First (Temporary) Placement

    It’s been too long (again) since I posted an update here.  For the last few weeks we have just been plain busy.  Patti has been preparing for, and then actually being a part of, a weekend of Kairos prison ministry at the Northeast Pre-Release Center, a women’s prison in Cleveland and, as always, there is a lot going on at church.  During this time, we also continued to work on our Aunt’s house and have moved some of her furniture to our house.  Moving furniture, particularly beds and dressers is the biggest part of what we had left on our “to do” list before we felt ready to accept a placement.

    

    A few weeks ago, we discovered that we were ready before we knew we were ready.  Knowing that we were very close, one of the folks from Guidestone called us and asked if we would consider taking in two boys from a neighboring county.  We agreed to talk about it, but at our next training meeting a few days later we discovered that as soon as we had said we were willing to talk, they had submitted our file to the county for consideration.  Nothing ever really came of it, but we realized that we were ready.  

    Then last week it happened.  A Guidestone foster parent had some trouble with a high school aged girl that had been living with her.  We knew them both and they knew us so, at least in the short term, Guidestone asked if she could come to our home for a few days of respite care while they searched for a new, more permanent, placement.  We said yes.  The girl was supposed to stay with us for just two or three days but we are already approaching a week.  Everything has gone fairly well so far.  The worst part for us has been that her schedule is dramatically different than ours of our children’s so it has been something of a challenge for one of us to be around when she is home.  Today she is meeting with her county social worker so things may change but we don’t yet know what will happen or when.

    I suppose this means we should also finish up that last bit of paperwork too…

Now it's Our Fault

Well, now the shoe is on the other foot.

    For months we were waiting for paperwork to wind its way through the halls of bureaucracy somewhere, but, as I noted a few weeks ago, we finally had the official piece of paper.  Now, we have had a couple email exchanges and a phone call with folks at our agency, Guidestone, who want us to meet and discuss what sorts of children we are able to parent, as in what sorts of disabilities we can cope with, and so on.  the problem at the moment is not the agency, or the county or the state.  It's us.  We knew that we were almost ready months ago but then we inherited a house full of furniture from our aunt and we've spent nearly every weekend there, cleaning and repairing things. 

    Part of our being "almost ready" has been that we had room for new kids but not necessarily beds.  Since each of our kids had their own room (this is the first house we've lived in where they could do that), our plan was to add one more bed to each room.  To do that we needed to buy a new mattress for our bunk beds but we needed one more bed as well.  Since we inherited our aunt's furniture we thought it would be a shame to sell off her nice beds and keep some of the cheap beds we bought when out kids were younger.  That meant cleaning at Aunt Gladys' house had to reach a point where we could get beds out of her house and moved to ours.  As of this week we're nearly there.  One bed was moved a couple weeks ago and a second one moved this past weekend.  Now we need a new mattress for the new bed and the bunk bed and we're almost there (our children have some major room cleaning to do, so we will have to find ways to, um, motivate them properly).  After that, the only thing left is for us to fill out one more form (the one where we sort out what we can cope with) and we're there.

We originally thought that we'd get this all done in time for the new school year to start, but obviously,  we were a little overly optimistic.

The other weird part is that we still haven't managed to tell our parents about all this.  We might just end up breaking it to them when we introduce our new (foster) children to them. 

That could be interesting.

Legacy of an Adopted Child

A few days ago, my Mom sent me a newspaper clipping that was a reprint of a Dear Abby letter.  In it was a poem (author unknown) entitled, Legacy of An Adopted Child.  I read it and liked it.  Our children are at an age where they don't care much for poetry (and in truth I was never much one for poetry either, but it seems to grow on me as the years go by).  In any case, i thought I would share it here in the event that someone may find it who had never seen it before.  i will happily give credit where it is due if anyone ever discovers who the real author might be.

Legacy of an Adopted Child

Once there were two women

Who never knew each other.

One you do not remember,

The other you call mother.

Two different lives

Shaped to make yours one.

One became your guiding star.

The other became your sun.

The first gave you life

And the second taught you to live it.

The first gave you a need for love

And the second was there to give it.

One gave you a nationality,

The other gave you a name.

One gave you a seed of talent,

The other gave you an aim.

One gave you emotions,

The other calmed your fears.

One saw your first sweet smile,

The other dried your tears.

One gave you up--

It was all that she could do.

The other prayed for a child

And God led her straight to you.

And now you ask me

Through your tears,

The age-old question

Through the years;

Heredity or environment

Which are you the product of?

Neither, my darling -- neither,

Just two different kinds of love.

Homestudy News

    This week has been busy for us as we continue to pack but also to clean so that we can complete several tours and inspections that are needed for a variety of reasons.  First, we invited Ted, the pastor that will succeed me after we leave, and his family to come on Monday to have lunch, tour the house and to meet some of the teachers and coaches that will be important in their daughter’s life next year.  On Tuesday Jennifer, our social worker from Children’s Services, visited us to begin our homestudy and then in the afternoon our local fire chief stopped by to complete the fire inspection for our homestudy.  We still anticipate one more visit from the church trustees as they look over the house before we change pastors so that we can discuss what maintenance issues might need to be addressed as a part of the transition and in the coming months.

    We have also learned that most of our references have completed the required paperwork and have returned it to Jennifer.  All this means that so far, we are on track to complete our homestudy before we move to Stark County.  Again, our hope is that instead of starting over with a new county, this means that we will be able to simply ask Stark County to update our homestudy to reflect our new address (which of course will mean a visit from a new social worker as well as a new fire inspection), new church and new school.  All in all, still a complicated process but probably less than trying to start over again from square one.

    Tomorrow, we have to go to Cleveland Clinic for a check-up, to Akron for a funeral and to Newcomerstown for our district track meet.  Next week, Jennifer will come again for another visit, the first of the moving companies will come to give us an estimate, the kids will have their last day of school, and our daughter will run in the regional track meet.  I’m afraid that our lives will be lived at pretty much a dead run until after we move and maybe until school starts again in the fall.  In any case, hopefully by the time school starts we will be fully 'homestudied' and ready to bring home a new family member!  

That is still a both exciting and terrifying idea.  Change doesn't come easily to any of us and our family has been constant at the five of us for almost fourteen years.  I keep thinking of a line from the "Little Rascals" television show many years ago when the kid's coaster car was careening wildly down a gigantic hill.  In the midst of their excitement and fear, Stymie said, "I don't know where we're going, but we're on our way!"  I can relate.