Awesomeness and fancy restaurants

There is no other way to describe this past week. Monday afternoon Michael & I met our son, our daughters met their brother and J met his forever family. Tuesday afternoon I went to his school and met with his teachers who all sang his praises in the behavior and work ethic departments. J struggles in school and will need some intensive instruction to catch up with his peers. I'm hoping with enough structured one on one directed instruction he will make significant gains this next school year. Before I left school I got to say a quick hello to J and get one of those hugs. Wednesday was J's swimming lesson and his foster mom REALLY wanted me to have an individual visit with him without the "distraction" of Michael and the girls. Heehee, she really has strong opinions but she does love J. So J and I had a nice 1 hour visit with just the two of us. I took along the video camera which, let's be honest, has spent the majority of the past 5+ years collecting dust.  I had planned on video taping his swimming lesson but when I was telling that to my mom the night before she suggested he and I interview each other on tape. So we did! It was fun. I asked him some very basic "getting to know you" stuff. He giggled lots and I learned a little more about him. He has never been to Disney World and has his sights set on visiting there and Legoland. He LOVES all things Lego and baseball. He definitely wants to please us, when I asked him if he could travel anywhere in the world to visit where would he go - his response was Canada. I accused him of playing favorites because we are Canadian, his response was a sheepish grin and denial. We are still hopeful to have him travel with us but there are legal steps to be taken to ensure he can get a passport. Unfortunately we have no control over these kinds of things at this point so I just keep asking and asking to see if others are getting done whatever they need to do.  So far no progress but I will hold out hope for a complete family trip to New Brunswick in August. Thursday was just an ordinary day. Yesterday J and his foster parents came to our house for dinner. Yup - our son came home - just for a two hour visit but he was here.  He came through the door and very shortly after greeting each of us he looked at me and said, "I wonder which one is my room?" I told him we would check it out after dinner.  So we all sat down to eat and then began the house tour.  Of course we started with his room. It is almost complete - at least there is a bed in there now - that just got established yesterday morning. We ordered his bedding but it hadn't arrived yet. Hope he likes it.

He then got the complete house tour including his sisters rooms and our room. He was very excited about seeing the pool which, thanks to the monsoon that was happening when they arrived, was filled to the brim.

After the tour J and the girls hung out in his room and visited and he explored some of the things in his room. Most of which are hand me downs from his sisters. His favorite find was a Nintendo DS that T no longer uses. Michael said J opened the case it was in and said, "It's just like new." For those of you who know T that will come as no surprise. All three girls went through their DS games and he now has quite a collection of games to choose from. To our surprise he did not ask to take anything with him when he left. He put everything back in its place and it will all be waiting for him on his next visit.

We then gathered at the table for dessert and J showed us the homemade bracelet he was wearing.  It had the initials "J" & "M" on it and a number of colored beads.  The J & M obviously stand for his new name. The other beads represented each of us in his life and each of our pets and he had one bead to represent sports which he obviously loves. It was very cute to see that he is thinking about us just like we think about him when we are not together.

When the time came to say goodbye for the night he ran straight into Michael's arms for a great big full on man style bear hug - good grief - then the girls and I each got snugly little side hugs and big grins. He is going to love having a daddy, and in my humble opinion Michael is the best there is.

So the obvious question is when will our next visit be? Right now all we have scheduled is a visit on Thursday afternoon. Hoping we get another one between now and then. Also related to visitation is the fact that his worker told me on Thursday that she would like to see us begin our UNSUPERVISED visits with J on June 24th. That is not too far away.

If you are taking prayer requests, here are ours for this next week, more than one visit with J, positive movement towards obtaining a passport for J to travel to Canada with us, and more unsupervised visits on the official calendar.

Oh and back to the interviews we did, his cutest question for me was, "Do you like to eat at fancy restaurants?" Of course I said, "Yes!"

Houston, we have a hugger - and it's not a problem.

How do I even begin? There really aren't enough words in the English language to express the experience of meeting our son yesterday. Family and friends, I know you will all love him as much as we do. He is as cute as a button and sweet and polite and friendly and has a beautiful smile... I don't sound like a proud mama already do I?

I had so many thoughts about how the initial meeting might go.  None of them looked remotely similar to what we experienced.  He is a stranger to us as we are to him. I've read stories about people who meet their child and just "know" immediately this is their child. I really didn't hope or expect this to be the case.  I expected him to be reserved, I expected our girls to be reserved and maybe even awkward around him.  After the first two minutes of introductions it was smooth sailing.

