Welcoming friends....

Want to know how to make an 11 year old boy have a great big smile and melt into a puddle of giggles with his knees drawn up tightly to his chest so he can bury his sweet little face? Tell him that while he and dad were spending the morning at his baseball game, Mom was at a "welcoming shower." As you are explaining to him that this means friends of our family did this to welcome him to our family, have his sisters walk into the room carrying brightly wrapped packages all for him. Watch him as he sits and looks at the parcels and absorbs the moment before you finally have to tell him he can open them. He is  looking at the gifts and cards on the table with some combination of excitement, happiness, joy and confusion about what to do with all of these.

I wish I had taken photos of his gifts. I did take a video of him opening them so we will have that to look back on later. Here is his awesome baseball cake at the shower.

It felt just a little bit like Christmas in September and no one cared that all the gifts were for the little guy. It also provided an opportunity to discuss when the girls were each born/adopted and how each of them entering our family was celebrated. R and I even went on a search for her (nearly empty) baby book. We filled in a little info we could and she really liked choosing pictures to put for each year. I know I may be in the minority here, but I'm not a scrapbooker and I had fun doing this with my 12 year old daughter allowing her to choose her favorite photos. She is also going to do her own write ups for each year of school. Not sure why a "baby book" covers school until 6th grade but it will be a fun activity for her. So any of you overwhelmed mommy's out there thinking bad thoughts about yourselves for not completing your baby books, you might just want to cut yourselves some slack and wait until your "baby" is old enough to do it with you. I promise you will both enjoy it.

What happened to the McIntoshes?

RATHER THAN A NEW POST I DECIDED JUST TO UPDATE THIS ONE POST COURT...

We are still here, plugging away at the daily grind. It's just that our daily grind has been given a strong boot and the daily grind is more of a daily marathon. Summer vacation is over, well vacation is over. Although the calendar says autumn has officially arrived we live in Florida, so summer is never really over. For sure vacation is over and the kids are back to school - in one way or another. This year our two oldest girls are both seniors - Canadian readers this means grade 12. **wink** So that is an entirely new thing with happy days and sad days reflecting on what this means for our family. I am so not going there today. Grad rings, yearbooks, graduation photos, homecoming (Canadians - no I can't explain Homecoming - it seems Americans just like to start AND end the school year with a prom.) All of this, times two daughters. Add in college applications (Canadian translation University applications) AP, SAT and ACT tests.... It's a busy school year. K is taking a computer class in graphic design and she is LOVING it! She is even talking about continuing education with training in this area. That is very exciting to us and I'm looking into it! Here is one of Kennedy's sketches. She is having fun using her art work in the class.

As for the younger two we have taken the leap into homeschool. K & T were homeschooled in NB until grade 3 and 4 when they entered public school. With S having minimal exposure to school prior to being in foster care and with English being his second language he is significantly behind so I decided to take this one year at a time and see how it goes. R decided on her own that she would like to be homeschooled. She is much more independent in her studies and gets through her work with minimal support. I’m pretty sure she has already decided that she plans to return to public school next year, though she says she enjoys sleeping in and finishing her work much earlier than her middle school friends. Plus she never has homework - when she is done her work we stop. Period. 

So that’s school.  We now have two athletes in the house. S plays baseball. FOR THE YANKEES!!! He is thrilled that is the team he was put on - Michael not so much :-( But I guess he wasn’t too discouraged as he signed up to volunteer as an assistant coach. I can’t imagine Michael wearing a Yankees cap - oh the shame. 

R is cheerleading this year. Yes my little tomboy is a cheerleader. She has practice 6 hours a week and a game every Saturday. I have to admit their workouts and practices are intense. So those two are keeping us hopping. Add in T and her babysitting and being a two car family is stretching us. 

So there it is, school. sports, babysitting... what else, oh yes we are still going through the adoption process. It is indeed a process. There are days that S feels like ours and I forget that basically he is just a little boy who sleeps at our house and eats us out of house and home - seriously that boy can eat as much as all three of the girls put together. I wish I was exaggerating. One amusing little tidbit is that we used to have a few grapes left in the fridge, one lonely banana on the counter, enough milk for half a glass because the girls were polite to a fault to leave a little something for the next person. This is not something we encouraged - frankly it’s a little annoying because those last little bits spoil because no one takes them. Suffice it to say this is no longer a problem. Now the problem is - “Mom didn’t you buy bananas yesterday?” “Mom we are out of milk.” The new little man has no problem eating the last of anything, in fact he prides himself on it. 

