Quinn was such a joy to behold today. When we got to his foster parents house, he was genuinely happy to see us. He laughed at Billy and crawled over to me to pick him up.
Yesterday, he wouldn't even let Billy hold him. He thought Billy was cool - as long as he was in my arms. He preferred Billy today, which was a relief for me. I was a little worried that when we got home, he would be so attached to me that I would be solely responsible for his happiness.
We spent the morning walking around Tiffin, got lunch and tried the hotel again. He freaked upon entering, but calmed down once we got into our room - and turned on Noggin. We played for a while and then he curled up in my arms and fell asleep. Precious. He woke up after an hour and laid down on Billy and fell asleep again.
After his nap we went to the park and then met his foster parents and extended foster family for pizza. His foster moms took him back home for his last night with them.
We are so blessed to have been able to spend time with this amazing couple - and their family. They are truly a testament to unconditional love. They knew when they received Quinn that he would be leaving with us, yet they have loved him and cared for him better than we could have ever wanted. They are having a hard time letting go, so if you would say a little prayer that God would heal their broken hearts and prepare them for their next placement.
We will leave to come home tomorrow with the happiest baby on earth!
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Where do babies come from?
Ohio of course!
We are here and have been for 2 days. I had all intentions of updates, but this is exhausting (and I can't post pictures because if forgot the USB cord for the camera.)
The drive up was fairly easy and uneventful, but was LONG. We were a wee bit nervous when we pulled into the city limits and the first thing we saw was a club with exotic dancers - yikes!
Turns out, Tiffin is an amazing city. Imagine Homewood, AL or Franklin, TN on steroids. It is a rural town out in the middle of nowhere, so the demographic is much different than those places. Most of the awesome storefronts are empty. I keep looking for cute boutiquey stores and and neat local restaurants that would abound in the South in a place like this. Most of the homes appear to have been built in the late 1800s to early 1900s and by size of them, this used to be one of the places to live in Ohio. Unlike Homewood who boasts many small shotgun type houses, these are huge even by today's standards.
Since we arrived into town around midnight on Thursday, we came to the hotel and tried to sleep. I think we actually got around 4 hours in and then were up and ready to meet the social worker in the lobby to go to court.
In our last conversation with the powers that be in Ohio, we understood that we would be receiving legal custody of him yesterday. They changed things up and decided that initially we would be considered foster parents and would get legal custody sometime in the next 6 months - more than likely this will occur in September at the next court date.
We arrived at the courthouse and were excited to meet all the people who have worked so hard to take care of Quinn and facilitate his move to Alabama. His social worker, foster parents, CASA worker, lawyers, Guardian Ad Litem for his birth mother were all there. It was so overwhelming to finally hug all these very special people.
Court went fine, it was mostly just routine. Billy "took the stand" and I had to sit outside and it was done. We were officially given "foster parent" status of Quinn!
While we were filling out paperwork, his foster parents went, picked him up and brought him to us. It really wasn't pretty. His mom's were crying, he was confused and reaching for them, I was trying to be sensitive to him and them while wanting to squeeze him and make him love me. Billy and I left with him to begin the bonding process.
We thought we would bring him to our hotel room and spend time with him here. Upon entering the hotel, he freaked out. Much of our first day was spent in the car so he could nap and such. We returned him to his foster parents around 5 and enjoyed the evening together trying to process this big day.
We are here and have been for 2 days. I had all intentions of updates, but this is exhausting (and I can't post pictures because if forgot the USB cord for the camera.)
The drive up was fairly easy and uneventful, but was LONG. We were a wee bit nervous when we pulled into the city limits and the first thing we saw was a club with exotic dancers - yikes!
