Love Each Child

Moving into Permanency

by steve

For some reason, I have the lyrics of an old song running through my head today as I watch Hope Giver become a permanent part of our family:

I love you more today than yesterday, but only half as much as tomorrow

Not all of the lyrics of this typical love song apply appropriately to the love between a father and a daughter, but I definitely relate to the line I quoted above. (I could, on the other hand, quote every single line of those lyrics to my wife, and they would not only be appropriate, but true!)

Many nights this past week, I have thought about sitting down and posting here, but it’s so hard to know what to say. And quite honestly, we wanted to let things settle a bit before posting again. Life has moved so rapidly these past few weeks that it seems a bit surreal.

Perhaps the most surreal part of all of this is the realization that this is no longer respite care. She is here permanently, and we don’t have to “give her back”. We have never had her here for more than eight days straight, so we’re very quickly coming up on the point where it will be the longest she has been here.

Last Sunday, around 5:00 PM, we arrived at Foster Family’s house for the final pick up. Transition happened a lot faster than we had originally thought it would, and basically consisted of just two weekends back with Foster Family so they could say their goodbyes. (Not that the goodbyes are permanent, but just in the roles they were playing prior to this transition.)

Sunday night, as Christy and I sat quietly, with both of our children having gone to bed, we commented on how we felt like we should be elated, yet we couldn’t feel that way. The reality was that we hurt very deeply for Foster Family and the pain of their farewell. So, in that sense, Hope Giver’s permanent arrival here was a bit anti-climactic. Tremendous elation ensued after the court hearings that brought her into our lives permanently, but this transition was not so jubilant. We felt their pain, and we could only quietly receive Hope Giver into our home and “weep with those who weep” (See Romans 12:15).

It’s all starting to sink in, though, and each day becomes more and more joyful and amazing. We also had the pleasure of filing the petition for adoption this week, which is, of course, a huge step in this process. In our system here in North Carolina, it could take up to six months for this adoption to be finalized, but we hope it will only be a couple of months.

Hope Giver is showing vast developments almost on a daily basis. At 19 months, she is learning and growing and developing and discovering so much. And what a joy to watch!

The excitement includes things like words that she is learning. Christy and I recently looked at some developmental “milestones” by age, and discovered that at this age, Hope Giver should be using about 10 to 20 words, including names. So we started making a list of all the words that she uses intelligently (not just mimicking or repeating from us). We’re admittedly a bit biased, but without exaggerating, we counted not 10, not 20, not 30, but…41 words that she knows and says, including names! And honestly, I think that list grows every day.

She’s also participating more and more in certain activities. There are some songs that she always enjoys having sung to her, and occasionally, she’ll jump in with a line here or there. (One of her favorite songs to sing is the ABC song, which probably has about 8 intelligible letters in her version, yet the correct melody and rhythm for the whole song!) But some songs, she has been content to just smile and bounce to, or ask for over and over again. One of those has been “Itsy Bitsy Spider”.

For a long time, we have tried to get her to do the motions with us, but it was always limited to her just putting her fingers together for the spider motion at the beginning and then watching us sing it. (As a tangent, it was funny one time when I started singing “It’s a Small World After All” and she heard “It’s a” which sounded to her like “Itsy” and she started making the spider motion! hehe)

Well, tonight I asked her if she wanted me to sing “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and she said yes. I said, “Are you going to do it with me?” and I started. She immediately jumped in with motions for the spider, the rain falling, the spider getting washed away, and the sun coming out! For some reason, she stopped there, but I was amazed at how much she had done. And so enthusiastically, too!

In order to facilitate the transition process, we have used a picture of all four of us to frequently remind her of who is who. It did not take long at all for her to start calling us “mommy” and “daddy”. And now, when we show her the picture and say, “Where’s mommy?” she points right to Christy. Same for me with “Where’s daddy?” (except pointing to me, not Christy!)

She has had trouble saying our son Dylan’s name up until now, and frequently tried to call him “daddy” in the past because of the “d” sound at the beginning. But the last couple of days, it has settled into something that sounds more like “ju-ju”, which we think is pretty cute! So we are “mommy”, “daddy” and “ju-ju” to her now!

All in all, things are going extremely well. We are enjoying each day with her and she is acting like she is very comfortable and happy here. And we’re very happy to have her here! I so wish we could share pictures here, but confidentiality still prohibits us from doing so. Perhaps after the adoption is finalized, we can. But we need to still decide on the level of privacy for her sake. If you’re a more than just a casual reader here in our lives, though, and would like to email us, we might be able to send you a picture or two through email.