Post Adoption Follow Up

Someone asked about the post adoption follow up that we have had to do. It has been our understanding that each state handles adoptions differently and that each agency may have their own requirements too. As for us, we have not had to do any post adoption home studies or visits for the state of Indiana or for the group that did our home study. We do, however, for Ukraine, have to do yearly reports on how Coy is progressing. This is a real simple 2-3 page report that we sent both e-mail and hard copy to the Ukraine Consulate in Chicago. We do maintain contact with the group that helped us to adopt Coy and we also maintain the e-mail addresses of the folks that helped us while we were in Ukraine. I keep meaning to send those folks pictures of Coy to show them how he has grown in the past year but it seems like I never remember to do it while I am on the computer. Perhaps today will be the day.

Perhaps part of the reason that I have hesitated to e-mail the folks in Ukraine about how Coy is doing is because I would like to know what would happen if Coy had siblings that have entered into the government childcare system. I wonder if we would be contacted. I have also read about people trying to find information on the birth parents. We know really all we want to know about the birth parents. Who knows if this will be all that Coy wants to know about them. We will cross those hurdles when we get to them. Because of his age and because of the record keeping in Ukraine, I figure anybody could tell us anything and we would have no way of knowing if it was true or not.

New Video Camera Test

I am trying to upload video from our new video camera to our blog. It is quite a large file and I am not exactly sure which one it is. I hope to improve on this, if it even works at all. The quality is MUCH improved over the video feature on our still camera.

Since my last post, Coy has completed his speech for the summer and Caleb and Katie have completed swim lessons and Safety Town. Caleb and Katie earned free tickets to Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom, so we took them there one day. We were unsure how many rides they would have for Coy, since the website did not indicate any for kids under 42 inches tall so my parents let Coy spend the night with them. He had a great time. We all had a great time.

Stacey was also brave enough to take all three children to a public swimming pool in Harrison County by herself. I don't think I could take them to the grocery to pick up milk and cookies, much less, to the swimming pool for the afternoon. (Stacey is standing over me telling me that she thinks I could but I am not so sure.)

I am not so sure about the video so I am going to quit typing in case I lose it and I have wasted this time.

***Update*** I got the video to download but then it didn't play back once I tried to play it back from the blog. I will keep working on it. I don't have a lot of confidence that I can get it to work but I will keep trying.

Finally

Wow, it has been several weeks since I have posted here. I can't even begin to recall what all has happened so I am not going to try so instead I am going to share about something that I see at church. Getting three kids ready for church in the morning is not really easy and by the time we get to church, we are ready to sit down. (Full Disclosure: Stacey does most of the getting the kids ready, I just pitch in where I can.) I often find myself exhausted (mainly from watching them) by the time we get in the door. However, there is a lady that many times will sit in front of us. She appears to be the care taker of three or four different grown men with mental handicaps. She is always smiling and worshiping with such fervor. I feel guilty for even thinking that I have it tough when I see this lady and how she persists. I don't know her name and I don't know that I would recognize her face if I saw her out in public but she inspires me to have much less self pity (I am really in no position for pity) and much more appreciation for all of the good things that I have. I actually have it really well.

I did get a few really great gifts for Father's Day. We purchased a new video camera so we have been taking some videos again for a change. Also, both Stacey and my sister had the same idea of preserving this blog for keep sake. Stacey not only printed out all of the blog entries for me to save but she also printed out all of the e-mails that we had kept from when we were gone. My sister not only printed out the blog entries but did them in a scrap book. She said that she did it for Coy. I was hoping to have something so special to give to him instead of a "Baby Book" and now, we will have it. My sister has a real talent for scrapbooking and it shows in the product that she made for Coy. My sister and her family have been such a blessing to us. Thanks Michelle, we appreciate it more than you will ever know.

I have been travelling quite a bit and when I do, I have much less desire to get on the internet and blog. Also, I am having trouble getting on the computer because Stacey has been burning up the internet lately. Between Ebay, Craigslist, and just general research on stuff that we are considering, it has been hard to get in a keystroke.

The last day of school, we did have a big waterballoon fight. It was so much fun, we had another one a day or two later. The kids worked really hard for a long time filling up lots of waterballoons. They did a good job of helping to pick up the pieces afterwards too.

At the Corps Day picnic, Katie climbed the rock wall. I am guessing that it went about 20' high. She climbed up it like she was Spider Woman or something.

Stacey has been busy so far this summer. Caleb and Katie have swimming lessons and Safety town and Coy has been having speech. She hasn't been trapped at home with them all, all day but I am betting that she is glad of that. Especially when it is too hot to go outside.

One more thing, Katie's picture was in the New Albany paper today. She had gone to see High School Musical on the Riverfront in Jeffersonville and a reporter had taken her picture. They had a story about it today and ran her picture in the paper as well as on the internet. If you search for New Albany Tribune, her picture pops up. If you are reading this after Sunday, you will probably have to search for Riverstage after you get to the website. The picture is actually of the back of her head but it did give her name.

Still Too Busy To Write

It is late and I am tire so I am just going to post a few photos. Katie's finger after her fingernail has fallen off from where she smashed it at Gulf Shores. Caleb playing baseball. Coy riding his bike. Katie with her Kindergarten teacher. The video is of Coy after eating a chocolate doughnut. He has chocolate on his face that looks like a bad mustache. I was trying to get him to say "Suave'" but he kept smiling after he would say it.

