Another adoption update

Today we had our second homestudy meeting.  The social worker spent an hour with me talking about my childhood, my relationship with my family, and various life experiences, then an hour with Don doing the same thing.  We scheduled our third meeting for December 1st.  We scheduled it later in the afternoon so that the social worker can come with us to wait for Peter at his bus stop.  She needs to meet him at some point in the homestudy process, but our meetings so far have been done before Peter came home from school.

I have a doctor’s appointment scheduled for a week from Monday to get my medical paperwork done.  I actually had the appointment scheduled for this coming Monday, but I changed it.  The doctor gave me a laboratory requisition sheet for standard blood tests at my new-patient appointment, but since I need to fast, Saturday morning is the most convenient time for me to get them done.  I’d like to see the results at my appointment but I wouldn’t count on them being ready on Monday if I had the blood drawn on Saturday, so I moved the appointment back a week.

It’s not like there’s a huge rush to get it all done, anyhow.  We can’t be approved to adopt until both Don and I have completed all nine sessions of PRIDE training.  I have to make up session 7 and I won’t be able to do it until January 30th.  Don just found out today that he is going to have to miss session 9 (which he would have done a week from today) because he has to attend a city council meeting for one of his classes.  He won’t be able to make it up until March 9th!  So we won’t be done with this stage of the adoption process until mid-March at the earliest.

More Peter funnies

You have to realize that he said these completely seriously, not intending to be funny.

Me:  Did you run around like a lunatic?
Peter:  How fast do lunatics go?

*****

Peter:  Mommy, did I trick you?
Me:  I hope not.
Peter:  Why?
Me:  Because it’s not very nice to trick your mother.
Peter:  Can you do it to your dad?

Making progress

Our homestudy process is still chugging along.  We had our first homestudy meeting on Monday–the social worker came to our house and was here for about an hour and a half to take notes about our daily routines, our home, and why we want to adopt.  Since we’re on the ball and were well-prepared, we were able to discuss acceptable/desirable characteristics of the adoptive child, which she would normally do in the third homestudy visit.  We have a list of things we need to do, like filling out some forms, getting together some pictures of our family, putting a carbon monoxide detector on the second floor (where the bedrooms are), and making a written fire escape plan.  I think we’ll be able to get most of them done this weekend.  We were surprised when the social worker scheduled the second homestudy visit for next Wednesday; we assumed we’d have to wait about a month.  For the second visit, she’ll spend one hour talking with just me, then an hour talking with just Don.  The third meeting will be with both of us again.

In other adoption-related news, the FBI finally charged our credit card.  I was getting worried; it’s been weeks since we mailed them our fingerprints.  So now I’m reassured that they will process them and send our clearances soon.  Also, I found a family doctor to accept us as patients (there’s a doctor shortage in our city, so that’s not as easy as it sounds).  We have a new patient appointment on Monday.  After that, I can schedule an appointment for a physical to get my medical paperwork done (Don already got his done at the university’s walk-in clinic).

It’s amazing for me to notice the daily advances in Peter’s French vocabulary and grammar.  He still uses “moi” (me) instead of “je” (I) (and “toi” instead of “tu” for “you”), but that’s a normal pattern in language acquisition.   This week, he suddenly started using the past tense (albeit imperfectly); I’ve heard him say several times, “Moi ai gagné!”  (“Me won!”)  Questions are new as of about a week ago.  We were walking in the woods last weekend and I said (in French) that I saw a ladybug; he responded “Où est?” (Where is?)  I was impressed when he was playing on the Wii riding a bike and commented after he turned, “Pourquoi moi est allé ici?”  (Why me went here?)  As you can tell from these examples, his grammar certainly isn’t standard yet, but he is definitely communicating and that’s what language is all about.  He has put together some nice sentences like “Aide-moi avec mon bouton” (Help me with my button).

Peter’s first hockey game

Peter played his first ever hockey game this morning.  It was also the first time we had to be at the rink for a 7 am ice time (they rotate the times so that Sunday mornings are either 7, 8, or 9 am, but we missed the previous 7 am ice time when Peter was sick).  They don’t keep score at this level and there’s no talk of winning or losing.  I’m sure some of the kids keep track, but Peter didn’t know where the puck was half the time, so he certainly wasn’t keeping track of the scoring.  When asked after the game, he said his favorite part was playing goalie.  For his very first shift, he played goalie, and he played another shift as goalie later in the game (all the kids take turns).  He had fun, and that’s what counts.

