The Home Stretch

The hardest part of the adoption is done. All that is left is the details. Lots and lots of big, important details.

On April 6th we are scheduled to go before the judge for our adoption. At that point, the state will lose custody, and the girls will be legally our daughters.

On April 15th we are scheduled to go to the temple. We will be sealed to our new daughters for this life and the next, or “time and all eternity.” We believe that families can and should be together forever. This is the plan of our Heavenly Father. It is what we most desire.

If the bishop of our ward allows it, which I am sure he will, I will be giving my daughters a name and a blessing on April 16th. This is a special blessing, usually given to infants, where their official name is stated for the records of the church, and blessings are pronounced that are specific to the child. The only question is whether the bishop will allow it on April 16th, or if we will need to wait until the first Sunday in May.

We also need to update our wills and trusts. Currently, they state that they apply to MonkeyBoy, TikiPrincess, and any other children born to or adopted by us. I want that changed to mention Kidlina and Kentucky specifically.

Then we plan to shuffle the bedrooms around. We would like to have all three girls in a single room, but foster children are required to be no more than two to a room. Once we adopt, that restriction no longer applies to us.

The girls also need to be added to my work insurance. Medicaid will cover them, but only after any other insurance that could be used to cover them. Since my work will, I am required to add them to it.

I’m probably forgetting some other steps. No doubt The Wifey will fill them in for me. But for now, it’s just good to see how close it all is to being done.

Prev : Main : Next

Vacuums Suck

We recently did our taxes, and saw that we were expecting a decent tax return. At about the same time, our vacuum died. We purchased the vacuum when we were first married, almost ten years ago, using money from gifts that we had returned. It had been a decent vacuum, but we decided after ten years, it was time to purchase something a little better.

We started by purchasing a Roomba, the robotic vacuum. Our kids had scattered bits of eggshell all over the front room floor, so this seemed like a good test environment, once we had it assembled and the battery charged. We blocked off the doorway, put the Roomba in the middle of the floor, plugged in the recharger at one end, and pressed the “clean” button.

The Roomba took off, cleaning different areas, and giving extra attention to our high traffic areas. Then it got stuck in our coat closet. We moved some things around so that wouldn’t happen, and started again.

The Roomba took off again, but long before it had vacuumed the entire room, it gave up. We tried it again, and had the same result. We put it by the recharger, and started again. It cleaned quite a bit, then got stuck under a table. It could move around, but it couldn’t seem to find its way back out.

We tried over and over. It kept getting into places where it could not find a way back out. It finally returned to the recharger, claiming to be done. However, there was still eggshell on the rug.

Watching the Roomba, it appeared to have certain algorithms for bumping into walls, or encountering a particularly dirty spot. The rest of the time, it appeared to just run around randomly, and hope that it covered the entire room in the process. Our front room apparently was too large for it to handle effectively, and had too many small spaces where the Roomba could get stuck. It didn’t seem worth the $200 for a vacuum that didn’t clean, even if it would run on its own.

We returned the Roomba and bought a Dyson Cyclone. The Dyson vacuum is a bagless vacuum that uses multiple “vortexes” to remove dirt without clogging any filters. The main advertising promise was that it wouldn’t clog and wouldn’t lose suction.

The Dyson easily handled the eggshell in the front room, and cleaned up a massive amount of dirt and hair that the Roomba had missed. We were shocked at how much there was, since the carpet had looked pretty clean before, other than the eggshells.

The kids by now had also spread Cheerios down the hall. The Wifey used the Dyson to clean them up. Before she finished, however, the Dyson clogged up and lost suction.

We did the best we could to unclog it, but the Dyson started to give off the odor of smoke. I took it apart and found the HEPA filter, which was turning black from the smoke coming from the motor. We decided to return it, since we didn’t expect a $550 vacuum to break down on the first day of use.

Next up was a $60 Dirt Devil. It was also bagless, and it also collected lots of dust and hair from the front room. I began to wonder what our carpet was really made of. Surely this couldn’t all have been missed by our old vacuum, the Roomba, and the Dyson.

Once again, on the first day of testing, the vacuum began to smell of smoke. We quickly returned it.

Finally, we purchased a Eureka TheBoss Smartvac. It’s kind of heavy, and it’s kind of hard to push around the room. But it cleans well, and it hasn’t started smoking. So far, we really like it. I hope it can last another ten years.

Prev : Main : Next

Foster Care Options

There are many ways for people to participate in foster care. Some foster parents specialize in shelter care, which is short-term care while the state searches for a more permanent placement. Other foster parents offer respite care, which is basically overnight babysitting so that foster parents can get away. Some people are peer parents, who meet with and teach the birth parents basic parenting skills. Some people do standard longer-term foster parenting, and others are focused on fostering to adopt.

Even within normal foster care, there are multiple options. We have spoken to several foster parents who focus on taking care of teenagers. Apparently, this pays better than taking care of younger children, and some parents really enjoy it.

We have focused on children between the ages of zero to two. There is a lot more competition in this age range, so it takes longer to get a placement. Everyone wants to adopt a baby.

We optioned for shelter care, foster care, and foster-to-adopt. When a child is placed with us for shelter care, often the caseworker does not know whether the child will be returned home, placed with a family member, placed in foster care long term, or become available to be adopted. If it is either of the latter two options, we generally get first pick, since the child has already gotten used to living with us and has started to bond with us.

We also chose to have up to two children placed with us at a time. This may have meant that we were overlooked for cases where there was only one child to place, but there is a lot less competition for sibling groups. We might have been willing to take a larger sibling group, but doubling the number of children in our family in one blow already seemed hard enough already.