Turns out, Tiffin is an amazing city. Imagine Homewood, AL or Franklin, TN on steroids. It is a rural town out in the middle of nowhere, so the demographic is much different than those places. Most of the awesome storefronts are empty. I keep looking for cute boutiquey stores and and neat local restaurants that would abound in the South in a place like this. Most of the homes appear to have been built in the late 1800s to early 1900s and by size of them, this used to be one of the places to live in Ohio. Unlike Homewood who boasts many small shotgun type houses, these are huge even by today's standards.
Since we arrived into town around midnight on Thursday, we came to the hotel and tried to sleep. I think we actually got around 4 hours in and then were up and ready to meet the social worker in the lobby to go to court.
In our last conversation with the powers that be in Ohio, we understood that we would be receiving legal custody of him yesterday. They changed things up and decided that initially we would be considered foster parents and would get legal custody sometime in the next 6 months - more than likely this will occur in September at the next court date.
We arrived at the courthouse and were excited to meet all the people who have worked so hard to take care of Quinn and facilitate his move to Alabama. His social worker, foster parents, CASA worker, lawyers, Guardian Ad Litem for his birth mother were all there. It was so overwhelming to finally hug all these very special people.
Court went fine, it was mostly just routine. Billy "took the stand" and I had to sit outside and it was done. We were officially given "foster parent" status of Quinn!
While we were filling out paperwork, his foster parents went, picked him up and brought him to us. It really wasn't pretty. His mom's were crying, he was confused and reaching for them, I was trying to be sensitive to him and them while wanting to squeeze him and make him love me. Billy and I left with him to begin the bonding process.
We thought we would bring him to our hotel room and spend time with him here. Upon entering the hotel, he freaked out. Much of our first day was spent in the car so he could nap and such. We returned him to his foster parents around 5 and enjoyed the evening together trying to process this big day.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Who gets the Worm?
We have a bird living in our garage. My kids noticed the nest in a box and when I checked the nest, it had 4 cream eggs with brown specks on them. I thought the bird had probably flown the coop, so to speak, and decided that abandoning her unborn babies was probably better than dealing with 4 children peering in on her, all the while thinking how she could have been so "lucky" as to pick our garage out of all the other places in Birmingham to raise her family.
I told AB that she had probably abandoned the nest and AB immediately wanted to incubate the eggs in a blanket. I told her that wouldn't work and we would wait and see. Well, the bird came back. We were leaving our garage door open during most of the day and closing it at night.
I had almost forgotten about this incident and how fond birds are of our homes. A few days ago, Billy was getting AB ready for school and opened the door to go get something out of the garage fridge. Apparently mama was itching to be the early bird and we had overslept. She flew right into our laundry room! Billy averted major tragedy by carefully closing the door from the kitchen into the laundry room and managed to shoo the bird out - but not before it pooped all over the laundry room.
Needless to say, if you drive by our home our garage door is either open or cracked so that the resident bird can come and go as she pleases.
I told AB that she had probably abandoned the nest and AB immediately wanted to incubate the eggs in a blanket. I told her that wouldn't work and we would wait and see. Well, the bird came back. We were leaving our garage door open during most of the day and closing it at night.
I had almost forgotten about this incident and how fond birds are of our homes. A few days ago, Billy was getting AB ready for school and opened the door to go get something out of the garage fridge. Apparently mama was itching to be the early bird and we had overslept. She flew right into our laundry room! Billy averted major tragedy by carefully closing the door from the kitchen into the laundry room and managed to shoo the bird out - but not before it pooped all over the laundry room.
Needless to say, if you drive by our home our garage door is either open or cracked so that the resident bird can come and go as she pleases.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Playing Catch Up
Baseball season is officially over for us. We played with an amazing group of boys. Although our winnings were few, we had a lot of fun. We really lucked into playing on a team with awesome, fun parents who acted like little league was, well, little league. Some of the more seasoned mom's brought water guns for the boys to soak the coaches with after one game. We bombed the boys and coaches with water balloons after another. For the last game, the guys handed the moms the equipment and told us to go. We had a blast coaching the boys - and thouroughly enjoyed actually watching an entire game without chasing the little siblings around.
