More Practice

Me and Mia (matching outfits)

Mia and Dakota (New Best Friends)

Uncle Danny, Mia and Dakota
(Watching Cartoons Together)

Our niece is visiting from Oregon, she turned 5 about 1 week ago. She is staying with us for three weeks, and visiting with grandma while she is here. We are having fun with her. We have had a park play date with a few children that are being adopted from Orange County Foster Care and they got along great! She had so much fun, and I have to admit, I had fun picking their moms brain a little about "the system". (Thanks Ash) She has been playing in our little pool in the back yard. Saturday she is going with g-ma to watch her cousin play in his t-ball game and Sunday we are going to the Long Beach Aquarium! Fun fun.

We have had her since Sunday 04/27 and we have already established a routine at the house. She is such a great kid and Uncle Danny told her mommy that we are just going to keep her. She giggled.

PRIDE Session 9 (04/29) DONE!!

Session Nine: Taking PRIDE: Making an Informed Decision. In the closing session, the participants hear from a panel of experienced members of the child welfare team that may include foster parents, adoptive parents, workers, family members, and foster care youth/alumni.

Yay! We are all finished with our PRIDE classes. We had our last one last night and it was a big Pot Luck. We had great food and listened to some speakers. It was interesting. We got our certificates for Orange Foster Care saying that we have completed the training. We had our finger printing done and are still waiting for our Social Worker to contact us... any day now we hope!

PRIDE Session 8 (04/22/08)

Session Eight: Planning Change. This session takes a practical view of what to expect during the first hours, days, and weeks of a child’s placement with a family. Participants learn what to ask the child’s worker and how to talk with the child. Participants also have the opportunity to explore how placement will impact their own family.

We definitely learned a lot in this class about what to ask when we are called with a possible placement. We learned the importance of understanding the child's situation. What school the child is currently enrolled in, what the child's noted behaviors are and what type(s) of abuse the child has endured. We especially discussed boundaries. What types of boundaries should be enforced in the home (our home) when the child first comes to live with us.. what is ok and what is not.

Next week is our last PRIDE class, it will be a Pot Luck and we will hear from a panel of foster moms, adoptive moms, social workers etc.... Our instructor told me, privately tonight that she has already spoken to our assigned social worker and we are lucky. She told me that we have been assigned a "good social worker" and that we are fortunate to have her. We are just waiting now for her to contact us.. but since she asked our instructor about us, that means she must have already reviewed our file... so we must be close on her list. Yay! ~ One of the other girls in the class already has her first visit scheduled for Tuesday next week(she has a different social worker). We also have our appointment to get our fingerprinting done, for the background check on Thursday this week.

We thought after these PRIDE sessions were complete that we were done with the classes, but I learned tonight that once we meet with our social worker she will refer us to start our "Adoption Classes" which are called Kinship - there are 6 classes to complete.

The 8 Steps...

The 8 Steps to Adopt a Child

1. Contact Us ( http://www.oc4kids.com/ )
2. Submit an application
3. Complete a Training Series for Adoptive Parents .....
( We 1 class left after this week)
4. Homestudy ( We are waiting to schedule the first visit now)
5. Matching
6. Placement
7. Adoption Signing
8. Finalization

They forgot a step in between 4 and 5 though... that's the waiting period.. the worst of all! LOL

Oh and I wanted to share this... I thought this was really beautiful!

Not flesh of my flesh, Nor bone of my bone,
But still miraculously my own.
Never forget for a single minute,
You didn't grow under my heart - but in it

The Letter

Ok, so we received the letter in the mail... The letter means hardly nothing, but to me it was like a milestone! I feel like ok, it's official! It confirmed that they received the application and told us that we have been assigned our Social Worker. her name is Kristen, yay! She is supposed to contact us within the next 30 days to schedule the homestudy. We will be going soon to get our fingerprints done, for the background check. We only have 2 PRIDE classes left (the last one is just a pot luck, so 1 & 1/2, hehe)

A little venting... We have Time Warner Cable - the combo pack with the cable, phone and Internet... and our service has been down off and on in the last couple weeks. I told Danny yesterday, I am over this. I want to switch back to Verizon.. Don't these people know we are waiting on a VERY important phone call? Grrr, what if she tried/tries calling one day when the service is down.. does that mean we will go to the bottom of her pile? NOOOO. We can't take that chance.

PRIDE Session 7 (04/15/08)

Session Seven: Continuing Family Relationships. This session promotes understanding of permanency time frames and the importance of the “child’s clock” in making permanency decisions.

This class taught us the importance of placing the children in a permanent home as soon as possible. It is best for the children's development emotionally, physically, mentally etc... Obviously we would like them placed in our home as soon as possible, so we agree.

We have two classes left. One of the people in the class mentioned that she has already received her letter from Social Services in the mail and has already gone down to get finger printed for her back round check... so we are watching the mail like hawks (I am any way, hehe) and hoping to get ours soon. She turned her application in a week before we did, so I am expecting the letter any day now. Once we do that, we will be waiting for the call from our social worker to schedule our first visit for the homestudy.

Side Note: I just met a lady online who adopted through orange county social services and she got her placement (her children) within 2 months after completing her homestudy. She was blessed with a 4 year old boy and a 3 year old girl, and then (of course) the bio mom was pregnant again, and they took the infant - All within a couple of months... So there is hope... Yay!

PRIDE Session 6 (04/08/08)

Session Six: Meeting Developmental Needs: Discipline. This session explores the challenge of discipline and the difference between discipline and punishment. The session offers an outline of ways foster and adoptive parents can best meet the goal of providing discipline that works.

Tonight we learned what is acceptable and not acceptable as far as "punishment" and discipline goes for foster children. We learned that Spanking is absolutely not allowed in any way and if you have biological children in the home, the foster children can not know about or ever hear any type of spanking of the bio children. They recommend redirection and time outs, or other forms of applicable punishments that fit the "crime".

We also learned about effective ways to handle the children after a visit with the birth parents, before the parents rights have been terminated. These children will most often act out in some way or another, to do feelings of anger, sadness, resentment etc.

YES, we turned in our application! Yippeeee! The social worker/PRIDE instructor reviewed it to make sure everything was complete and said we will be contacted within 30 days by our assigned social worker. Then we will schedule the homestudy. We have done a couple of things around the house to prepare, like get the fire extinguisher for the kitchen and put the safety outlet covers on. We still have quite a bit to do, but we will!

Practice ....

Danny and I agreed to babysit our friends kids for a couple hours on Wednesday night. Nate is 4 and Luke is 20 months. Being that we are hoping for two children under the age of 5, there is a great possibility that this is the age range we will end up with, so we figured it would be great practice. The kids were great, and very well behaved. Although it was a lot of work and they kept us very busy, we have to understand that these children have had proper parenting for their entire lives, and the children we are blessed with, will most likely have had very limited parenting.. so it opened our eyes (a little bit) as to what we should expect.

I have always been around young children and was prepared for the fun night... Danny was really great with them and had a good time as well, although he disappeared into the bedroom a couple of times, for a short break and to catch up on the Celtics game and the Angels game...(since of course we were watching Aladdin) I thought that was kinda funny.

PRIDE - Session 5 (04/01/08)

Session Five: Strengthening Family Relationships - The focus of this session is on family identity, cultural heritage, and self-esteem in children. Participants have the opportunity to learn ways to help a child develop positive cultural identity and important family and sibling connections.

The first portion of this class was very informative. We discussed ways to help a child feel welcome and like they are a "part" of the "family" even as foster children. For example, to take a family photo that Includes them! Assign them "their" seat at the dinner table, or put their name on their bedroom door, which symbolizes they have their own space in your home, etc...

We also learned a little more about the Visitation with the Biological family during the children's time in foster care, during the time that they will be living with us, until the rights of the parents have been officially terminated. The visitation starts off at 2 hours twice weekly, and will either increase or decrease depending on the birth families progress. Due to the fact that we will be in the foster to adopt program, we will receive chil(ren) that the social workers are already convinced that the parents rights will be terminated, which means we will have less visitation with the birth parents.... could be 1 hour once a week, more or less. We also learned the importance of retaining as much information from the birth parents as possible during these visits, regarding family history, medical and other wise. The children's likes and dislikes regarding food, colors, movies etc... to understand the children the best possible, and to be able to tell them about their birth families when they are old enough to start asking questions.

Over all, We feel this class taught us quite a bit that we will be able to use in the future.
No.... we did not turn in the application yet.. unfortunately, there are still a couple unfinished documents that "one" of us is still working on. The Social worker will not typically start working with us until the PRIDE classes are complete, but I still want to get it turned in as soon as possible, so that we can at least get our social worker assigned to us... WE WILL NEXT WEEK!
4 classes to go!!!! (but who's counting, giggles)