Peter’s settling in

I  have worried about Peter’s adjustment to school, but things have been improving in that area.  Although he had a very rough start,  he hasn’t had a single accident at school for the past two weeks.  I don’t expect that he’s completely done having accidents, but it seems that the worst is over.

When we met with Peter’s teacher before school started, she said something to the effect of, “By the end of October, he’ll be speaking in full sentences in French.”  Well, she was right.  Peter was speaking/singing in French at home since the first day of school, but about 2/3 of the way through October, he really started making an effort to communicate in French (before, it was more like he was repeating aloud what he remembered from the day as a way of reinforcing his learning, just for himself).  He was speaking in full sentences before the end of the month, simple sentences, but full sentences.  He has said things like “Mon nez est violet” (he was being silly, saying his nose was purple) and “Moi est vite” (literally, “Me is fast”–not grammatical, but he is making the effort to put the elements together to communicate).  He speaks French spontaneously to communicate, like to ask for help or to say that he’s done with something, and he responds readily in French when I speak to him in French, like counting when I ask how many of something there are or identifying familiar items in French.  He enjoys sharing vocabulary words that he learns at school, and he’s had to ask me the English names for things he only knew in French (Halloween-themed vocab–we don’t talk about bats, witches, and haunted houses in English all that often).  He says that learning French is fun.  When we met with his teacher last week, she said that he has learned all the vocabulary she’s taught and that he is is one of only a few kids in the class who really make an effort to not speak English.  I’m impressed by how much he is learning and how readily he speaks French at home now.

I’m also starting to appreciate the extent to which he is acquiring another culture as well as a language.  He is developing an identity as a French-speaker.  He participated in activities at school celebrating the franco-Ontarian flag.  He is becoming part of a proud minority group.  I have a strong interest in homeschooling, but after seeing how Peter is responding after less than two full months in a French school, I am feeling that it wouldn’t be fair to him to remove him from French school and cause him to lose that identity and culture (I could probably support him so he wouldn’t lose the language, but he wouldn’t end up fluently bilingual as he will if he stays in French school).  Of course, there is no way to know how things will work out.  Perhaps at some point in the future, homeschooling will be the best thing for him, but for the next few years at least, he’ll be staying in French school.  We think it’s the best thing for him.

Hockey info and adoption update

After missing hockey last week due to “flu-like illness” (the catch phrase these days), Peter is back in the swing of things.  He went to floor hockey yesterday and had fun (though we had a little talk in the car afterwards about why he shouldn’t fall down on purpose, something that he enjoys doing).  Tomorrow he hits the ice again.  He’s been placed on a team; I got a call from his coach yesterday.  He will have a black jersey (Pittsburgh Penguins colors) and he will wear jersey number 10.  The jersey number was not easy to come up with.  When the coach asked what number Peter would like, he said 91, but the numbers didn’t go that high.  I suggested 4 because he’s four years old, but 4 was already taken.  Peter again said that he wanted 91.  I suggested 19 because it’s the same digits, reversed, but 19 was already taken also.  Don suggested 10.  I’m not sure if there was a reason behind it, but Peter agreed and it wasn’t already taken, so 10 it is.  The coach commented that it’s the same number that Guy Lafleur wore, so Peter will be wearing the number of a French Canadian hockey hero.  Peter’s disappointed that he won’t have a blue jersey, even though we’re trying to convince him that black will look cool too.

Things are moving along on the adoption front.  Next week is session 9 of PRIDE training for me.  It’s the final session of the 9-week series and we’ve been hearing about it since the first day.  It’s a potluck and several adoptive and foster parents come to share their experiences with us.  It should be my last day, but it’s not.  Unfortunately, session 7 was cancelled because the social worker leading the session was sick, so I will have to make it up.  The way the schedules work out, the easiest time for me to do it is on a Saturday morning at the end of January.  It seems like a long time to wait, but I don’t expect our homestudy to be done by then anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.  All that matters is that we both attend all of the sessions before we are approved to adopt.  Don has three more sessions of PRIDE; he’ll be done on the 25^th.  On Monday, a social worker is coming to our house for our first homestudy meeting.

Happy Halloween!

