So, I’ve been a bit quiet the last little bit here. Lot going on in my personal life. But I wanted to share an exciting event with y’all.
As some of y’all know, we have been fostering a little boy for a little over a year. He is now three. Not to go into great detail (though I could), his mother effectively gave him up, father didn’t even know he existed for a while. He has been in the foster system since just a few months old.
He came to us a little over a year ago:
This was his first time meeting us. Sitting on the couch with our foster supervisor and his social worker beside him.
It didn’t take long for him to warm up to us, despite his past of being in and out of temporary homes. Sometimes with family, sometimes with fosters.
We decided pretty early on that if God wanted him in our lives, then we would treat him as our own. So we attended all of the Termination or Parental Rights hearings as well as all of his other legal hearings. When his parents failed to even put up much of a fight for him and they lost their rights, we told the social worker we wanted him.
We did notice that for the first few months, mainly when we were taking him to daycare or something he would at times zone out, as if he was somehow preparing himself for being moved again. But he slowly learned that he was home:
He loves dinosaurs, so I made sure one showed up for his birthday:
He fell in love with his new “brother and sisters”:
And we quickly learned that despite how he had been neglected in his past, he loved cuddles and being loving with people. Even now he hugs nearly everyone he meets.
We transferred him to a new daycare where he is thriving, though the pandemic has thrown a wrench in him attending much. But he starts back Monday and is excited to see his friends again.
Right when things began speeding up towards adoption, the flu hit and everything slowed down. Home visits and supervision has to be done via the phone. People out of the office. Paperwork getting misplaced. All a major hassle. But we still just loved him as one of our own.
He helped choose a new name, though we were careful not to appear to anyone that we were pressuring him or trying to “steal his identity away”.
We finally learned that the adoption went through, the details and steps being monotonous and trying. But we were finally given today, 7/31 as the signing day. So we all gathered together with family and friends via Zoom and the county held a virtual ceremony and he officially became my 4th child. Benjamin Acara Smith:
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
As some of y’all know, we have been fostering a little boy for a little over a year. He is now three. Not to go into great detail (though I could), his mother effectively gave him up, father didn’t even know he existed for a while. He has been in the foster system since just a few months old.
He came to us a little over a year ago:
This was his first time meeting us. Sitting on the couch with our foster supervisor and his social worker beside him.
It didn’t take long for him to warm up to us, despite his past of being in and out of temporary homes. Sometimes with family, sometimes with fosters.
We decided pretty early on that if God wanted him in our lives, then we would treat him as our own. So we attended all of the Termination or Parental Rights hearings as well as all of his other legal hearings. When his parents failed to even put up much of a fight for him and they lost their rights, we told the social worker we wanted him.
We did notice that for the first few months, mainly when we were taking him to daycare or something he would at times zone out, as if he was somehow preparing himself for being moved again. But he slowly learned that he was home:
He loves dinosaurs, so I made sure one showed up for his birthday:
He fell in love with his new “brother and sisters”:
And we quickly learned that despite how he had been neglected in his past, he loved cuddles and being loving with people. Even now he hugs nearly everyone he meets.
We transferred him to a new daycare where he is thriving, though the pandemic has thrown a wrench in him attending much. But he starts back Monday and is excited to see his friends again.
Right when things began speeding up towards adoption, the flu hit and everything slowed down. Home visits and supervision has to be done via the phone. People out of the office. Paperwork getting misplaced. All a major hassle. But we still just loved him as one of our own.
He helped choose a new name, though we were careful not to appear to anyone that we were pressuring him or trying to “steal his identity away”.
We finally learned that the adoption went through, the details and steps being monotonous and trying. But we were finally given today, 7/31 as the signing day. So we all gathered together with family and friends via Zoom and the county held a virtual ceremony and he officially became my 4th child. Benjamin Acara Smith:
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk