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Part of: Forever_family's Journal Life is good even if it is a little crazy.... |
Date Posted: 02-28-2007 at 07:55 AM Comments(2) |
| Okay I have way too much to update!!! Most exciting first. Just got off of the phone with Eli's caseworker and he is moving in officially on FRIDAY!!!! YEA!!!!!!!! She told me and I think even though I knew he was going to be moving in that it was just a little bit of shock. I got off of the phone and just melted into happy grateful tears. His birthday was on Monday and his mom has still not contacted for a visit. This is her pattern and as sad as that is for Eli it means he will have a stable life with us. Caseworker feels she has given up. TPR will be filed in June. If they can find mom first, or she shows up, they would like her to consent to our adopting Eli. They feel she will consent as she has done with her past 2 children. We had Eli for the weekend-oh my it was just amazing to have him home with us. He just fits like he has always been here. Its so surreal. WE had his birthday party on Saturday. We decided to invite dh's family. They all came and he loved the attention. This was the only time I got very sad. I know it sounds horrible. All at once it hit me very hard that we had a very similar party about the same exact time of year last year for D and I had to hold back some tears as I watched Eli. They are so very different yet similar circumstances that it makes it hard for me not to think of D. Its a mirror of what we had with D in many ways only with Eli I feel with all of my heart we will adopt him and he is to be our son and he won't have the challenges that D had because unlike D, Eli, has had a very good foster home-thank God for this saving grace. So strange that this road with all it twists and turns lead to where it did and if we would have done anything differently we wouldn't have Eli. How prepared we have become to parent him to the best of our ability. Everything lead to him being in our family. It's scary and amazing and a miracle all in one. I am so thankful for this experience as hard and painful as it has been. Attachment parenting. I got my Mei Tai on Saturday and wasn't able to use it all weekend. Why? cause dh was holding and playing with Eli or I was holding and playing with him or dd's were playing with him. We were able to have Eli for the day on Tuesday. So I put him in to do some housework, my experiment. Eli is a solid now 1 year old. I honestly did not know if I could handle carrying him for the suggested 2-4 hours a day in a carrier. We spent 2 hours in the Mei Tai and I experienced no back pain and he LOVED LOVED LOVED IT!!! What a great bonding tool. I really wish I would have had this for all of my babies! I can clean, I can walk/move and hold and bond with my baby all at the same time and we look pretty darn cute! I can't wait until we have some warmer weather-we'll be out walking the dog every day! Eli also loves to sit with me in the glider rocker while I feed him his bottle. I read that for attachment parenting I am supposed to hold his bottle, not Eli. Easier said then done. He is unusually attached/obsessed with his bottle. I thought there was no way he would let me do this. The first time I tried it he fussed, then put one hand on the bottle but let me hold it. The 2nd time there was no fussing. It was as if his entire body relaxed. I just felt him relax and it was amazing. He let me hold the bottle and rested his hand on my chest just as my baby girls did when I breast fed them-totally natural and just amazing. We've had 2 bottle feeding since then and he did the same thing. He just relaxed and let me take over. He is 1 years old but he will be on the bottle until he is 2 years old. I have already cleared it and Early Intervention backed me up/suggested it-its for his bonding. He will only have the bottle twice a day, only when I feed it to him and he must maintain good eye contact. Otherwise he will be on a sippy cup. D never could maintain eye contact. Until you have a baby that does this you don't understand how important it is to have. After he finishes his bottle he sits there and gazes into my eyes while I sing to him. If he is tired he will drift off to sleep if he is not he will start playing with my nose and mouth. He loves to play with toys and I feel he is very bright. He says "hi" and "bye" and "dada." Oh my he is the cutest baby! His dimples are too much! When I dropped him off on Tuesday he was very happy to see his foster mom but he kept going from my arms to her arms-so happy to see both of us. I have so much to write and I simply don't have the time. One last thing. His foster family is AA. When I picked up Eli for his visit on Tuesday she got very serious and said she didn't want to offend me, she could see that we loved Eli very much and it was wonderful that we were "color blind." I've never used that expression with her, I'm not color blind...I can see why she felt that way. I was very scared for a minute wondering what she was going to say. She then explained to me as white people you may not be aware of racism and how Eli will be treated. She went on to tell me story after story, some frightening, of things her and her family have experienced. She told me you need to make sure Eli understands that he has to be on his best behavior at all times because people will go out of their way to find fault with him. She said he is going to be a black man and he needs to understand he will be pulled over by police, what he should do, how he should handle it. That he will be discriminated against, what he should do and how he should handle it. Then she explained that he will also be discriminated against by the black community. That her and her family have experienced this being told they are not "black enough." She said most definatly in your family Eli will go through this. I have read and researched and nothing she was telling me was new to me. However, it was very different coming from an AA women and her personal experience. When she told me the horrible things that had been done and said to her husband as a black man I cried. I was looking at Eli and I think it finally hit me how serious this is and how we are now a multiracial family and as such racism affects us in a very personal way. To imagine anyone treating my son badly because of racial stereotypes..it makes me sad and angry. On my husband's lunch break we went over this. He was shocked that these things happen. I've been telling him all along we will have to prepare Eli (future adopted biracial or AA child) but I don't think he took it seriously until now. I honestly do not feel we will need to worry about this until Eli is school age. Until then I can protect him. I do feel we will need to prepare him. So I'm on a mission to find as many children's books I can on this and will be educating anyone in our circle who say anything remotely racist or stereotypical....even if it is said in a "nice" way. I'm gonna be a momma bear about this. L |
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