Thursday, November 8, 2012

11/8/12

Dear Temple,
I hope this note finds you well and happy. Today I get to pick my new kid up around 2:30 and drop him off in the evening. Tomorrow I'll pick him up again and he'll be staying the weekend. My friend Ben is coming down from Wisconsin and he's bringing his kid. Should be a good, testosterone-filled time.
We're probably going to be spending a lot of time in Forest Park. We're going to the zoo, art museum and maybe the history museum. The little ones will be at their visit with their biological family so doing a whole-day thing is possible.
We're getting closer (still a couple of months away) to the court date for the little ones. I found I had to check myself a bit on my expectations for what will happen there. I've had a lot of expectations of what I thinks going to happen during this whole process and each time I've been wrong. That shouldn't be surprising, since this is a new experience for me, but people usually like to know what their lives will look like and mine has changed dramatically every couple months for the last year.
I believe that the judge will begin the transition of the little ones back to their biological family. They are doing what they are supposed to do to be reunified with them. The process has been hurried and the current system view here in Missouri is to reunify at all costs.
To be honest with you, part of the fact that the boys will be going back has been a relief to me. I've gone from one kid in April to three kids and now by the end of November I'll have four. That's a lot of kids - quickly. It's not that I don't think they'll eventually stay. I believe that they will. Having them here means court dates, two or three visits to coordinate a week, social worker visits and all the joys of working with a completely dysfunctional biological family.
I can't control whether the boys stay here or leave, but a part of me thinks that if they leave all the government baloney will stop. The biological family will hurt the boys again and we'll get them back, stripped of parental rights, plain and simple. We adopt them and can move forward.
What might happen is that the judge will put everything off again for another three months and I'll have to figure out how to do all this with four kids. Your grandma will know something about that.
We have another change going on for us as well.  The boys we have here now are all pasty white skinned and mega blond. We look like we're leading the Aryan race down the block. Even though the boys don't look like us, people assume they're ours. Our new son is African American. So we are now what is referred to as a trans-racial family (You would know something about that.) That is another big change for us. We're going to do all we can to keep the guy immersed in his culture. For example; if he wants to join choir or a theatre group, we're going to find one that's representational of his race. It's not as simple as that, but I'm not writing a book here.
I am worried though. I've already screwed this up with Elijah. Ever since Elijah has been with us we thought he hand an Irish background. A year ago I got a pretty harsh look from a short, red-haired, kilted, ruffian who told me "That is not an Irish name! That's Scottish!"
"What's the difference?" I told him. Just kidding. I'm kidding. Sort of.
I love you much and miss you always,
                   Uncle Justin

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