Even though Peter’s still not really healthy, we didn’t want to be the mean parents who ruined Halloween, so we took him out trick-or-treating.  He didn’t last long–40 minutes max–but at least he got to wear his costume and get some candy.  He was an astronaut.  Chalk it up to living in university student family housing, but one man who answered the door for trick-or-treating looked at Peter’s costume and said, “NASA, eh?  So you must be a rocket scientist?”  I don’t know how many rocket scientists wear helmets.  Anyhow, here’s my little astronaut:

 

H1N1 hits

Peter has been home from school yesterday and today; he probably has H1N1.  We’re in the middle of a wave of it here; there are over a dozen schools in my board with absences rates exceeding 10%.  People here are pretty freaked out because there was a 13-year-old boy from the Toronto area who played in a hockey tournament in London on Saturday and was dead due to H1N1 on Monday; he was the third young person in two weeks to die of H1N1 in Ontario.  Peter hasn’t been any worse than with any other cold/flu-type illness and his fever is gone now, so I think he’s over the worst of it.  Don stayed with him yesterday morning until I got home at 12:30 and then he left for class; today I had to stay home because Don had too much scheduled this morning.  I’m disappointed that I missed the staff photo and school Mass this morning, but that’s life.  It’s more important to keep my sick kid home to avoid spreading his germs.  The real question is whether or not Don and I will come down with it in the next few days.

Our busy schedule and adoption update

Currently, our weekly schedule looks like this:

Saturday: Peter plays ice hockey
Sunday: Peter plays ice hockey, Don plays ball hockey
Monday: Don plays ball hockey
Tuesday: I go to adoption training class
Wednesday: Don goes to adoption training class
Thursday: Peter plays floor hockey
Friday: our one day with nothing special scheduled

Once we get to the middle of November, our schedules will settle down considerably. Don will be done with his ball hockey, I will be done with my adoption class, and Peter will be done with floor hockey. Don finishes his adoption class at the end of November, and then the only thing left on the schedule will be Peter’s ice hockey. I know Don plans to play ball hockey again next term, but I’m hoping to convince him to only play once a week (he’s playing on two different teams now). As part of my contract with a Catholic school board, I have to take a religious education course within two years of being hired, so I’m thinking I’ll probably take that in the spring to get it over with.  But even if we do those things, it still won’t be as busy as it is now, and we’ll be more used to what we’re doing and settled into our routines.  (Even though it’s been almost two months, we’re still getting the hang of our new positions.)

Things are moving along on the adoption front. We’ve been fingerprinted and requested our records from the FBI. Don has had his physical and his medical forms are done except for one section; the doctor needs to see his medical records still. We had our records sent to my parents’ house but haven’t had a chance to pick them up yet. I’m waiting until I get my records before getting my physical done. We have our first homestudy meeting scheduled for November 9th.

Feeling down

I’m feeling rather down today.  I got Peter’s and Don’s cold, so that’s a contributing factor, though I’m over the worst of it and just have nagging sinus pressure and occasional headaches.  On top of that, I had a lousy day at work.

I’m still not feeling confident that we’re doing the right thing in sending Peter to full-day French-language kindergarten.  The toileting thing is still a concern, especially since he’s come home with wet/poopy pants several times (it seems that he doesn’t want to tell his teacher when he’s had an accident).  It’s hard to judge how he feels about school; he usually doesn’t want to talk about his day.  Sometimes he’ll say that he liked recess and gym and didn’t like the rest of the day.  (He’s a little young for that, isn’t he?)  Other times, he makes comments that sound somewhat positive, and one day he spent the evening singing songs in French.  His school day is so long that he doesn’t get much time to play and unwind at home, and several times he’s had major melt-downs because he’s so tired.  And he’s only had one full five-day week so far (he didn’t go the first week, went three days the second week because of the staggered entry, went a full five-day week, then only went three days last week because he was sick).  I expected the transition to be difficult for him–the school days are long and it takes a lot of energy to function in a second language.  I suppose he’s still in transition and I keep hoping that it will get easier for him.  We want this to work out; it’s a good thing for him to learn French and it would be inconvenient to make other arrangements for him.  It’s not so bad that we need to pull him out of school NOW, but how long do we wait for things to get better?  My poor little guy is under a lot of stress and that’s hard for me to see.