Next week we have another judicial review at court. Hoping for some big news this time out. The goal for court next week is to alleviate all remaining issues surrounding the at risk portion of S’s adoption. Will you indulge me in yet another of my timelines? 

September 25th Court in the morning - and Happy Birthday Blake!  I hope Blake's birthday was happier than our court day. We woke up early and drove into Tampa and went through security. Waited for our boy's name to be called then went into the courtroom for (maybe) two minutes. The result ANOTHER court date for November 5th. 

October 25th - if  Sept 25 court went well placement status can officially change from non-relative to adoptive placement.  Not going to happen.

October 25th - 90 days living with us - adoption can be finalized at any point.  Also not going to happen.

November - I’d love to finalize S’s adoption at any point this month. November is National Adoption Awareness month, so it’s even more special.  I hate to be repetitive but NOT HAPPENING! This one makes me sad because I really was hoping for finalization on such a special day when the courtrooms are filled with families all finalizing and happy. Suffice it to say family court is not the happiest place on earth, though it makes for very interesting people watching while you wait for your case to be called. 

December - IF November’s goal didn’t happen then I would hope for finalization before Christmas. Merry Christmas. There is still the teeny tiniest chance for this - really teeny tiny. We really want this adoption wrapped up in 2012. The new best case scenario is that S be proclaimed legally free for adoption on November 5th and his placement status changed from non-relative to adoptive placement on December 5th (conincidentally my birthday) then there would be the rush to finalize before the end of the year. I repeat this is highly unlikely - but we continue to believe that with God all things are possible and we will be praying for finalization in 2012.  

So that’s it in a nutshell - a nut shell - yes that’s a good word to describe what we are in. A nutty little life that is constraining us while we wait out all of the requirements. A life of ordinary (church, work, school, sports...) and not so ordinary (therapists, Guardian ad litems, adoption workers, case workers, judges, foster parents...) We go where others tell us to go and do what they tell us to do. Challenging for my personality. Hush now, I can hear you laughing! 

Oh Canada!

Remember all the trouble we had getting approval to leave Florida and head to Canada on vacation with our son? Me either. It is in the past and everything turned out just like we had hoped it would. All we do from here on is look forward to the future and focus on the special memories we have made in recent weeks. We had a truly fabulous trip and visited with many family and a few friends while we were home in New Brunswick. 

We arrived late Thursday evening at my mom & dad's and were greeted by them and my Grammie Chase who has an apartment attached to their home. So just like that S met three of the most important people in our lives and now in his. Grammie Susan had made fancy new pillowcases for each of the children - here is S's with baseball theme, 

...he put in an order for a Star Wars themed one before we left. Obviously feeling comfortable enough to make such a request. I wish I could post photos of S enjoying himself in New Brunswick, but again - legal stuff - yada yada. One of these days there will be a post - likely many posts with photos galore to recap from our meeting in June until finalization - still hopeful for finalization this year.

For some reason I was basically a zombie on Friday. It was cloudy and I was exhausted - I hadn't been able to sleep much the week leading up to our trip. By Saturday I was feeling better and ready to take on vacation. Here are just a few of the hundreds of photos taken...

Crafting time with Grammie Susan - making a memory lamp shade with old slides. Which in turn prompted printing of some very special old photos, like this one... seriously how cute are my little brother and I?

The days are blending together for me now but I know that gradually over the 10 days we were there S met most of our immediate family members and he handled himself well. As an adult who is uncomfortable meeting new people I'm sure his anxiety was many times what I would experience. These weren't people he would never see again - these are his new family. People he will develop relationships with over the rest of his life. 

We took a two day excursion traveling through Fredericton including a campus tour of UNB - Michael's Alma Mater and a glance at STU - my Alma Mater. R & Michael were fond of the flat bill caps - for the record none of those made it into the shopping cart.

We ate at Montana's for dinner - yummo and fun to boot!

Relaxing with my R by the lighthouse on the Green.

The next day we went to Hopewell Rocks where we walked on the ocean floor at low tide. 

You may notice S's side pockets are extra bulgy here - it may have something to do with the 4.8 lbs (yes I weighed them) of special rocks he found on our walk. He also found his mama a piece of brown sea glass - I LOVE sea glass. 

There were 4-wheeling excursions to Tim Horton's. Speaking of which, what I wouldn't do for an Iced Capp right now. No really, someone go get one right now and enjoy it!

These last couple of shots were taken at Hays Falls on the Maliseet Trail below Woodstock. S shares K's love for adventure and had fun climbing over rocks and way up high on the sides of the falls and over the rocks at the base of the falls - okay honestly I think he was in the water as much as he was on the rocks. He doesn't like to admit not being able to do something but it was pretty obvious he had never tried to maneuver slippery rocks before. 

