What to call multiple sets of grandparents?

Cleared up the issue with some phone calls...

- Pop (check)
- Nana (check)
- Ojichan (check)
- Grandpa (check)
- Grandma (check)
- Pawpaw (check)

I Think We're Matched!

As it happened, the other family did back out. It's just us now.

We had a presentation where more information was given to us. Many of our questions were answered. All of this information is hard to process, so excuse these choppy paragraphs.

He's a vivacious and energetic five-year-old boy. He loves playing with cars and trains. He likes to help around the house and he gets along great with all adults and with other kids. On pre-K academic tests, he's in the high range. He has a wonderful smile. My blog nickname for him is going to be "Sunny", for his sunny smile.

He was removed for neglect and has been in the same foster placement for several years. He calls his foster parents "Mom" and "Dad" and is very attached to them. He's had visits with his biomom, and he calls her by her first name. I don't know what he would call us. Maybe "Mommy" and "Daddy"? I don't want to confuse him by taking anyone else's title, but first names don't seem quite right either.

He's been diagnosed with ADHD and possibly bipolar. He's on a mood-stabilizing drug right now. I'm horrified by the particular drug, which is very strong, has at least one nasty side effect and has not been approved for small children. The first thing after placement would be to see if the doctor can take him off that. I'm not anti-med and it's very likely that he will need at least one ADHD drug on an ongoing basis, but if at all possible, I want to get him off the drug he's on now.

According to his therapist, he often engages in power struggles. He has a strong sense that the world should be fair. He can be redirected and understands consequences. He has a great memory but a short attention span. He has an IEP for behavior in the classroom, mostly concerning defiance towards authority, impulsivity and hyperactivity. He doesn't do well on the school bus and hates to sit down and be quiet. He doesn't sleep well, and he wets the bed, two things likely having to do with approaching anxiety about what will happen to him. He knows he's being adopted, even though he doesn't fully understand what it means. He has mood swings and tantrums lasting up to an hour... not aggressive, but with heel-kicking and screaming.

The workers were happy that we were very open to continuing contact, both with the foster parents and his biomom. There's an older half-brother on his father's side that he's never met. His father is in and out of jail. He's not dangerous on the level of the "Schillinger"-dad in Maerlowe's story, but without going into too much detail, he's not a safe person to have contact with. With the mother, there would be information sent through the caseworker (no addresses revealed). For the foster parents, we'd hope to have a lot of contact, plus yearly visits. The social workers said they often had to deal with situations where the adoptive parents were not as open to contact in the beginning. I said, "there's no point in being jealous". This is something our agency has always stressed: keeping positive contact alive.

Sunny's mother is white and his father is black. His foster family is white and they live in an upper-class, primarily white neighborhood. The social workers said that they liked the fact that our family and neighborhood is very diverse. He won't have to grow up being the only black kid, or alternately, being the only kid who doesn't look or sound as black as the other kids. When he starts to have questions and concerns about his identity (which will be just around the corner) we'll try to help him answer them in positive ways.

We didn't need time to discuss it privately... we went ahead and said yes.

The next step is a lot of paperwork. Then there'll be a visitation period. The workers want to do this fairly quickly. Dragging it out over a long period would only increase his anxiety.

I'm always thinking about the worst-case scenario, so I'm still worried that things could fall through in the stages to come. Is it time to give myself permission to feel like a mom? I don't know. "Sunny," who used to be a still, ghostlike figure, is gradually assuming emotional shape and form and color, and is about 80% opaque now, but still translucent.

Since I'm anonymous, I'm free to be very open on this blog. But I also need to establish what I'm not going to reveal:

- the state where Sunny is from
- intimate details of the stories of bio relatives
- medication names
- school details
- first or last names of anyone
- proper names in general

If I happen to know you, and you mention any of this in passing in comments, I'll have to delete the comment. Apologies in advance, and I'll send you an email too.

My husband seems completely unperturbed by this turn of events. It's odd. But he was already more in tune with the reality of this placement happening. He said he just knew it was going to happen. He's busy now thinking of names to give to grandparents, grandmothers and step-grandfathers.

We can start getting the room ready now. We're going to get a playset for the backyard.

This is so exciting!

We're going out tonight to my favorite Vietnamese restaurant to celebrate.

Finished the Movie

I ran into some issues rendering the Ken Burns effect in iMovie, but I solved it with a Quicktime update. I just burned it onto a DVD. It's eight minutes long and it's GREAT. My husband is going to run it by the agency tomorrow and get feedback from our caseworker.

I started it off by having my mother interview us last weekend. She's much more verbally articulate than I am, so she came up with great questions. Then I cut the interview with other short pieces of footage and photos and titles and the funky sound clips that come with iMovie.

I'm really tired...

