29 Months

March was a crazy busy month... Tammy watched over Eric's young cousins Lea and Justine during March break at the cottage aunt Lise rented in the Laurentians - skating and sledding fun was had.

Eric's grandmaman was released from the hospital after falling (again). So we moved her to a new floor in the seniors home with the services she needs. We all got togther and we managed to move her in and have everything settled in one day.

We've been doing a little decorating around the house, putting things up on the walls and hanging new curtains.

We live about 5 minutes from the St-Lawrence river and we discovered a park called Recreoparc which we went to for the first time last weekend - we walked with the puppies, it was a neat discovery - a natural oasis in midst of suburbia.

This weekend was in a sense, the final culmination of Play it Forward Kids for 2010... Tammy and her brother Tim planned out a day for two really special kids who's guardians wrote in to explain their special situations. Both kids shared a dream, they wanted to see the Montreal Canadiens play and their favorite player is Carey Price (the goalie). So it was decided we'd work on both their dreams. The first boy had a mild case of autism and was under the full time care of his grandparents (lets call him Jeffy). The second boy (Billy) lives in a group home and had been abandoned by his parents and then lived through a failed placement in a foster family. With what could be gleaned from the letters it seemed a sure thing that Jeffy had the harder luck in life, but Billy really broke both Tammy and Tim's heart. He had a really good social worker accompany him but he just would have no connection with adults. As the day went on the social worker explained as opportunity allowed just how Billy's issues with attachement affected him - he is unable to trust adults. Billy without the degree of "physical" issues still had way more behavioral problems than Jeffy did. The day itself went really well - Billy and Jeffy got along really well (Billy was saying at the end of the night Jeffy was his new best friend, and he didn't want to leave). We had a Lincoln Navigator Limosine pick up the boys and drive them to the Bell Centre, we toured around the area, ate lunch at a restaurant, the boys were then treated to a tour of the Bell Centre and the Hall of Fame, and then the hightlight of the day...great seats @ the Bell Centre for the hockey game and a ride on the Zamboni! The Canadiens had a bad game, but the rest of the day was tons of fun... The day ended with a drive home in the Limosine. Here's a link to my FB photo album.

Tammy, leading up to (and through the first half of the day) was pretty stressed - but most everything worked out well. We over-planned and then were able to cut back some things to tailor the day for the boys. We'll never forget these two little ones.

We've now completed 29 months of waiting...we really, really hope that our turn is coming soon. We're doing ok, we're keeping busy, but we're really ready to start on the next phase...the wait continues...

What someone wants you to know...

I've been reading Kristen's blog "Rage against the minivan" for awhile now. She has a series entitled "What I want you to know" where readers are invited to submit a blog entry about topics that are important to them. Reading the series has been both inspiring and challenging. This one entry in particular speaks about how some people's questions and comments can be insensitive (especially when the questions or comments are in front of adopted children).

What I want you to know - adoption and assumptions

p.s. don't forget to read through the comments...they're just as interesting as the entry itself!

28 Months

I can honestly say that this month flew by, I guess it's because we've had some pretty busy weeks and weekends.

We've been working on one of the last areas of our house, the hallway/side entrance and stairs. I have a hard time choosing paint colors and since we pass through this area many times a day, I was very nervous. We finally settled on a taupe (Studio Taupe by Behr) - and I couldn't be happier with it! While we were at it, we decided to redo the newel posts and handrails, tons of fun. It was challenging and isn't quite done yet, but it's looking good. I thought I'd share some before and after shots of the hall, I apologize for the poor quality of the shots... it's really hard to take a good picture in the hall because of the light coming in from the big window.

These are two before shots... I had actually started to prime the door frames - they were the same color as the door.

Here are the after shots, we painted all the doors and trim white, and the light fixtures, and door hinges. We're still working on the stairs.

At the end of the month, we celebrated Rachelle's birthday we had an Oscar themed party - minus the tuxedos and dresses.

The pre/post adoption support group started up again (after the Christmas Break) and we watched the documentary on young Quebeckers who were adopted internationally called "Terre d'accueil... 30 ans plus tard" we had already seen it but it was interesting to get other peoples reactions to it. If your high-school french is up to snuff we highly recommend it.