So it was a fabulous vacation. 

End of story? 

No this is only the beginning for S and his new family.

Let's start with the good news...

WE ALL WENT TO CANADA AND HAD A FABULOUS FAMILY VACATION!!!

Hopewell Rocks, New Brunswick

That was the good news and it sure was good and I'll write about that later. However in an effort to keep this adoption thing real, I will share a little about getting there. The days leading up to the trip were stressful to say the least and I'm really thankful that some time has passed before I'm blogging about it because saying that my emotions were running high would be an understatement of epic proportion.

On Monday August 6th we went to Miami. Michael, myself and S got up at 3 am and loaded in the van for an adventure and a half. We got to Miami without incident, found great $5 all day parking, located the passport office and found the appointment line in the parking garage - oh my! I'm glad we had an appointment. We eventually got called from the appointment line and were permitted to go in the elevator up to the passport office. We went through security and got in another line where we would get a number to be called to a service window. After a relatively short wait we were called up to the window. I presented all of our paperwork - yes we had lots of extra paperwork due to the adoption not being final. The kind young man who was waiting on us was very quick to tell me "You won't get a passport with this as it ISN'T a valid birth certificate." Well guess what, it's all I've got and it will have to do - of course I didn't say that - how could I? I couldn't say much because my throat was swelling up with tears that I didn't want to cry. I tried to maintain my composure as I explained we had more paperwork, a judge's order and such, would that be helpful at all? He finally agreed to show his supervisor who in turn took our paperwork back to "the great Oz" and guess what - IT WAS OK! Not perfectly okay but okay enough to obtain a temporary passport valid for 1 year. Heck yeah - we'll take it! So it was a tense few minutes that felt like an eternity but it all worked out. Remember I said I would be okay with however it worked out at the passport office? In truth, not so much. I was quite surprised at how upset I was when the guy initally told us no. But here we are standing at the mercy of those in power of passports and they have given us the verbal okay for approval. Now we just have to leave and come back after 2 PM to pick up said passport. So given all the complications we had endured to this point you will understand when I say "I'll believe it when I see it." So off we went with tempered excitement to be over that hurdle. Now what do we do with an eleven year old boy in the city of Miami for four hours? Why not a movie? So we drove to a nearby Muvico where we had a private screening (i.e. no one else wanted to watch Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Dog Days) complete with movie theatre food and beverages for lunch. A little shopping and low and behold it was time to return to the passport office which closes (they don't let you in) at 3 PM.

So we arrive and apparently they are too busy and we are once again put into holding in the parking garage. Then we go upstairs to the office, through security and this time we just wait to hear his name called. He is SO patient and it has been a looong day. We eventually place bets on which window will be the one to call his name - a bet he won and collected $10 for. So we happily go up to the window where a very sweet lady tells us she was born very near to where S was born in Puerto Rico and tells us what a beautiful area he is from. It was so nice to hear something like that and to have him hear it as well. She then asked where we were going to travel and tells S he will like it in Canada. So kind of her to take a few minutes to be so sweet. I pass the passport over to S and away we go. Happy happy happy happy - I text my mom from the ladies room because I'm happy crying now and don't want S to see me. We got it - we are ALL coming home!

We make our way down the street - the sun literally came out from behind a full sky of clouds just as we were back on the street walking towards the parking garage where we parked. We skip along giddy and chatting excitedly about Canada and plane trips and family.... blah blah blah.... When we get to the crosswalk I glance down at the envelope they returned documentation in - what's that? An "s?" His last name doesn't have an "s" but surely it is just on the label not on the passport right? I take a look at his passport - S!  CRAP!!! We have to go back! His name is spelled wrong. Can you imagine? Now remember the office closes at 3 PM. It is now 2:45. We race back and the security guard greets us at the elevator and when we explain our situation he looks worried but says, "they should be able to look after that for you." We return to the office and the guys at security tell us to go straight back to the window we picked it up from - the sweet lady from Puerto Rico - she promises us she will get it corrected and back to us ASAP. So we wait. We wait until about 4:30 and receive a fully correct fully functional passport! AMEN! Let's head home. Big sigh of relief.

So all is well - what a great feeling - never better - SO much stress in recent weeks - pick almost any previous blog entry for proof of that. Now all I have to do is pack for 6 people to travel in 3 days. No problem.  Tuesday morning I am basking in the glow of a fabulous weekend, Rays Game Saturday, back to school shopping in Ellenton Sunday morning, church Sunday night, a successful passport trip to Miami on Monday. Hahahahaha!!!! You don't think it could really be that easy do you?

