An Image Speaks a Thousand Words
We were given a 20 minute video of our future children last night by their foster carer.
Words cannot describe the enormous grins wrapped across both of our faces as we sat watching it along with our social workers last night. The children we had so far only known by names, conversation and social workers reports are becoming much more real. We spent a couple of hours listening to their carer’s stories – the little things – the things that matter. Who likes what to eat, what so-and-so said yesterday, their favourite books, their favourite colours, the songs they sing.
Notice I am now referring to them as “our future children”, rather than “our prospective children”. The opinion of the adoption team is that barring an administrative cock-up, the matching panel next Friday is pretty much a formality. I have still to wrestle with how much information I ever let out about them in this blog – I hope you will understand that I may never share their names, their sex, or even their ages – or certainly not for several years.
The children will be told about us at new year. We are preparing scrap books, and a video telling them all about us, our house, our family, and our life. At the moment they are the only ones who don’t know we exist. Their foster carer’s excitement is palpable – she wandered through our house saying “oh my god – they are going to love this”, over and over again.
It’s suddenly becoming much more real, and much more exciting.
I’ve not dropped by for a while – longer than I thought. I wish you well for your new family. Just think, next year I will be wishing you well for your first Christmas together!
I sort of think it’s okay to not blog about other people – it’s their privacy, and kids have that right too. I’m surprised you’ve let on the sex of your wife, never mind the kids ;p
Finally – with this be a good excuse for a new console? For the kids, obviously…
Congratulations, Jonathan. I’m very excited for you.
I can’t even imagine what you must be feeling. You will make wonderful parents. Happy for you!
Last year, at Christmas, I went to a special dinner for Foster children in my city. I saw all age ranges of children and the thing that moved me the most was how incredible SPECIAL each one of them was. All I could think was “who could NOT WANT THESE KIDS?” So when you said your future children don’t know about you yet, I immediately imagined the wide grins that will stretch across THEIR faces in seeing YOU. The joy that will fill their hearts. They don’t yet know that they will be getting their Christmas wishes.
This is so beautiful. Congratulations!
Arhhhh :) I bet they will love it with you guys! I know my two were sad to leave! lol
You are both lovely people, wonderful friends and both have a brilliant and natural way with kids. I saw it the moment you met my girls! Your little girls will settle in for sure, and then they will be knocking you off your feet J, when you return home from work everyday…. Imagine 3 of them as well rugby tackling you!… lol.. It`s great! :D
My two can`t wait for you both to visit again btw! They will have lots of great games to show you!… and yes Wendy, that includes Donkey Konga! :) lol
How wonderful! Much love to you all!
This is wonderful. I am so excited for you, and wish your family great success.
Jonathan,
I’m so glad/ excited for you!!! It seems this New Year will be a really happy surprise to the children! After having been waiting for so long, things come true. Cheers, PO
Jonathan — I left this post on one of the other strings a few days ago but it should have been on the adoption forum, so I’m re-posting. First of all, thanks for your “Plugged Out Blog”. I installed it on my computer at home running linux and Apache web server, and now I have the beginnings of a very nice personal family website, with a family calendar, blog, and “shoutbox”. If you wish, you may view it at the URL listed above.
Good luck on your plans to adopt a child. My wife and I have two beautiful girls, age 12 and 7, who came to us through international adoption from China. We are very happy. I haven’t loaded any photos onto my site yet, still figuring out the best way to do that. When I figure it out, I’ll post some pictures of my kids there. Any advice on the best way to incorporate photo images into “Plugged Out Blog”?
My website is just in the beginning stages but I’m having a whole lot of fun with it and I’ve learned a little about MySql , PHP, and HTML. By trade, I’m a physician, so playing with computers and web design is strictly a budding hobby at this point! Thanks again…
Rich.
That’s so wonderful, Jonathan!
Merry Christmas to the Becketts, and a very Happy New Year to the Beckett FAMILY!
oh, that is so incredibly amazing!! your post has me grinning ear to ear for you :)
yay!
You’ll find a way to talk about your kids and share their stories in such a way that their privacy is protected. I have CUs (child units). Another blogger I read talks about her WB (wonder boy).
Congratulations and happy 2008!
I’m so happy for you and your Mrs. about this incredible journey you’ve been on, and the end is in sight! And, based on what I’ve been reading in your blog for the last couple of months, any child would be lucky and blessed to have you two as their parents. Blessings to you all!
This is lovely news. My friend who has a blog including her two, who are adopted, uses pseudonyms for them, obviously because it’s hard to avoid the fact she states that they are both boys(!) and occasionally mentions their current ages. They came to her at 6 and 4 (they are not related to each other) and she lives in a very small county so there is a vague possibility someone could work out who they are, but there’s probably a greater chance they’ll be spotted in the street. On her blog she only posts pictures of them that don’t show their faces, but she doesn’t mind if other people post pictures of them without names.
She’s at http://www.wibsite.com/wiblog/smudgie/
Awesome, awesome awesome!!!!
okay, I get it now. sorry to be obtuse.