Too Much Going On to Write

There has been so much going on here that I don't have time to get on the blog a lot. Between baseball, and soccer, and Angel's Wings, and work and the warmer weather, we get to bed later and later all the time. Plus, it seemed like for a while after vacation, that we didn't pick up our camera for a while either.

Katie asked me a really tough question tonight as she was going to bed. "Which were you named first, Daddy or David?" after I answered that easy one, she asked me "Who was the first one to come up with the word Daddy?" I had to answer that I did not know. I assume that it would be Adam but I am not sure.

Last week while I was gone for work, Stacey decided to start talking about the birds and the bees with Caleb. Now I am concerned that we have a budding OB/GYN on our hands. He has asked several very interesting questions since this little talk. It is probably a very good thing that she has started this dialogue with him. We would much rather he hear it from us than from his friends at school. Of course, we don't really want him to be the boy that is educating all of his friends either, but we do want him to know the truth. Katie on the other hand, I don't think I want to tell her anything about it because she might use it against us. I am afraid that the entire Kindergarten would get an education if we spoke about it to Katie. Perhaps this time next year we can start talking about it with her.

Stacey's sister's dog had to be put down last week. He ran to the road and got run over and hurt his back really bad. Stacey told the kids and Caleb took it the hardest. Since we don't see that dog a lot, they didn't cry or anything, but you could tell that they were thinking about it (at least that is what she told me, I was out of town).

More Vacation Info

Here is a video of Coy jumping in the pool. He only did this about two thousand times during the five days that we were there. I think he would have done it more if he could have climbed out of the pool without having to doggie paddle all the way over to the steps to get out.

Here is something else to know about Coy. His internal wake-up clock is set to about 7 AM eastern time, no matter what time he goes to bed. One night, we all stayed up kind of late. Coy fell asleep in Stacey's arms. The other two dragged to bed much later than usual. In the morning though, Coy was up and at them at 7 AM eastern, which was 6 AM local. Just to be clear, his attitude reflects his lack of sleep sometimes.

If he asks a question once, he asks it over and over again. His favorite question is "Where are we going?" He also likes to comment on the weather, especially in the van. When I turn on the windshield wipers and the windshield cleaner, he immediately asks if it is raining, even if the sun is shining bright outside.

We bought tickets on-line to a go-cart track and amusement park and were able to stretch it into two days worth of activities. Caleb especially liked the go-carts. He was big enough to drive the "rookie" ones by himself. The first day that we went, the first thing the kids wanted to do was bumper boats. Unfortunately for Stacey and Coy, Caleb is pretty good at bumper boats and at spraying the other boats. Stacey was soaked. It was good filler between getting up and the weather getting warm enough to go and swim. There were a group of women working at the go-cart track that were from Romania. We told them that Coy was their neighbor.

The kids would have swam at 70 degrees but Stacey and I have to draw the line somewhere. The last day it was warm enough to swim before lunch, but that was the only day.

We ate at Lambert's Cafe twice while we were in Gulf Shores. It is the home of the throwin' rolls. They bring a cart of rolls around and if you want a roll, they throw them to you. They sometimes throw them from far away too. They also play lots of tricks on you while you are eating. The kids had a great time and so did we.

Katie's Angel's Wings recital is this weekend. Caleb has a baseball game and Caleb and Katie both have a soccer game. It is going to be a busy weekend for us. Everybody seems to have jumped back into the routine fairly well though. We are thankful for that. At least everybody except for me. I am still trying to think of a reason to skip out on work. I still haven't found it yet.

WE'RE BACK, AGAIN

We have been to Gulf Shores, Alabama for the last week. We had a great time and great weather. Although I think the kids would have loved not riding in the van so long and staying at the pool longer. However, at this time of year, it is hard to have one without the other. Of course there are indoor pools, but they just aren't the same as an outdoor pool.

Coy has gotten to where he loves the water. Unfortunately, he is not very afraid of the water. He still needs to wear floaties on his arms to help him stay afloat. As soon as we got to the pool on the first day, he climbed right in without his floaties. Luckily, I was right there to pull him out. He was on the steps going into the pool but he showed no fear going in, and only a little bit on the way out. By the end of the week, he was jumping in as fast as he could get around to the steps to get out again.

The kids really did well on the long drive. We didn't try any of that drive all night kind of stuff so they were awake for almost all of the ride. I think Katie and Coy slept a little bit on the way down and Katie slept for about an hour on the way home. Other than that, they were awake all of the time. Caleb read two big books on the way down and while we were there. We imposed a NO VIDEO week on him so he was forced to find other forms of entertainment. He read those two books but on the way home, we got lazy and let him work the DVD player. I guess they watched Alvin and the Chipmonks and Shrek both two times each.

We had a little bit of excitement on the trip. It was kind of stormy for a little while on Saturday morning and the wind was blowing. When the wind blows, it creates drafts on the large metal doors from the parking lot to the stairs that went up to the condo. Katie got her finger smashed really bad in one of those doors as it slammed on itself. By the time we walked up about 10 steps to our condo doors, it had swelled to about twice the size that it should be so we ran her to the immediate care to have it x-rayed. Everything was OK. We took her to the pediatrician tonight and they burned a hole in her fingernail to let some of the blood out of it.

Unfortunately, time has gotten away from me tonight. I need to start thinking of some reasons not to go to work tomorrow. I doubt that I will come up with any so I will have to go in. I will try to post some more on our vacation in the next couple of days.