Ring! Ring! I see on call display it is S's case worker - obviously calling to confirm the great news from Monday, how wonderful. What is that she just said? Not, "Congratulations, is he excited?" It sounded like she said, "I hope you haven't booked your tickets yet." The tone of her voice was not good. To keep this already way too long post brief suffice it to say there was an error on her part in not having submitted a travel order request in time. So all these big obstacles had been overcome to be completely shut down by a simple travel order? So I spent all day Tuesday on the phone with supportive friends, and anyone in "the system" that I could contact. I didn't tell the kids, any of my family in Canada or even call Michael to tell him this devastating news, I was really hoping it would be worked out before he got home from work. Not so. Luckily it was a very busy evening. I was at cheerleading practice with R when Michael got home and he left for his softball game before we got home. He got home after 11 o'clock and I finally broke the news to him, he took it much better than I did. I'm sure that was in no small part due to the three friends whose shoulders I had cried on (over the phone) I know they were all praying for the situation to be resolved and for Michael's reaction to the news. Needless to say I didn't sleep much that night and no packing got done. Bring on Wednesday... no news is good news just didn't feel like the right thing to say. I continued to get support from the three people I had confided in on Tuesday. Packed a suitcase for S according to encouragement from one friend to think positively. Just after 4 PM we received in hand the approved travel order. HALLELUJAH! Now finish that packing and get on that plane - TOMORROW!

I'm writing this almost 2 full weeks after it all happened and I just realized my tummy is all in knots just reliving it. It does have a very happy ending which I will cover in my next post. I promise it will be a much more encouraging read than this one. Thanks for hanging on through this one.

Take me out to the ball game!

Until just a few weeks ago I had never heard of the organization Umps Care 

BUT BOY CAN I TELL YOU THEY HAVE SIX NEW FANS IN THE MCINTOSH FAMILY!!!!

Our family was treated - ahem, VIP style - to a game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Baltimore Orioles on August 4th. The Rays ended up losing but it was a once in a lifetime experience and so incredible that we got to have this memory making event all together as a new family.

When we arrived we got our complimentary tickets for our seats on the third base line. Best seats we've ever had at a Rays game and Michael and I both agree it spoiled us for sitting in our usual nosebleed seats. We also each got a goodie bag with TB ball caps, Cracker Jacks, sunflower seeds, gum, candy  and $10 each for snacks.

We had a little time to watch the Orioles take batting practice. Then we met our guide and she gave us our field passes and took us to meet the umpires. What a nice bunch of guys!

On our way through the tunnel to the umps dressing room we passed the visiting team's workout room, cool. Upon entering the umps dressing room and getting through introductions they offered up all kinds of CANDY - I can't even begin to explain the volume of candy in this room. When they first offered it up we all glanced in the general direction of multiple jars of candy on the counter...then they opened the cupboards... not cupboard, cupboards, PLURAL! Jars and jars and jars of candy. They told us to fill up our bags :-) I'm slightly shocked but pleased to say each of the children (and Michael) took only one or two candies. This isn't even including the cooler full of Gatorades and sodas they offered us. We were expecting the evening would be for multiple adopting families, but nope it was just us and the umpires. All the children clammed up - not a single question for the umps. So they handed us a bunch of game ready baseballs to add to our goodie bags and we went out on the field with the home base umpire and had a photo taken with him. 

It was a very cool experience.

 Dad and his boy watching the big boys play ball

BJ's up next

Canada by way of Miami?

Monday August 6th is passport day or not passport day. Either way we have to be content with it and trust that there is a reason for whatever way things work out. If a same day passport is not approved for S (the son formerly known as J ) then he simply cannot travel with us to Canada. Looking forward there will be a family trip to Canada at Christmas and the hope is that his adoption will be finalized by then. His passport may even have his adopted name at that point. I dream big - why not? Merry Christmas indeed!

By August 6th S will have been living in our home for eleven days. By our travel date he will have been living with us for two weeks. That doesn't sound like much until you figure in the 200+ hours spent in supervised and unsupervised visits prior to his move in date.

Today I received in hand his certified birth certificate and certified court order indicating our status as his preadoptive family and that we have permission to apply for a passport for him. I've added those to the passport application and the additional notarized form they requested we have completed by his case worker. So I do have all the paper work in order. The only glitch I can see possibly causing us a problem is if they are sticklers about international flight because our flight is into Maine and then we drive into New Brunswick. So we need the passport to cross the border. Prayers for sympathetic passport employees to approve the passport for our itinerary.