If we get chosen, the movie will be taken out of state and used to show the boy what his new parents look like.

List of Questions

I cribbed these from a variety of sources. Does anyone have any other questions they think would be important, or links to more lists of questions? I need to review the list in "Parenting the Hurt Child" again.

I don't know if we will ask all of these, since for some of them we already know the answers. Still, most are unknown.

Attachment

Any disruptions?

Do the Foster parents feel they can attach?

How many placements has the child been through, and why did they end?

Basic

Are there any genetic issues that may affect the child later?

Are they currently receiving therapeutic services (psychological, speech, OT, etc.)

Are they on meds?

Do any of the children have any DSM IV diagnoses?

Does the child have any dangerous behaviours -- i.e., a history of fire setting, animal abuse, sexual abuse of other children, injuring others?

Does the child have any diagnosed conditions -- i.e., dyslexia, Attention Deficit Disorder, Reactive Attachment Disorder? Is there reason to suspect that any such conditions exist that have not been diagnosed?

Does the child have any other health issues that should be of concern?

Has the child been tested for communicable or hereditary diseases?

Have they received counseling for any of the issues that put them in care?

Is there any history of sexual abuse, or sexual acting out? If so, how has it been handled?

Family Origin

Any family history of mental retardation or mental illness?

Are there any birth relatives, foster parents, or others who have had a significant positive impact on the child? Are they willing to remain in touch with the child after adoption?

Are there any relatives who are particularly unsafe or dangerous?

Did the child's parents have addictions to drugs or alcohol?

Does the child have brothers or sisters? How many? How old? Where are they? Why aren't they being placed together? Will they visit?

Is it likely the child's mother used drugs or alcohol while pregnant?

Was there prenatal exposure to drugs or alcohol?

Why they were removed in the first place?

Circumstances

How long the children have been in care?

How many reunification attempts have there been, and why did they fail?

When did initial removal occur and how old was the child?

Why isn't the foster family adopting?

Why was the child originally removed from the birth home?

Lifestyle

How do his current caretakers discipline him? Is this method effective?

Are there any photos available of the child in his birth or foster homes that he can bring to his new home?

Does the child attend religious services, and if so, what kind?

Does the child enjoy any particular hobbies?

Does the child have a pet that he would like to bring along?

Does the child have any favourite toys, foods, television shows?

Does the child have any treasured possessions that should come with him?

Does the child participate in any sports or scouting activities?

Is there anything else about the child we should know to ease his adjustments to his new home?

What does the child like to do?

Why do you think they would be a good match to our lifestyle?

What is the community like where the child lives now? Are they used to this community and comfortable there?

School

How does the child socialize in the classroom?

Is this child more or less disruptive than others and how are the disruptions resolved

How frequently does the child come to school without homework assignments done, again how does this compare to other students in the class; what actions does the teacher take to building cooperation to turn in homework

What are his/her best subjects and greatest need for further work

How well does the child interact with classmates in the classroom, at recess

Does the child participate in sports, and if they are team sports how well does (s)he interact with team mates and opposing teams

How does the child do getting on and off the school bus (anxiety?, tardy?)

Ask about their school situation. Do they have IEPs or 504 plans?

MLK Day March in Atlanta Video

I edited my footage down to a few minutes. I think I'm getting the hang of this!

Obama versus Hillary supporters... the War of Words

Here's a short clip I recorded from the time we were hanging around waiting for the march to start. Two supporters mix it up in a lively discussion!

MLK Day March and Rally and Other Stuff

I'll be attending this year.

Here's a link to a description.

This holiday weekend I've been busy editing a movie about our family that we're going to give to the caseworkers. The big meeting is coming up soon. A long, long time ago, I used to work in the video industry, so I'm finding the iMovie interface is really easy. It's still going to be a lot of hard work just cataloging the clips. I'm going to be so sick of looking at myself by the time I'm finished!

Anyway, I'll take my camera to the march, film a little, and see if I can post it here later. No promises... I haven't even gotten around to posting Hawaii footage.

Finally, for those who are interested, I greatly expanded on my blog post about crime and turned it into a larger piece about racialization over at rachelstavern.com. The post got some very interesting comments from people who know a lot about the subject. Then the resident anarcho-capitalist asked me a question I have ZERO interest in answering (he thinks the solution to every social problem is MORE GUNS MORE GUNS MORE GUNS) but for those who want to see how Georgia's gun laws compare to other states, Georgia gets a D, Florida gets an F+ and New York gets a B+.

Ah, Georgia. If it weren't for states like Florida and Alabama, we'd be the worst in just about everything. Luckily our underperforming neighbors make us look better. I really couldn't imagine living anywhere else though! Maybe Vancouver or Mexico City, but that's about it.