The introductions went well, his foster mom had been prepping him to learn our names from the family profile book. She had him say hello and shake our hands. He knew each of us and was very brave in these few moments that had to be intimidating. We brought him a gift of a soccer ball. He opened that and there wasn't another second of awkwardness. Michael took J and our girls over to a field to kick around the new ball while I stood by and snapped a few photos. Sorry I can't share these photos online as the "at risk" placement is still in effect. Of course it wasn't long until they were all hot and sweaty - it is Florida after all - so they stopped for a snack.  I had packed up cookies, grapes, juice and water so we sat down to share our snacks.  I was getting everything out and as I usually do I asked, to no one in particular but generally thinking of my girls, "Does someone want to pass out the napkins?" Without missing a beat J said "Sure, I will." Well alright then, just step right up and join the family!!!!! The girls all smiled and took the grapes and cookies and passed them around to the adults.  Oh yes the adults.... also present at the meeting were J's foster mom and foster dad - great folks, they have loved him and taught him well for the 16 months he has lived with them. His case worker and Guardian ad litem were also there. I love that so many people love our son.

His foster mom repeatedly said how much she liked our family profile book.  She brought it with her to the visit and had each of us sign and date it by our photos so we could document the day. So thoughtful. She also pointed out that one of J's favorite photos was this one of R and he told her he wants to have his picture taken like that too.

After snack J and the girls went off to play on the playground and Michael and I sat and talked with the adults. As our visit was drawing near an end we took the opportunity to take a few more photos. His foster dad took a "new" family photo for us, and we took one of J with his foster parents and their cute little dog "Princess."

Saying goodbye was difficult. In an effort to say an appropriate goodbye Michael offered up a masculine fist bump... but J went in for a hug. My heart melted.  J really connected with Michael, and it was mutual. He then proceeded to hug the girls and I and went back for another Michael hug. I mean seriously????? His foster parents are very friendly and affection is shown easily in their home, we were greeted with hugs by his foster mom and hugged by both foster mom and foster dad when we left.  On the drive home K said "J will get along good with our family in Canada because he likes hugs." Now those of you who "like" hugs know who you are and those of you less huggy folks might need to brace yourself because our boy is a hugger.

Family Profile Album

So last week was a bust.  Unfortunately the week came and went with no further progress on the adoption front due to J's case worker being on vacation.  This week she is back to work and I'm hopeful for things to move forward. First thing is that J will be presented with our Family Profile album . Actually, the FIRST thing will be me being "the squeaky wheel" and calling his worker repeatedly until I speak with her in person to hear the plan of attack from her. I "expect" it will go something like this...

• J sees our family profile album (Thursday May 31st) - CHECK! :-)
• We MEET J in a supervised 1 hour visit (Thursday June 7th) UPDATE...MONDAY JUNE 4TH - CHECK! :-)
• 3 following Thursdays 1 hour supervised visits  WEEKLY 1 HOUR VISITS FOR JUNE
• GOAL for July 1st is to have J at our home to celebrate Canada day for our first unsupervised visit

If I want to get VERY detailed and forward thinking I would include that I'm hopeful that our unsupervised visits with J during July can be plentiful and he can move in early in August.  AND we would receive permission for him to travel to Canada with us to visit our families this summer. I hope this isn't asking for too much.

How would we feel if this all fell into place?

Children of God

My friend Tammy who is also in the process of adopting a handsome young man from the foster care system shared this video on facebook this morning. I've been a fan of Third Day for a long time and I love this song, but I had never seen the video. It gives an entire new meaning to the song.

Thank God I'm adopted too.

Children of God- Third Day

Summer Bucket List

So this is a big summer for the McIntoshes. Obviously my last post explained the big news that we have been matched with J - EXCITING!!! But this is also our last summer when all of our children are heading back to school in the fall. K & T are both graduating high school in 2013.  So when I got an email from one of my favorite blogs All For the Boys about The Happy Family Movement I thought this is just what we need - a summer bucket list. We will be having visits with J so we get to know him and he gets to know us.  We want to keep things as normal as possible so I'm hoping for some really great and fun things that keep us away from most of the Florida theme parks and to keep from setting expectations too high.  Honestly we usually avoid the parks in the summer months - too hot and too crowded.

