nor no less for them than i would ask for myself. period. i was raised to respect all points of view, and to know that sometimes many will disagree with mine. that is the beauty of where we live. we can express our views freely. what really struck me, however, was some students’ arguments for prop. 8 that gay people should not be allowed to adopt. obviously this is a subject close to my heart. we have met several same-sex couples in our fost-adopt support group, and they are no different from me. they are loving parents who desire to raise loving children. they are people attempting to love and make whole the broken children of broken people. i know many arguments are based on religion, but i believe in God, too. i just happen to view Him differently than others. if you disagree with me, that’s okay. i only ask that you take some time to look at this video. look at the love in people’s eyes. as a person learning photography this is is what i look for. that special look that is obvious. i can’t help but feel that some day we are going to look back on prop. 8 and marvel how this was even an issue. the same way we look back and wonder how so many opposed people of different races marrying.

from the courage campaign via bryn alexandra