Finalizing Adoption

Yesterday Matt and I signed adoption papers for Brock Matthew and Avery Capri. It was almost like buying a house. Well, not that bad but there was a lot of paperwork to sign.

But we're very excited that our adoption day is Thursday June 13th!! Only a couple short weeks away, I can't believe it!

For those of you following and praying for us, THANK YOU! Really, I feel like this process has come together in large part due to the many prayers offered on our behalf. We're so grateful for the outcome and are thrilled that these kids will be permanently ours.

I'll post pictures of adoption day!

Final Word

Hip Hip Hooray!!!

My siblings and I flew into Seattle last weekend to surprise my mom for her 60th. My dad picked my sister and I up at the airport and as we were driving into Seattle we got on the subject of Brock and Avery and the court system. I was commenting how after all this time we still hadn't heard if bdad had made an appeal or not. His 60 days was up on March 23rd but the county was behind in paperwork so we had to wait, and wait. The social workers kept telling us, wait until the end of the month, the end of this week etc. So frustrating!

Well not 5 min after this conversation I received a text from my social worker. She said, final word had come in {from county social worker} that NO APPEAL WAS MADE! What?! I don't understand but I'll totally take it! So the adoption workers are busily working on our file to hopefully finalize the adoption in JUNE! We're so excited! We're hoping to take them to the temple the 1st weekend in July. We'll see how it goes.

I can't believe this process is winding down. August will be 2 years since we got them. This time last year we were in full panic mode as it looked like they'd reunify with bdad. What a trip this has been. With all the highs and lows, and there've been many, I would do it again and again if it meant keeping these children.

My Own

I've had a lot on my mind lately but I haven't found much time to write. Homeschooling has proven to be the most challenging thing I've ever done, and the most rewarding. I absolutely love it and it absolutely consumes me. I'm always looking for better ways to teach...well for that matter, ways to teach. I wish I'd done this in college rather than dental assisting. Well anyway, this is not what I wanted to talk about today.

I remember years ago (11 to be exact) I was having a conversation with my mom about adoption.  She was adopted at birth so I grew up in the face of adoption and always had a pretty good understanding of it. Matt and I were beginning our own adoption process and I was talking to her about it. I told her that I'd always wanted to adopt, I just thought I'd have my own kids first. She said plain and simple, "they are your own". What a powerful statement! This has always stuck with me. People quite regularly ask me if I have any of my own kids. My first reaction is always confusion  then I remember my own mistake of not understanding the difference and I give them a break. 

Good News!

Parental rights were terminated today. YAY!! This was supposed to be done on 12-12-12. They continued it at that time to Jan 8 2013. On Jan 7th, we got a call that the kids attorney wasn't available for the 8th so they rescheduled for the 22nd. So FINALLY today we had court.

Now bdad has 60 days to appeal it and if he does it will add about 6 months to the adoption process. Our social worker is thinking he may do this, especially since he's been fighting this all along. We're praying he doesn't so we can quickly adopt but we'll see!

From Minivan To...

NEW MINIVAN!

Ok, well I couldn't quite get away from the minivan, at least not in this stage of my life. I looked at SUV's etc but with 2 little ones who require my help getting in their seats and me lugging around strollers etc, this was the best option for us. And it is brand spanking new which I never thought I'd get. Every time I drive it I can't believe how nice it is. And every time my kids touch the outside I cringe. Especially when Brock was running his little matchbox car across it. Hahaha. Such is life with a van. If I didn't have kids I wouldn't be driving a van, and with kids comes scratches, spills, dirt and fingerprints. I just take a deep breath and get over it. 

School

For some reason I've always had a problem with school and my kids. I've never been super happy with anything they've been in. Michael attended the public school in our neighborhood K-2. Then about 2/3 of the way through 2nd grade I began noticing problems. He was in a class with all the trouble kids. Because Michael is so quiet, he gets put in the middle to break them up. After talking to his teacher and realizing there's wasn't a lot we could do in this oversized system of 32+ kids in a class, I pulled him out and moved him to a smaller school about 15 minutes outside town. I've been driving him to the bus stop every morning & they bus him to the school. He liked it there though he was sad to leave his other friends. Still, 24 in a class with a part-time aid was much better.

Aliyah went to a Montessori pre-school and since she did so well, we kept her there for kindergarten as well. (If it had been available for Michael we would have done that but it's a newer school.) For 1st grade she joined Michael at his school...for a couple months. We started noticing problems at their school. While it had small classes (135 kids in the whole school of K-8), it was run by a principal and the board. The superintendent got put on leave and can't be replaced until next summer. It's a tiny town run by country folk with a "Good 'Ol Boy" mentality. Bullying is a big issue though we never had a problem thank goodness. Aliyah thrived, she was elected ASB officer in her class and had many friends. After being in such a tiny K class (10 kids) she loved being around a lot of kids.

There were some things we were willing to overlook for the kids to have a different experience out there. But then there were some bigger issues amongst the administration. Well after sitting on it for a couple of weeks, and praying about it, 2 of my friends and I all pulled our kids out. That's 8 kids total, on the same day. I couldn't put the kids back in a local school with 32+ kids in a class. I know that for some kids that's ok, but for mine, it doesn't work well.

So what do we do? All the private schools are denominational, some are very anti-mormon. A couple weeks ago my friend suggested homeschool and I laughed and said NO WAY! Matt said the same thing. Well guess what... we're homeschooling.

We found a program called Trivium where they go to school 2 days/week and are homeschooled 3. It's a classical education at school. They cover Science, History, Geography at school. I'm in charge of Math, Reading, Spelling, Grammar, PE etc. I ordered my curriculum last week and am now so excited! After sitting down with the curriculum specialist and telling her How my kids learn, she was able to help me pick what they would excel at. They are no longer learning in a mold of the public school curriculum.

Today was our first day. They started at 7:30am and were done by 10:10. They took a 15 min break and they practiced music for 25 min in that time. I don't have my actual curriculum yet so I had to get a bunch of my own stuff from the internet (there's gobs!). I met up with my other 2 friends who left the last school and are now doing this. One of them is a teacher/substitute and when I mentioned my concern with them getting their work done so quickly, she said that's way more than they'd ever get in a  school day. So anyway, we'll see how this goes. I'm mostly concerned about the down time and how to keep them busy but hoping it'll pay off with all they learn.

I'll keep you posted.

Nightmares

Oh man...

I'd forgotten about the nightmares for B that comes with his visits. And this time they've been worse than ever. With the exception of a few nights, he's been pretty consistent with them for the last week and a half. He wakes up screaming, "MOM" over and over until I can get in there and soothe him. Sometimes I can't pull him out of it and I have to walk him around, trying to get him to focus on my face and look around so he can see he's ok.

Our social worker came over today and she said the previous worker (who wrote the recommendation for Dec court) put in the report that even after rights are terminated, they should continue visits! What?! Our worker now has said she's making a change to that and visits should not continue. She doesn't even know why they're continued right now. We are just at the mercy of whoever rights the reports I guess. That's the frustrating part. But we do what we have to do & hopefully B doesn't get too traumatized in the process.