As our girls have gotten older we have had to entertain them less.  K is very happy with a great big book, biking, or swimming. T is busy with her summer babysitting job, a week at camp and this year she is adding volunteering for the month of July. R will be attending Middle School church camp this year for the first time... "Mom, promise me you won't sign up to chaperone." I know she loves me. I know she loves me. I know she loves me.

But putting J into the mix this year will require an effort for more family time. It makes me think about when the girls were little all the days spent making play doh from scratch, making crafts and painting rocks.  They really did think it was fun to hang out with mom and my ideas (yes, painting rocks) were amazing. :-) They still enjoy our family game nights and family movie nights, we just don't have them as often as we used to. T spends a fair number of nights babysitting now so unless we want to start offering to pay her to stay in for family night I'm not sure we can compete with that. I can't blame her and I can't complain. As I mentioned before she graduates next year and every dollar that is banked or spent on her own clothes is helpful.

So I'm now inspired to return to memory making mode for the sake of J and what an awesome excuse to revisit some favorite childhood pastimes with our girls.  Of course new "boyish" games and fun times will be added into the mix. So I think I will revisit my Pinterest boards and create a new Summer Bucket List board. 

His favorite color is green.... now it's blue

So it has been too long since I have posted anything. Here's the deal. Remember way back in April? I know that was just last month but in some ways this has been an incredibly looonnnng month. We went to the Match event in April and ended up inquiring about 3 boys in total. After three initial phone consultations with our adoption specialist and each of the boy's case workers we felt one of the boys was a stand out as far as a potential match for our family.  We had a few days to talk it over and consider the limited information we had been given, then we asked our worker to please submit our home study for consideration at his match meeting which was scheduled for April 25th, just 11 days after the Match event. Things were happening fast.  We were not the only family presented as a potential match for this boy but we were the family chosen by his "people." His "people" being his case worker, her supervisor and his Guardian Ad Litem among others.  Our worker presented our home study and she wasn't eligible to vote for us. A Pins & Needles day that was.

Today (Friday May 18th, 2012) we had disclosure where we were presented with his Child Study (similar to our home study) of how he came into foster care and general info on his health, school performance and his interests and so forth.  A very general yet as specific as possible meeting. As disclosure meetings go it was fairly short, just 2 1/2 hours, due in part to his relatively brief time in care. We did receive lots of info to take home and look over with a fine tooth comb and that has been challenging.  Imagine someone handing you a thick book of your child's life - this book is filled with things you work to protect your child from experiencing as a child - heck even as an adult! I look at our girls and I am thankful for the innocence they have been able to maintain as children. I mean that.  It has always been important to me that they get to be children for as long as possible in this world where I think most children grow up way too fast. * PLEASE STEP DOWN OFF THE SOAPBOX - BEFORE YOU GET STARTED!!!!*

Why have we waited so long to share this exciting news you might be asking? Here is where it gets a little complicated.  This is what is called an "at risk" adoption placement. There is a very, very slight chance that a complication (we will not be sharing for the sake of his privacy) could result in the adoption failing. Please understand this is very unlikely and we went into this knowing full well the situation and have withheld the wonderful news of being matched because we didn't want to have to explain the complication of "at risk." After further information gained from the disclosure meeting we feel even more certain that this potential complication will become irrelevant at some point within the next 2-3 months. In the meantime we will proceed to meeting him officially - hopefully within the next two weeks.  Please insert giddy, giggliness here.  We will have a long period of "getting to know you" because that is what he is going to need.  We will be moving at his pace and his level of comfort with our family will be the guide for when we move to unsupervised visits, when he comes to spend an overnight with us and especially when he moves in - wow did I really just say that?

Of course I'd love to post an adorable photo of him and share all the wonderful things we learned about him today but obviously I'm a little restricted due to the "at risk" status. So I'm going to say this.... Uncle Edwin if you are reading this I know you will love his name as it is the name of your one and only son. :-) He is a little brother for our girls but only by 7 months younger than R. After Michael and I left the meeting today we stopped at Target on the way home and bought a big blue box of Lego's and a shiny new soccer ball. And his favorite color is green.

Rockin' the Big Sister tee

Getting ready for the boy...

I spent today finishing up some more Pinterest ideas for the little guy's bedroom.  I did a collage of three signs and finally hung up the shadow box of Michael's old Matchbox cars. Other than adding a bed the room is ready. Now let's get that boy home.