Yesterday marked a very important day for us in the Croom household. We are officially one step closer to adopting K! Thomas and I both made it up to court late in the afternoon for the proceeding. In summary, the state asked the judge to terminate parental rights, the guardian ad litem asked for termination of parental rights, and K's biological mother's lawyer quickly stated she had no defense. It has been about 2 months now since anyone has heard from her mother ... we each have our ideas about what happened, but no one knows. The next court date is July 8th. This is an advisory hearing to basically spell out the finality of the event and let her biological parents know they should probably have an attorney. If they find her mother and are able to serve her papers and she doesn't show for court - her rights will be terminated by default. If she shows up for the advisory hearing then the next court hearing is required to be held in 45 days. And if they can't find her, then my understanding is that a notice has to be published in the newspaper for 30 days before her rights are terminated.
In the meantime, Thomas and I will be pursuing her adoption. Yesterday after the hearing, the lady with the state department responsible for adoptions spoke with us about finalizing all our paperwork. She said they would be in touch shortly. Basically, the plan will be for us to make sure we have everything done in the next couple months so that we can file the adoption paperwork as soon as parental rights are terminated. So, we are looking at a few months at most.
Other things have also been happening. Thomas is now Professor Croom, or at least that is what I call him along with about 50 students that he is teaching this summer. This week is his first week teaching classes. Yeah! I couldn't be more excited that he is gotten to this point. It was a lot of hard work.
Also, my hard work for the year has ended ... the Legislative Session is over. To welcome the summer, I took a cruise with my sister for her big 40 birthday. This was a great trip for me, and my husband once again showed that he is top notch. He stayed at home for about 5 days by himself with the two little ones.
And also, I have decided to work a more part time schedule for the rest of the year to give myself more time with my new expanding family.
The children are fantastic. There is not much to say that hasn't already been said. We are by far their biggest fans! S. is learning new signs everyday. He also sometimes repeats words ... not as often as we would like. He is extremely smart. He understands most of what we say, follows multiple step directions, and learns quickly. He just isn't talking very much. Which isn't that big of a deal at his age, however, he is now in speech therapy twice a week. This a really good time for someone else to challenge him with words and sounds. Plus his therapist is teaching and reinforcing sign language. Thomas and I need to take more time to learn new signs on a regular basis and hope to take a class sometime soon. Yesterday he smiled for the first time for the camera ... and it was a big smile!
S. is going through what I hope is the worst of the terrible twos. He gets the opportunity to sit in time out a few times a day for either throwing, hitting, or some variation. As you can see in the photos below, S. loves his little sister. He also gets quite jealous of her. Usually this translates into wanting to be held at the same time. Luckily, she is now big enough to withstand his weight when he lays or sits on her.
K. has started to eat big kid food. She has been barely eating cereal for about a month now. So we decided to move her forward with some vegetables. Below is how she first felt about peas. But, its getting better. Tonight she did really good eating peas and carrots.
Today, we went swimming with the children for the first time with the children in the back yard. They were both OK with it. But Silas did get a little cold and was clutching us kindof hard around the neck for a little while.
And here are a few more pictures you can enjoy of Thomas and K chilling on the sofa one evening.
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