On a completely unrelated note should I be concerned that I just heard a loud cry of "Cannonball!" followed by a splash coming from the bathroom? - The joys of boys!

Tomorrow, tomorrow I love you tomorrow... I REALLY DO!

I'm starting to write this post on Wednesday afternoon while the kids are cracking up watching Wipeout repeats on demand. I love hearing children laugh, it truly is one of my favorite sounds in the entire world and let's face it this world has millions of sounds to choose from, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Thursday is a big day and I wanted to be able to share this ASAP!

J has been in baseball camp this week. He loves baseball almost as much as he loves Lego's. He is excited to be part of a team, so hopefully we will be able to sign him up for fall ball if he is still interested in playing after the intensive introduction he is receiving this week. The coaches have been working on skills with the boys all week and they have games scheduled for Thursday and Friday mornings. Thursday morning was J's judicial review in court so I attended that while Michael filmed the start of J's game. I arrived in time for the last half of the game. It was fun watching little guys bat and slide, bat and slide, bat and slide. But enough about ground in stains on brand new white ball pants - yup that's right Michael bought him WHITE ball pants - it is easy to see who doesn't do the laundry in this house.

So about this morning in court, first I'm thankful to be able to say I drove myself into downtown Tampa and I made it home safely. Now for what we know about the adoption after the judge had her input.

Here is what we were looking for going into today...

1. An update on the at risk situation that could prevent J from being adoptable, unlikely to be resolved today but sure would be nice.
~ The judge was not impressed that this has not yet been resolved - it should be old news by now but she set a future court date for this to be completed.

2. Solidifying when J can move in as a non-relative placement, as adoptive placement is currently not an option.

~TOMORROW! TOMORROW!

HE MOVES IN TOMORROW! 

3. Will the judge approve us taking J to Canada? Will she provide a letter to that effect stating we have permission to apply for a passport for him?
~Yes we have her approval - an official order will be completed this afternoon. 

So that's what happened today, and here's where we go from here....

1. Take the boy to get passport photos taken.
2. A day trip for mom, dad and J to Miami to try to get that mystical passport.
3. Get packed for Canada - one way or the other some of us are headed north!

UPDATE July 27, 2012 - THERE'S (at least) TWO SIDES TO EVERY STORY


So when I originally published this blog J didn't yet know about the exciting moving in news. Michael and I took him to his therapy appointment in the afternoon, where his therapist told him he would be moving in while he was on neutral territory without the pressure of reacting for our benefit. We could hear his excited "woohoo" from out in the waiting area. He took the news VERY well and my eyes filled with tears as Michael and I sat there and stared at each other in silence. I should preface this by saying his therapist has been preparing him for the adoption and this move for months now. After his therapist told him he was moving in with us forever, the very next day and his initial excitement wore off he asked her about his foster parents, "Will they miss me? Will they be sad?" I know from experience when we were foster parents, YES they will miss him. He was in his last foster home for just short of 18 months, that is a real blessing in that he had that stability for the first time in his life. His foster parents are wonderful people who have trained J to be a kind, caring and polite boy and I'm sure he will miss them too.


His therapist also talked with him about the possibilty of him traveling to Canada with us and that got another great reaction. She did explain that there is still the issue of a passport to be worked out and if that comes through then we are off for International adventures!!! 


So that brings us to today, Michael & I, along with R, picked J up just before 8 this morning. He hugged his foster mom goodbye and we grabbed the last couple of  bags of his possessions and loaded in the van for the drive to the last day of baseball camp. Yesterday when we got in the van after leaving the therapist's office he said this was the 'best day of his life.' :-) He then went on to say 'we should have a celebration and a cake.' So after I left them at the field this morning I headed over to Publix to buy a cake, ice cream, balloons, and poster board to make a Welcome Home banner. Tonight , while T is here between babysitting gigs, we will eat dinner, have cake and ice cream for desert and celebrate our son's first offical day living with us as a family. 


BTW we are back to a change of first name again - I really thought that had died off but he REALLY wants to change his first name and get a fresh start in as many ways as he can. Although a change of name can't change his past, it is something he has voiced repeatedly to a variety of people - including a random boy who was helping coach him at ball camp yesterday. The boy was wearing a Newsome Baseball t-shirt and J connected the dots and asked if he knew T - he did, what are the chances of that? Newsome high school has over 2000 students. T's friend texted her that he just met her brother.....Sawyer McIntosh.