I really wish I could blog a little more often than I have been! I always swear I'm going to do updates weekly, next thing I know its been a month or so. At this point the girls have been home just a few days shy of 9 months. There are a lot of changes coming up. We have set the date to sign our adoptive placement paperwork! We are scheduled to sign on Halloween. We're very excited because as soon as we sign those our attorney will file the documents with the court so we can finalize on December 18th, one week before Christmas. There were 3 things we needed to do before we could sign the placement paperwork. One of them was to negotiate subsidy. We got those documents turned in & they have been accepted & should be coming to us in the mail any day. The other thing we were waiting on was the girls' developmental assessments. I took the girls for these this past week. The process they use is very interesting, they do things like see if the baby can stack blocks when prompted, or get a raisin from a jar with a narrow opening (too narrow to put a finger in). For Sissy they asked her questions like "what do you do when you're hungry?", or "what do you do with a bed?". They also did physical tests to see their motor skills etc. Both girls were well above their target levels (which I expected). The last thing we are waiting on that is NOT done yet is reading the girls' de-identified files. They requested redacted copies of the case file last month but it still hasn't come in. If we do not get this in before Halloween we have to either put off signing the placement paperwork which means we likely won't finalize this year, or we have to sign a waiver saying we agreed not to read the file before the placement. At this point there is nothing in the file that would change our minds so we would gladly sign the waiver so we can continue the placement. The only thing that worries me is if we sign the waiver for the file they won't EVER send it to us. I really want that file for our girls. It tells them the story of their life from a third party, not us and not their biological family. I want them to read what the state said happened, not what we TOLD them happened. If they ever find their biological family, I want to prepare them with the facts of their actions. They deserve it. I also took Sissy to see the ballet today. I think she liked it, she behaved very well & I couldn't have asked for her to act more "proper" at 2 years old. A couple of other things is I recently got a new job (I know, again!). The school I started out at the beginning of the year was an hour drive away & didn't have the training & room for advancement I had hoped for. Next Monday I will be starting at another autism school as a behavior therapist in their ABA program. Its a great position with an amazing structured training program to help me progress in my therapist levels. (The picture above is Daddy painting D's nails & then playing Hide & Seek with Sissy. )
