Teen adoption

Recently, some on my Yahoo groups have posted many issues with teen adoption, in some cases, real horror stories. To read some of these, you would run screaming in the other direction and never consider adopting an older child. Then you read the posts of those who had the opposite experience. While I can't imagine any transition being seamless and perfect, there are those who have experienced less "bumps" in the road.
Am I more scared now than I was? Yep. Am I more aware of what things to watch for? Yep. Do I worry about how this will impact our current children? Of course! Each time we adopted, we spent time rebuilding a "new normal". I cannot speak for anyone else, but I feel it was crucial for us to wait so long between adoptions to get to that "good" place that can weather another upheaval and adding another teen will definitely upheave us!
We talked with all our kids at the dinner table tonight about all the things that "could" happen and what we would do. As advised in some of the posts I mentioned above, having a plan is the key. We even discussed changing certain behaviors that we don't want our new son to mimic and that we would all need to be tremendously patient while Lucky finds his niche in our family. We even talked about our basic family rules (which is hard to put on paper definitively if you've never done so!).
I especially have to be prepared for him to not want affection or touching or hugging for a long time, if ever. That will be hard for me, as I show my affection physically with hugs, kisses, a pat on the shoulder, etc. I think when we come home, one-day-at-a-time will be my motto.
Debbie

Homestudy visit!

Today was our home visit for the homestudy. This was a good excuse for me to purge the house of "excess". We got rid of a large truckload...going to have a garage sale to raise funds. Home visit went great, social worker said she would approve us for healthy or special needs, 15 and under, boy. That should cover it! Very happy to have that first one out of the way, next week we should have the visits done, so I'm hoping to get the dossier ready to certify and authenticate by the time the homestudy is done.

On another subject, I chose to run for our school board back in January. When the adoption came up, I thought about withdrawing but I like to start what I finish. Tonight, we had a town forum where we introduced ourselves and answered questions. I was so nervous I thought I was going to hurl! But it went well and I got a lot of good feedback, so we'll see what happens next Tuesday! There are six candidates for 2 positions, unheard of in our little town!

Picture of Lucky

Here he is! Isn't he a nice-looking young man??!!

PA, PA, PA

I have been so busy I keep forgetting to post! But I have tremendous news! After finding Lucky's file and getting it transferred back to WACAP, we of course submitted LOI. To our amazement, we got a call from our agency on March 15th, less than 24 hours after we submitted our LOI, to tell us we got PA! God is truly in control of this journey and we are humbled by his Grace to open the door to China once again! Please pray that I can get the paperwork done fast and that the homestudy goes quickly! The Sanders are leaving next week to pick up Dusty and I'm sending a letter with them for Lucky. We are trying to think of names to suggest to him and let him pick which one he wants; of course, the only thing we ask is that it be a "J" name!
I wanted to lift up my older children in praise tonight.....we have to trust that God will provide the finances for this adoption; He has already provided much needed help in the form of financial aid through our agency and an orphanage donation waiver, but that will still leave around $15,000 (by my estimates) to come up with. Not a small amount in only 5 months! Jessica and James offered their help by choosing to withdraw from a school trip in 2013 they were signed up for and we were putting money towards. They wanted us to use that money to help with the adoption costs instead. We're hoping we can take a family trip instead to celebrate Jessica's graduation in 2013.

2012- New Journeys

Hi! I haven't posted for such a long time! Been busy running the kids around to everything under the sun! I've revived our blog because once again, God has opened the door to China quite unexpectedly. I have always felt there was one child missing from our family, another boy to complement our wonderful son James, who has always desired a brother as well. We have begun the Amazing Race to our new (hopefully) son, a 13-year old who will age out in August of THIS year. Can't say much more or post his picture until PA, I think. About 5 total months to do what we did in 20 months the first time and 13 months the second time; hmmmm, seems to be a pattern developing here.
Our kids are very excited and can't wait....this will be so fast it will be no time at all. We'll have to think of some good fundraisers as God in his infinite sense of humor, allowed us to move mountains to submit LOI (will post on that tomorrow), but neglected to provide the funds quite yet!
Stay tuned.....
Debbie

ok, back again, at least it's only been two months this time. I truly cannot believe how busy we are some days. Getting 4 kids to their various places is just wild! At least Judi and Jaz go to some of the same places, but I am getting to the point where, on a rare day off, I want to stay home and go nowhere! Today was a day off, but here was the agenda: up at 6 to get the kids ready and drive them to school (normally they ride the bus), went back at 9:30 for Judi's Valentine party, then right to Jazmin's at 11. Got out of school at 1pm, drove 20 miles to Wsbg for Judi's doctor appt as she has sinusitis AGAIN! At least she went 4 months without it this time. Picked up medicine, hightailed it back to Leeton for parent teacher conferences for older 3 kids from 3:30 to 4:45. Picked up son, zoomed back to house, grabbed dance stuff, dropped Judi off with Jessica, and went back to town for James' baseball practice and Jazmin's dance class! Then I'm back up at 4:45 tomorrow for work at 6! At least the kids are out of school tomorrow so I don't have to whisk them into bed as soon as we get home. That's not a typical day, but kind of close!

The kids are all thriving, Jessica is doing so great this year in 9th. Always on the high honor roll, she got nominated for homecoming princess (tho didn't win, but close!), and is going to try out for the cheerleading squad in April. James is all baseball and basketball. He's 12 and a half and is over 5'6"; he grew 3 inches just from July! He's going to be tall and skinny like my dad and younger brother (6' and 6'3" respectively). He's also doing much better this semester, getting A's, B's, and a C instead of "ahem", lower. His teachers say he's really got his head on straight now and is seeming to mature more every day.

Jazmin is just precious and is loved by everyone she meets. She's doing great in 1st grade and her reading has really gone gangbusters so far; it's so cool to hear your kid read! She's a wonderful big sister tho she does get impatient with Judi sometimes; they still get along great almost all the time, but there are times I have to make them separate to get a "breather" from each other.

Judi just takes the world by storm; it is her playground. She walks around the school like she was born there. She still follows Jaz everywhere and copies her, we're working on learning that she can choose to do other things, it doesn't always have to be what Jaz does or gets or wants; still some competition there. She can write her name now very well, knows all her colors, almost all the alphabet by site, and is now asking me to spell everything. I think she'll be ready for kindergarden in the fall with no problem. She still seems little to me, just a compact ball of energy and smarts and attitude. She's only 41" tall but you always know when Judi's in the room! Enjoy the latest pics....til next time!

Finally back!!

I'm baaaaack! Well, for now anyway! Here's a brief synopsis of the last few months....Judi started preschool in August and loves it. BUT she hates getting up early! She is so not a morning person. She still has a tendency to say mean things when she's upset so we're working on using our nice words. She's got Christmas figured out already. She's good, Santa likes that, so she gets presents! We haven't put up the tree yet, but should be great to see what she thinks....so far she loves everything to do with Christmas. All the kiddos are doing well...Jessica is 15 and a half and now has her permit; yikes! James finished basketball and is now onto baseball practice; this kid is all about sports! Jazmin loves piano and dance and Judi likes her dance class. Though next year I think I will let Judi choose between dance or tumbling, she's just such an energy ball!
Having 4 kids is more of a challenge than I thought, I just have to take it day by day most times. Here are a few pics until my next post..