Local Crime Complaint

Two off-duty police officers were just ambushed, shot and killed in a neighborhood not too many miles away from mine! They're still looking for the gunmen.

We've had too many dramatic crime stories recently. Last year, in a different neighborhood, also not too far away from where I live, a family was having a large dinner party when two thugs started shooting through their living room window. Everyone ran upstairs and jumped out the back second-story window, sustaining several injuries... the thugs ran toward the train station but were caught. It was a completely stupid random walk-by shooting.

And last month a Fulton police officer got carjacked.

Atlanta has a rising murder rate when most other large cities have a declining rate. The official spin is to blame resettled New Orleans gangsters, but I don't buy that, we have plenty of native Atlantan criminal issues already. It's completely insane. We need a lot more work and resources in this area. The lack of emphasis on community policing is just terrible. Judging by my last experience calling 911, there are problems across the board. We need better gun control, more beat cops (do these even EXIST anymore? I certainly never see any), more transparency and better-motivated police officers with less police corruption. I'm sick of hearing local news about grannies shot down by police and prisoners shooting court reporters and rappers shooting videos from their jail cells.

Atlanta is not all that bad, but it's not getting better either.

Are you a fan of The Wire?

Then you should check out this book.



I'm incredibly busy but I found some time to start reading this memoir by the actress who plays Snoop on The Wire. She grew with her foster parents, who were great except that they were very elderly and couldn't keep her out of trouble. Like her character, she turned into a junior drug dealer and violent thug. She went to prison for murder but turned her life around when she got the job acting in The Wire.

If you haven't been following The Wire, here's a fantastic video that condenses four seasons into four minutes. A few of the subplots and minor characters get dropped but it really covers all the major stuff.

Foster Care, Ethics and Motivation

This is a scattershot link post to some recent interesting discussions on ethics and motivation in foster care and foster care adoption.

Yondalla: If You Want to Adopt You Should... and Foster Care and Moral Obligation and Another Paradox: Motivation and Obligation

Amanda: What's My Motivation?

The posts reminded me of my year-old post, Adoption from Foster Care and Saving a Child. I revisited it and found I still basically agree with what I wrote.

This is a difficult but important topic. I think many of us are sick of the standard-issue arguments and commonplace sayings surrounding foster care. Foster carers are simultaneously sainted and demonized in mass media and within the adoption sphere. Pushing them to the extremes like that doesn't do any good at all for any kind of reform effort. But it's easier than actually listening to their complex, sometimes conflicting viewpoints... or the even more complex viewpoints of adults who were raised in the system.

Here's a comment I left at Yondalla's that expresses some of my frustration about this.

Hear, hear. I strongly believe in adoption reform in all areas but that particular argument -- "why don't you just adopt from foster care" -- is really irritating. I feel like saying... unless you have some experience with the foster care system already, in some capacity, YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. YOU REALLY DON'T. DON'T PRETEND YOU DO. Don't use children in foster care as props in your arguments without real regard for them.

More Exciting News

I just heard we are looking very good as the best candidates for parents for the boy. According to our CW, the other family left in the running had sounded "wishy-washy" about adopting an African-American child. Apparently they'd said they were open but are now having second thoughts. I'm not going to be judgmental. After all, if they live in a 99% white community, then it's a good thing they're having second thoughts.

It's also exciting that the boy may be from the same foster family as another boy placed by the agency here. There is a certain amazing coincidence involved. The boys could visit each other!

I really enjoyed reading Maggie's account of her waiting and matching period. She talked about several possible matches and give each one a great nickname. For those who don't read her blog, she was eventually matched with "Slugger", her baseball-loving son. I don't think I can do that on this blog... for some reason, it doesn't feel right calling him anything other than "the boy" at this point in time. If we do get matched (gasp) I'll give him a blog nickname I already have in mind.

We've taken out some books from the agency library. We're also moving forward on some house projects. Before, we really didn't have any idea what to do. Should we get a crib? A toddler gate? A bunk bed? We're not going to make any major purchases yet, but we're preparing. Schools are another issue. We just have to be flexible. We're not in a good school district, but the good one is only a mile away. If we pay a bit of extra money and forgo the school bus, we should be able to get an entry spot in one of the elementary schools there. Private school and homeschooling are also backup possibilities. And should we install a fence for our backyard? Decisions... can't wait to start really making them.

Staffing update

Final decision postponed. We're in the final round -- one out of two families -- for the boy. Plus, we're also one out of three on another inquiry on a girl from another state. We know almost nothing about her yet.

The workers for the boy want to meet both prospective families in person before they decide. The meeting will be around the end of the month. We'll have some "homework" to do.