The hardest families for social workers to place are ones with lots of kids. They generally have to break them up into ones or twos, because so few foster parents are able and willing to add that many children to their family all at once.

I know for us, just taking in two was difficult. But if they had asked us to take two, and we found that there was a third sibling that would be going to another home, we would have wanted all three to be together with us. More than that, and we would have prayed really hard to know what course to take.

As it stands, the two we have fit into our family very well. We can’t wait to finally adopt them. And once we get everything squared away and life returns more or less to normal, we will probably open our home to still more foster children.

After all, there are still a lot of children out there who need a good home.

Prev : Main : Next

Finishing Benches

My father-in-law is an excellent carpenter, and a very hard worker. One of the results of this combination is that when he visits, he prefers to have something to work on. We always try to have a project ready for him, as kind of a gift to him. We always enjoy the beautiful results, which are his gift to us.

The one drawback is that he rarely has enough time to finish the entire job during his visit. Thus, I am left to finish it after he leaves. It usually is not difficult work, but it does take time, which is always in short supply.

The latest project was three benches for our kitchen table. We used one of the benches unfinished for a while, but one of the kids drew on it with a marker. So one day when I was able, I took it outside, filled the screw holes, sanded off the marker and the wood filler, and stained most of it.

A few days later, when some free time coincided with decent weather, I took the other two benches outside and filled and sanded them. I left them outside while I went to work, and snow fell on them while I was gone.

Later, I re-sanded those two benches. I then stained the bottom of the first bench and the tops of the other two benches. Before I could finish, SpiderBoy knocked over the can of stain, which spilled off my drop cloth and got onto our wood deck.

So, I focused on cleanup, and moved the benches back inside as soon as they were dry enough. I’ve been waiting ever since for another good day to coincide with some free time, so I can finish staining and finally seal the benches. Hopefully, before the stain is ruined with an unnoticed milk spill.

If time, weather and kids had permitted, I could have had all three benches done in a single day. Instead, the project stretches out for weeks, and I spend more time fixing various problems than on getting the project to progress.

I guess as long as I can get it finished before my father-in-law comes back for his next visit, everyone will be happy. I’m not sure what we will get for him to do next, though.

Prev : Main : Next

Homeschooling and Foster Care

Most people have nothing to do with homeschooling. Most people have nothing to do with foster care. Foster parents who homeschool are rare indeed.

Most people, including many social workers, hold a dim view of homeschooling. It seems like most people that I have spoken to know of a family who says that they homeschool but really just let their kids run wild and uneducated. Then there is the stereotype of a homeschooler—the religious fanatic who keeps their kids locked up and indoctrinates them with an extreme religious viewpoint in a near-abusive manner, while keeping them isolated from the real world.

In either of those situations, I could see why a social worker would be worried. However, most homeschooling families that I know work hard to educate their kids, try to get adequate socialization, and have very well-rounded children.

There are certain things that I feel have helped us as we have tried to have social workers trust us with children in the states custody.

1. We’ve tried not to bring up homeschooling unless the social worker brings up the topic. If it never comes up, it isn’t a concern.

2. When it has come up, we’ve make it clear that foster children go to school wherever the state wants them to. As long as the state has custody, the state makes the rules.

3. We follow all of the state laws with regard to homeschooling, including getting an exemption certificate and tracking the days when school is in session. Many homeschooling parents near us do not bother, because our local schools are so overflowing that no one follows up. We make it a point to follow the letter of the law.

4. My wife is a certified school teacher. For some reason, this fact stops most arguments cold, even though neither my wife nor I feel that it is an important consideration.

5. We explain that we are not against public schooling; we simply feel that it is not right for our children at this time. If we ever felt like homeschooling wasn’t working, we would put our children into public school.

6. We point out that our children are at least a grade level above where they would be in public school, in terms of their abilities.

7. We point out that SpiderBoy is the only child old enough to even attend public school, and he would be in kindergarten, which is optional in our state.

It hasn’t alleviated everyone’s fears, but it has given us some room to prove that it works. The social workers that we have worked with have gotten to know us, and that we are excellent foster parents who do everything we can for the welfare of our children. Some of them are even beginning to drop their stereotypes.

Prev : Main : Next

Plotting in the Spring

It’s that time of year, when a young man’s fancy turns to gardening. Every spring, I spend lots of time planning my garden, and waiting impatiently for my opportunity to start planting.

My seedlings die. I plant way more than I can handle. Most of the plants in my garden never produce. I water too heavily, interspersed with not watering at all for long stretches. I weed too infrequently.

One book that has really helped me to get things under better control is Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew. He saw that too many gardeners start out with high ambition and give up before the end of the year. He worked out a way to have a smaller garden produce more with less work.

When I ordered this book from Amazon, it recommended Cubed Foot Gardening as a companion. I bought it, but I have not been impressed. It was only named that to steal some marketing from the Square Foot Gardening book. It is a stripped-down version of the square foot method.

I’m still working on getting my garden to work. I’m getting everything ready to plant my seedlings now, even though I won’t actually start planting until April, and won’t move things outside until May. I think there are three things that have been killing my seedlings.

First is watering. I tend to either over water or under water. It’s hard to know the right amount to just keep things moist. I’m going to be using a spray bottle and taking a close look at things before watering.

Second is heat. Most of these seeds should be kept around 70 degrees during germination. My house sometimes gets down to 55 degrees at night. I’m looking for a small heating pad that I can safely use all night long.

Third is light. I have a broad spectrum bulb providing light to these plants, but it might not be the best kind of bulb. I’ll probably replace it with a bulb specifically for plants.

I’m also cutting back on how many different kinds of plants I’ll be working with. My goal is to have less work to do, so that I enjoy my time more when I go out to my garden.

Prev : Main : Next