My son has a sister

It's complicated. Mikey and his sister were split up while in foster care, and that's a story for another day. As it stands, my goal is to have The Girlie at our house at least once a month. We have gone long stretches without seeing her and it feels better for everyone when the relationship is more consistent. She refers to me as Auntie or Auntie Janet (and Uncle Dennis). She calls the woman who she has lived with since she was 4, Nana, which fits her perfectly. When she refers to her mother it means her biological mother with whom she still has contact - told you it's complicated.

Gavin wants to know what The Girlie's relationship is to him. I told him that he gets to pick how he would like to refer to her because it is so unique. The Girlie comes to visit and exhibits her maternal attachment to Mikey which can cause Gavin a little stress - he likes to be the boss of Mikey! But for the most part, it is a pleasant time for everyone.

It makes me feel good knowing that I can help Mikey and his sister maintain a relationship. I know that it is not optimal to be raised apart, but we can only work with what we have...

...and what we have is a good thing.

Forever Families

I was excited to attend the adoption festivities surrounding the adoption of our friends' little girl from the foster care system. It was in the same courthouse, with the same attorney and case worker as Mikey's adoption. It was interesting to see it from the outside this time.

I feel like an adoption from foster care is very different from an adoption that happens shortly after birth or one that happens in a foreign country. In one way, I felt like Mikey's adoption was so much more of a formality at the point it happened. I felt like Mikey was "ours" long before signing a set of papers. For us, we had been parenting him since he was 20 months old and his adoption was not formalized until he was 4 1/2. I just wanted to get in there, do what we had to do and get out! I did not feel the 'festivity' factor that was so evident at this adoption.

But later, as we hosted his adoption party, and case workers stopped coming by checking if we had clothes in his dresser or food in the fridge, I felt the full impact of the legal renderings. It was like being able to finally exhale. So what I thought was so initially so anticlimactic, turned out to provide the security that had been missing for so long.

The Costello Boyz on Mikey's Adoption Day - June 7, 2007