Me coaching Ben at first.
Me coaching Ben at first.
Batting practice before the game.
More batting practice.
The moms and their boys - and a few siblings too!
Monday, May 18, 2009
Where is the Church?
Politics. Nothing can fire people up more than a good ole convo about politics. Most people have opinions - very strong ones. I have opinions too, but even though I try to educate myself, I feel that I fall into the ignorant category. That being said, I'm about to delve deep - for me anyway. This post is more about the heart of the Christians and less about politics, but somehow I don't think it will be viewed as that.
Ben graduated from preschool last Thursday. It was a cute program and Momma even teared up a bit. One of the mom's had all the graduates over today for a playdate. While the kids were playing, the mom's were talking. The director of the preschool and I share heartbreak for the poor and somehow we started talking about that. Here's the rest of the story:
She - the director - mentioned that her father kept reminding her that the Bible tells us there would always be poor in the world. Yes, truth. The Bible does say that. One of the women said, I kid you not, "then if there will always be poor in the world then the government should quit taking our money and giving it to them." And all the other women might as well have stood up and shouted AMEN! Keep. Your. Mouth. Shut. Bethany. No. Don't say it, don't say...
My mouth formed the words - "You really don't want my opinion, but, if the church was doing its job the government wouldn't have to take care of the poor." Yep. I went there. I was among fellow Christians, who all belong to the same fine evangelical church (that I happen not to be a member of, so I'm already somewhat of an outsider), and obviously didn't share my sentiments.
So, what's political about that? The underlying message - curse you Obama and all you Democrats who want to share MY wealth. I'm going to go ahead and make the assumption that none of them have "O" stickers on their cars and they probably voted for the other guy.
I was struck for the first time by something. Why do evangelicals vote the way they do? Is it really because we "care" about unborn babies? Do we care about preserving marriage between a man and a woman? OR is it because we want what is "ours." If our taxes were considerably less would we help those who are in need with extra? OR would we pad our bank accounts or buy a new car, or save for a bigger house.
I really don't know anyone's heart, but, I don't believe for a second that we (me) are concerned about decreasing our tax burdens so that we can give that money to the least of these. I mean, I sure didn't run to my favorite charitable organization with my tax refund - and after all, the Bible says it (twice I think)... there will always be poor among us, so why help?
Because the Bible also says MORE THAN 100 TIMES that we should. Twice it says the poor will be among us, and more than 100 times it tells us we are responsible to help them.
But, we want to keep OUR money. We want to keep what is OURS. Funny to me. All that we have is God's right? And if that's the case and we truly believe that, then aren't we reaping what we essentially didn't sow?
So, do I agree with how the government spends the money that I am forced to pay them? Nope. I would have voted my husband's now defunct company get a bailout. Do I think that the whole "redistribution of wealth" is right? Nope. But I do tend to laugh at this notion. I would love for someone to show me anyone who got to the middle class solely on welfare. Are there problems with our system? Absolutely. Who did I vote for? Not that its anyone's business, but I voted for McCain (even though I couldn't care less for Sarah, she actually makes my skin crawl.) And my reasons for doing so would surprise many of my friends because they aren't because he's pro-life and anti-homosexual - I couldn't care less about that when it comes to politics, but that's for another post that you will probably never see.
I just wonder if we quit worrying about getting "ours" and gave to Jesus through churches and other organizations, if the poor would need our government's help.
Off my soapbox. I feel better. I'm going to post cute pics of my precious kids next time.
Ben graduated from preschool last Thursday. It was a cute program and Momma even teared up a bit. One of the mom's had all the graduates over today for a playdate. While the kids were playing, the mom's were talking. The director of the preschool and I share heartbreak for the poor and somehow we started talking about that. Here's the rest of the story:
She - the director - mentioned that her father kept reminding her that the Bible tells us there would always be poor in the world. Yes, truth. The Bible does say that. One of the women said, I kid you not, "then if there will always be poor in the world then the government should quit taking our money and giving it to them." And all the other women might as well have stood up and shouted AMEN! Keep. Your. Mouth. Shut. Bethany. No. Don't say it, don't say...
