It's called the integration meeting. Now that we've spent a week with the kids, they want to know how we're integrating... [hello my math nerd friends, does that make you smile?] Considering that I was sitting on the couch with Connor beside me and Yuli on my lap, her legs stretched out on Connor's lap, Ken was in the chair with John, and Cody and Diana were on the floor putting together puzzle pieces... I'd say pretty well. (Rylan was there too but he claimed his own chair.) They ask questions about how we are doing, what our days look like, how the kids are getting along, if we are having any medical issues, etc. Then came 'the most important question.' Do you want to adopt these children? I mean, seriously? We've had them for a week and now you think we're going to give them back? No one ever asked me that about the boys a week after giving birth. Later, Patrice told me that there have been a couple of times when people actually said no. I was initially horrified but I guess it's better to say no a week in than to take the kids home and decide it's not working.
Anyway, we got the thumbs up and the social worker went to write the report. Our lawyer was supposed to be picking up the report this afternoon and is heading tomorrow with the paperwork and power of attorney for us to Tumaco to start the official adoption process. Now we wait. Once it's done, Ken will go to Tumaco to sign the adoption agreement and get the birth certificates. Patrice says that this part takes about 3 weeks. After that we head to Bogotá for a week and then we are coming home.
The morning was really rough with everyone having to get up before they were done sleeping. Add to that a delayed breakfast. About 10 minutes into the meeting, I sent Connor back upstairs for a box of cereal. They all scarfed dry cereal down and at then end of the meeting the box was almost empty. We headed to the park to run off some steam but everyone was craaaaaannnnnnnky. We came back for lunch and then enforced some tiempo tranquilidado... quiet time. Only it wasn't really very quiet for me since I was waging war to convince Yuli & Diana that this was really happening. Actually, they acquiesced about 10 minutes in and it went ok but I couldn't doze off because I was sure that Diana was going to make a break for it. I spent the time with my eyes 90% closed and prayed almost the whole time. At one point, I realized that parts of my prayer were in Spanish and parts were in English. I did feel refreshed after the quiet time and it's a good thing, too.
Diana is having a hard time... a really hard time. Please pray for her. We actually found out in the meeting today that the kids were actually in three separate foster homes. It explains a lot. I had expected them to be very tight with each other. We thought we were going to end up with an us versus them, 3 on 3 mentality with the kids, but they have really seamlessly slid into our family. It makes me a little sad that they weren't together... they actually seem as comfortable with their new brothers as what they do with each other. Anyway, it seems that in Diana's house, they let he do pretty much whatever she pleased. She tends to take whatever she wants from whomever she wants. She gets really upset when Ken and I stop her. Her tantrums are getting shorter though. And when she's done, she actually seems really receptive to talking with me. I try to reassure her that I love her so much. I tell her that I'm her mom and I'm going to be her mom forever and for always. I tell her all the things that I like about her. But then I tell her that she's part of a family now, and families respect each other... they take care of each other... (at least they are supposed to). I tell her that things will go really well and be a lot of fun if she remembers that. Things will not go well for her and she will be spending a lot of time angry if she doesn't respect the other members of her family. The thing is that she seems to really like us as a family and seems to like being in our family. She seems to like me, she just doesn't like some of my rules. She likes to get her own way... I can't really blame her for that much, I do too. We'll work on the rest.
The daily funny is that Cody is an AWESOME big brother to John. He's the only one that can give Ken a break. Today he got out his music player and headphones and introduced John to the Beach Boys. John was dancing around singing, "Ba ba ba, ba ba ba..." (Barbara Ann) It was tremendously cute... and as it turns out, while I was snapping a picture, I accidentally got one with the headphones over his eyes. Enjoy.
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