I don't want to go into much detail about the boy's special needs, but none of them are in our red flag zone. There's ADHD, which a huge percentage of the children will have anyway, often environmental and not "true" ADHD. Since my cousin has a very strong form of genetic ADHD, I'm not unfamiliar with it at all. It's challenging, but my whole family learned a lot of lessons from how his education was (mis)handled.

I'm kind of a geek, but I'm only good at math when I'm trying really hard. I had to brush up on basic probability to figure this out. But one out of two on one and one out of three on the other adds up to...

50% chance of being selected for one child
+
17% chance of being selected for both
=
67% chance of being selected for at least one!

Well, our plans to switch agencies have been moved to the back burner for now.

The Good News Is...

... I got religion!

I attended a Jodo Shinshu Buddhist church during my trip to Hawaii. This was a really good experience. Since then I've been doing a lot of research, preparation, thinking and planning. I think this is the right path for me. This is not quite a conversion, since my family background is sort of Buddhist. In fact, when I was a little kid we once lived in a Buddhist monastery/mission.

It's very hard to explain my reasons and what has brought me to this particular decision. There are both rational and emotional factors. I will go into one major rational factor in a future post. Until then, I'll explain myself in a form of a Q&A.

What is Jodo Shinshu?
A form of Buddhism started in 13th-century Japan. Here's the Wikipedia entry. It comes from the broader Mahayana Pure Land tradition of entrusting yourself to Amida/Amitabha Buddha.

Why does it have a "church"?
In America Jodo Shinshu was first practiced almost exclusively by Japanese-Americans, and during the internment it was decided to call the American organization "Buddhist Churches of America" in order to make it seem less foreign. The BCA is still very directly connected to the home organization in Japan. Here is some more info. Today the BCA is becoming more multi-ethnic.

Is there a church or congregation in Atlanta?
No, unfortunately... There is a Chinese Pure Land organization here, however, and I'm going to make a visit to their library soon. The philosophy is close, but there are a few important differences, so I don't anticipate actually joining them, although I do want to learn more. Until then I'm on my own, except for internet contact. Maybe a group will start up here in the future.

What's the next step?
Reading more, studying more, fixing up my home altar (I had a very basic one before but never did a lot with it), chanting "nembutsu", listening to chants, incorporating more principles into my life. Eventually I'll want to go through the confirmation ceremony at a center such as Kyoto (or possibly New York City) and receive a "dharma name". Or I could just stay an independent practitioner.

What about your family?
I haven't talked to a lot of people about this. I want to take things pretty slow and make sure I know what I'm doing.

Does this mean you believe in reincarnation?
I don't feel the need to believe in literal reincarnation. I'm still an atheist. Perhaps there is a conflict there, but I'm not too worried about it.

Does this mean you're not a Unitarian-Universalist anymore?
No, I'm still a UU. No conflict there at all.

Are you a vegetarian?
I was a vegetarian for three years when I was a teenager. It was hellish. Every single night I dreamed of eating barbecue ribs. You'd think I'd stop having dreams about pork after the first year, but they just kept coming. Today I'm a light meat-eater and I almost never eat beef, but I still wouldn't make a good vegetarian. I might start following a traditional practice of not eating meat on the 16th of every month.

What are the benefits?
As many readers know, I've been really stressed lately. Also, I feel a lingering sense of disappointment over not getting enough things accomplished. My failed PhD attempt. Mysterious infertility. Adoption roadblocks. A job I never blog about because it's so damn boring. I want to be an effective person that creates positive change in the world. At my age (getting into mid-30s) I've only just realized I'm never going to achieve all my goals under my own power. This has been very liberating. At times I've been misguided, fearful, selfish and petty. I accept that. This may sound fatalistic and pessimistic, but believe me, it's not. Instead, I feel like I can finally stop beating myself up. I need to stop throwing up barriers to appreciating the many positive things in my life. I'll still keep trying for my goals!

Will you make any changes to the blog?
I don't foresee any major changes. I'm going to try and balance truth and compassion more, so I won't be quite as sarcastic towards ignorant whackos such as populate our state government, or if I am really sarcastic towards them, I'll at least include a hope they will eventually become less ignorant.



Finally... here's something I could have filed in the "benefits" section. Our family was presented in a staffing this morning. My caseworker emailed me to tell me we should know the results within an hour of the time I write these words. I'm currently not crying, throwing up, constructing elaborate fantasies, gnawing my keyboard or banging my head against the wall. Que será, será.

Short New Year's Day Post

I'm really enjoying reading everyone's New Year's wrap-up posts. There are so many I can't link them all!

For the last week, I was working up to a personal, introspective post about how I received two pieces of disappointing news over my Hawaii vacation. I don't feel like writing that post anymore. Instead, I feel very positive . I'm pretty sure I will have some good news to report soon.