My mouth formed the words - "You really don't want my opinion, but, if the church was doing its job the government wouldn't have to take care of the poor." Yep. I went there. I was among fellow Christians, who all belong to the same fine evangelical church (that I happen not to be a member of, so I'm already somewhat of an outsider), and obviously didn't share my sentiments.
So, what's political about that? The underlying message - curse you Obama and all you Democrats who want to share MY wealth. I'm going to go ahead and make the assumption that none of them have "O" stickers on their cars and they probably voted for the other guy.
I was struck for the first time by something. Why do evangelicals vote the way they do? Is it really because we "care" about unborn babies? Do we care about preserving marriage between a man and a woman? OR is it because we want what is "ours." If our taxes were considerably less would we help those who are in need with extra? OR would we pad our bank accounts or buy a new car, or save for a bigger house.
I really don't know anyone's heart, but, I don't believe for a second that we (me) are concerned about decreasing our tax burdens so that we can give that money to the least of these. I mean, I sure didn't run to my favorite charitable organization with my tax refund - and after all, the Bible says it (twice I think)... there will always be poor among us, so why help?
Because the Bible also says MORE THAN 100 TIMES that we should. Twice it says the poor will be among us, and more than 100 times it tells us we are responsible to help them.
But, we want to keep OUR money. We want to keep what is OURS. Funny to me. All that we have is God's right? And if that's the case and we truly believe that, then aren't we reaping what we essentially didn't sow?
So, do I agree with how the government spends the money that I am forced to pay them? Nope. I would have voted my husband's now defunct company get a bailout. Do I think that the whole "redistribution of wealth" is right? Nope. But I do tend to laugh at this notion. I would love for someone to show me anyone who got to the middle class solely on welfare. Are there problems with our system? Absolutely. Who did I vote for? Not that its anyone's business, but I voted for McCain (even though I couldn't care less for Sarah, she actually makes my skin crawl.) And my reasons for doing so would surprise many of my friends because they aren't because he's pro-life and anti-homosexual - I couldn't care less about that when it comes to politics, but that's for another post that you will probably never see.
I just wonder if we quit worrying about getting "ours" and gave to Jesus through churches and other organizations, if the poor would need our government's help.
Off my soapbox. I feel better. I'm going to post cute pics of my precious kids next time.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
THE Call....
***BTW - I love this man.
The past 3 weeks have been riddled with me on the phone, or e-mailing various people in 3 counties and 2 states. I have been dealing with 6 different people - Social Worker in Birmingham, a VERY rude ICPC worker in Montgomery, AL, CASA worker in Tiffin, OH, foster parents in Tiffin, OH, Children's Services Attorney in Tiffin, OH, and a ghost social worker in Tiffin, OH. (I only say ghost, because I have never had a conversation with her and she never, ok, she answered one of my many attempts to e-mail her.) Apparently, there is some rule where the various parties can't speak to each other, but attempt to communicate with each other through me - ridiculous I know.
We have been finished with our foster care licensing for over 2 months and no one could track our paperwork and figure out where the paperwork was and why we were being held up in our process to get baby Quinn to Alabama. When asked by our friends and family when we would get him, our response was simply "Well, hopefully before he goes to college."
I got an e-mail from our social worker here who said we had a new caseworker (our 3rd since we began this process) and she seemed to be on the ball, but still no word on where the heck our paperwork was. (When you are trying to get a child who is not in your state, paperwork has to go from a local DHR office, to the state office of the person trying to get the child, to the state's office where the child resides, and then to the local office.)
Friday afternoon I got a call from our new caseworker in Ohio. No excitement on my part, no pounding heart, not even a clue of what she was going to say. After the normal niceties, she said...."I am sitting here looking at your home study report." Again no excitement, nothing. Since I never got word that our initial study had gotten there, I said "The first one, the one we had done in November?" Nope, it was THE study. The final link to going and getting Quinn. I wasn't expecting it AT ALL!!! I was numb, excited, but numb - probably had something to do with the fact that about 2 hours later I would realize I had strep throat.
I called Billy - who was as shocked as I was. He had proclaimed on Sunday that he expected God to do great things for us this week. How cool is that?
Because different states handle things differently, they are having a meeting in OH to discuss our case tomorrow (Monday). According to OH processes and procedures, we would have been named Quinn's legal guardians and I guess that would have been the end of the story. Alabama places him as a foster child until he is adopted. So, tomorrow they are going to figure out how to proceed with everything.
We are slated to travel to Ohio on June 4, be in court on June 5, spend the weekend with him in Ohio and bring him home on Monday.
Now that everything has had a chance to sink in (and I have been on antibiotics since Friday evening), we are beyond excited. Thank you for continuing to pray for us and him, and walking this journey with us.
The past 3 weeks have been riddled with me on the phone, or e-mailing various people in 3 counties and 2 states. I have been dealing with 6 different people - Social Worker in Birmingham, a VERY rude ICPC worker in Montgomery, AL, CASA worker in Tiffin, OH, foster parents in Tiffin, OH, Children's Services Attorney in Tiffin, OH, and a ghost social worker in Tiffin, OH. (I only say ghost, because I have never had a conversation with her and she never, ok, she answered one of my many attempts to e-mail her.) Apparently, there is some rule where the various parties can't speak to each other, but attempt to communicate with each other through me - ridiculous I know.
We have been finished with our foster care licensing for over 2 months and no one could track our paperwork and figure out where the paperwork was and why we were being held up in our process to get baby Quinn to Alabama. When asked by our friends and family when we would get him, our response was simply "Well, hopefully before he goes to college."
I got an e-mail from our social worker here who said we had a new caseworker (our 3rd since we began this process) and she seemed to be on the ball, but still no word on where the heck our paperwork was. (When you are trying to get a child who is not in your state, paperwork has to go from a local DHR office, to the state office of the person trying to get the child, to the state's office where the child resides, and then to the local office.)
Friday afternoon I got a call from our new caseworker in Ohio. No excitement on my part, no pounding heart, not even a clue of what she was going to say. After the normal niceties, she said...."I am sitting here looking at your home study report." Again no excitement, nothing. Since I never got word that our initial study had gotten there, I said "The first one, the one we had done in November?" Nope, it was THE study. The final link to going and getting Quinn. I wasn't expecting it AT ALL!!! I was numb, excited, but numb - probably had something to do with the fact that about 2 hours later I would realize I had strep throat.
I called Billy - who was as shocked as I was. He had proclaimed on Sunday that he expected God to do great things for us this week. How cool is that?
Because different states handle things differently, they are having a meeting in OH to discuss our case tomorrow (Monday). According to OH processes and procedures, we would have been named Quinn's legal guardians and I guess that would have been the end of the story. Alabama places him as a foster child until he is adopted. So, tomorrow they are going to figure out how to proceed with everything.
We are slated to travel to Ohio on June 4, be in court on June 5, spend the weekend with him in Ohio and bring him home on Monday.
Now that everything has had a chance to sink in (and I have been on antibiotics since Friday evening), we are beyond excited. Thank you for continuing to pray for us and him, and walking this journey with us.
For this child I prayed; and the LORD hath given me my petition which I asked of him: 1Samuel 1:27 ...
Monday, May 4, 2009
Joy
***Since I've had this post saved since her actual birthday and can't seem to finish it - Happy, Happy Birthday Merrie Cannon! What began as a stomach virus that "just kept hanging on" turned out to be the absolute sweetest child on earth. She is our joy!
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