The red tape everyone said was there...

These are the days that everyone associates with the adoption process. Two days before Thanksgiving, I am frustrated and heartbroken. Our plans were made. The boys had started packing, and we were ready to bring them home next week. Then, yesterday morning, we received word from the boys' caseworker that the date had been inexplicably moved...tentatively to the 13th, but there is a chance they will not be here before Christmas. 


I tried to ascertain what had happened, what we could do to fix it, but no answer was forthcoming. I was told that "these things happen" and that "the boys have been in foster care long enough that they should understand". How can that be true? They are little boys! They need to know something other than disappointment, and we were supposed to be able to provide that. I am so sad, and so frustrated. We haven't told them yet. I don't know how. 


Today, I spent the day being re-routed over and over again to offices that knew nothing about us or our case. The world, it seems, has gone on vacation. I have left countless voicemails and begged very aggravated government employees to help us. No one has been able to give me answers. Everyone seems to want to help, but no one seems to know how. 


I want to bring my boys home...and now all I can do is wait for someone to call me back. 

Tale of the Hundred Mile Hike

After looking over my posts, they have gotten a bit heavy. It seems I have left out the specifics of our visits with the boys. These weekends have been mini-vacations for our family. Gabbi now knows how to wheel her own carry-on bag and buckle her own airplane seatbelt. She considers herself very well travelled. I suppose she is.


On our quest to find family-friendly, inexpensive activities in South Carolina, the boys suggested that we "go to the mountains". I would later remind them that it was them, and not us, who had come up with this idea. 


Friday evening, we took in "Megamind-3D". Several sugar-highs and a very funny  movie later, we were ready to get out of the house on Saturday morning. We piled kids, snacks and entertainment into our rented car and headed for the mountains. Thanks to GPS, we made it up a winding and seemingly endless road a little over an hour later. We landed at Caesar's Head State Park in South Carolina. It was beautiful, picturesque and ...too quiet. My children ran helter-skelter, climbing on railings and making my mommy-alarm go wild. After a quick stop, I was informed that the shortest hike would be provided on Trail #15...roughly two miles. Two miles didn't sound like much---tire the kids out, head home for a quiet evening. Silly mommy.


We started off the trail the picture of happiness. Skipping down the trail, my children darted from leaf to leaf, pointing out colors and walking sticks. Fast forward to twenty minutes and approximately 300 yards later...total meltdown.  Ethan's legs were "broken"---clearly no chance for recovery. Andru was smacking every object in sight with a walking stick that, thus far, had not been used for walking. Gabbi was watching her two heroes and alternating imitation--broken legs one second, stick swords the next. My husband was mumbling something about the amount of "country walking" the boys would need to join him in the woods, and could not understand what I found so funny. 


It all felt so...normal. Children crawling and complaining through the woods. Mommy and Daddy determined to have a good time as a family, darn it. For the record, we made it. All two miles. The whole way home, Andru and Ethan insisted that we had walked at LEAST a hundred miles. Maybe...or we still have ninety-eight to go.  

Tough Love

As I struggle to stay awake after our late-night arrival home from our second visit with the boys, I realize that it is more than just the late hour that has me exhausted. 


I was so thrilled to see my sweet boys again. I loved hugging them as they arrived home from school, making their Christmas lists, doing Andru's homework while sprawled out on the living room floor. But this weekend was...long. The living room floor belonged to their foster parents, not us. I know that this process has moved "fast" by bureaucratic standards, but that doesn't make it drag any less for us, and for the boys. 


They are caught in a world on in-between, and so are we. We want to set our rules, lay the groundwork for our expectations...but the truth remains that they aren't wholly OURS yet. Someone else packed their lunch this morning, and someone else will tuck them in tonight. At 8 and 6, I cannot even imagine what that feels like. They have a mommy, but she's not there. They can call me, but I can't pick them up if they get hurt, or wipe their tears if they're sad. I'm 28---and I don't get it---so how can I expect that they will?  


Their whole lives, my sons have been torn away from things they should have been able to count on. At almost 9, Andru has the eyes of a very wise old man. He is so desperate to come here, to be a part of our family. He wants a new start, but cannot let go of what he has had to be his entire childhood--an adult. He was caretaker and disciplinarian for his brother. He provided food and safety, and it is very hard to believe that now, someone else will do that for him. He has this grin---so full of joy, so like a kid that you almost forget he hasn't been that for a long time. I wonder how long it will take him to realize its safe to be just that...my little man is so grown up, and I just want him to experience what life should have been like all along. 


Ethan is scared to death. He yells in his sleep, and crumples at the faintest hint of disappointment during the day. He is a 6 year old who has never lived a normal life. Five of his six years have been spent in foster care, shuffled from place to place. His current foster parents have had him for almost two years. They are the only stability he has ever known. And now we are taking him away from them, too. How do you tell a 6 year old that its okay to trust? I suppose you don't. We will try to show him everyday, and hope with our whole hearts that it works. He is so heartbreakingly sweet in moments when no one is looking. He will come up behind me, rest his head on my arm and slip his hand into mine. There we sit, two people hoping the other one likes them enough to keep them. In those moments, I am terrified to move, to break whatever magic it was that caused him to come close. 


Andru's moments are just the opposite. He is a whirlwind, and he will grab in a hug you're not even sure happened as he rushes from one thing to the next. I love them, and I love that I have begun to understand these moments. I love that Gabbi is okay with all of this, with two more people calling me mommy. She wants to hold their hand and wrestle on the living room floor. She wants to be in the thick of their activity, no matter how rough and tumble it might be. I suppose, at the end of the day, we are a family-in-waiting, hoping that we all can stretch out  the moments that make it worth it into something that includes us all. Soon, my sweet children, soon.