On "owning"

I don't know when it happened, or why. But one day I realized that I am an odd duck in these United States, apparently.

I never ever wanted to own my home. We did, we thought it might be better if we did....but it wasn't.

This is something that certain friends have a rough time understanding. Home ownership is highly valued, I have come to understand. For me....I am thrilled to be on the verge of being done with it. Or home goes on the market on Saturday. I hope it sells quickly. And then I never ever want to purchase another piece of brick and mortar again. Ever.

Renting has it's drawbacks, for sure. For two people who love their flexibility in life, it wins over being tied to a home that we own. And I guess that is considered weird by some people. That is allright, to each their own. Our needs and wants are all different.

For me.....I cannot take a home with me. Home is where your heart is, where your love lives. I am a nomad. I love knowing I can leave at any time, even if I do not act on that. I love the freedom of NOT owning. I love the relationships we have built with our landlords over time. We take good care of the homes we live in, and we pay our rent on time, which is appreciated of course. But it has also led to friendships. We still talk to one of our former landlords. He is a great reference for us and a great friend. All of our landlords have become friends, which is a blessing in and of itself.

Toay I am very grateful for the home that was provided for us on such short notice. It always takes a while before a new place feels like home. I do miss my cozy little place, but I don't miss the location one little bit. I hope we did the right thing....and I hope we feel like "home" again soon.

Relocation

We moved.

For those who know us in person, we lived in one of the worst ghetto areas of our town. After a horrible gang fight on our very street, we decided to sell our house. It goes on the market this week and we rented a home in a sleepy sweet suburb not too far away.

Amazing.

This home has a built in pool. With a waterfall!That elicited some gasps and ooooh's and aaaaaaaaahhh's from all of us.

No sagging pants, no chains, no colors being flashed, no shootings, no fights, no drug deals I can watch from my kitchen window, no breakins no prostitution....what a breath of fresh fresh air this is!

Just a quiet (much larger!) home where the kitties come to visit and there are people JOGGING outside in the morning!!!I feel like Cinderella in a new dress at the ball. This home is gorgeous, the neighborhood is amazing and we feel very very blessed.

I am taking the kids for a nice long walk this morning. Georgiy got brand new stroller for the occasion. The air is crisp, the sun is bright and I am planning on enjoying this beautiful day with the kiddos.

You might catch it!

You know.....we feel so enlightened as a society here in the US. At least we no longer put our kids with Down syndrome in mental institutions like they still do in Europe, right?

Right.

However, I am a bit puzzled by something both my husband and I have encountered more frequently than I would like to admit. When in public, some parents will pull their child away from Georgiy. Example.....I am in the Kaiser waiting room and there are lots of little kids. Small child walks up to my son and wants to play. Parent looks distraught and without saying a word, picks up said child and sits away from us.

Maybe they are afraid of germs, we *are* in a doctor's office after . That must be it.

Isaac takes the kids to the Milpitas Mall. There is a toy store there with an area where kids can play with a huge train table. Georgiy joins a small group of kids playing ,and suddenly parents pull their children away and our little man is alone at the train table.

I hope I am very wrong and this is not because he has a very obvious disability. But these are only 2 examples of many. And this does not happen when we are out with the other kids and Georgiy is not with us. But it is as if these people are afraid their kids might "catch" Down Syndrome".

Sad. Really really sad.

Uhm...yeah...NO!

We visited the two (well really one because there is no opening in one of the places yet) options for Special Education for Georgiy today. Isaac took a work from home day. Thank you SO much Doug, I am so grateful he was able to see this with his own eyes and give his input!!

First school option. Special Day kindergarten class. Most kids are waaaaaaaay larger than Georgiy, for starters. Many where very very disabled and were not even able to leave their wheelchairs or feed themselves. Very structured class, very quiet. The first thing we saw was an aide feeding a child in a wheelchair. Georgiy very quietly walked to the opposite part of the room, sat down and just...watched. Big eyes. Scared big eyes. I could not help but wonder if he was thinking what we were thinking. This room felt and looked so much like his groupa in Ukraine. There was a darling girl there who was the only ambulatory child. She was the sweetest girl and we liked visiting with her. Georgiy was very obviously not feeling it. Neither were we. The aides and teachers looked bored and disinterested. The longer we stayed, the more that impression solidified.

Second Special Day Kindergarten class.....happier teachers, brighter room, better feel. So far so good, right? There were two other boys with Down Syndrome there. Both much bigger than our little guy. Much steadier on their feet than he is.

The head teacher was loud. After about 10 minutes I was completely overwhelmed by her, and I am not the size of a two year old. Nice lady..but really overbearing. Some really nice aides there, warm and friendly.

We hear the sound of banging the entire time we are in the room. Everyone is acting like there is no banging. After a while the source of the banging is made clear. A girl. Appears. From the cabinets.

Cabinets like your bottom kitchen cabinets. This child cleaned them out and spends a lot of time in there. With the cabinet doors closed. Yelling. Banging. And that is allright. They don't mind. I am trying to stifle a wave of panic. This is beginning to look an awful lot like the 8 years of special ed placements we struggled with for Levi. Kids would turn over furniture, sit under kitchen cabinets, in garbage cans ( I wish I was kidding) and this was considered okay. Mostly then because folks had given up and plainly stated that. "We can't control this child, so we just let it go" We were told the same about the girl who stays in the cabinets.

Okay then.

Meantime the look on my son's face can only be described as "WTF???" He is amazed, intrigued even, by this child who yells and bangs inside of a cabinet and periodically sticks her head out. He looks at her. Puzzled. He looks at me, points and says:"MAMA!!!" very urgently, pointing at the cabinet girl. He wants her out of there, he makes that very clear. He knows this would not fly at home, and seems very confused by the adults who just stand there and act like it is nothing out of the ordinary that there is a child in a cabinet.Get the girl out of the cabinet mama!!!This doesn't look okay!!! The teacher sits by him on the floor mats (near the cabinets but far away enought not to get hit by a swinging door). She stays with him. In his excitement he moves closer and closer to the cabinets.....I am holding my breath hoping this will end differently than I think it will..

BAM!!!

The door flies open and hits our little guy. "Oh!" says the teacher. I didn't realize he had gotten that close!!" I think the thruth of the matter was more that she forgot she had a pupil in the cabinets. Either way...yikes.

Zoom in to another corner of the room, where another boy who is nearly six and tall for his age is sitting at the computer watching a Dora episode. Holding an entire cereal box sized bag of marshmallow cereal. Eating out of it like it is a bag of chips. Gets up. Runs around the room with said bag of cereal. Sits back down. Gets up again, goes to the kitchen area in the back and pulls out a huge bag of Doritos, opens it and starts to eat that. He runs around some more, eating, yelling, swinging bags of food around.

I.am.floored.

But he is not done. Now he runs back to the kitchen (mind you, no one else is being offered food and no one else is having snack.)and he grabs cookies. Rinse and repeat previously described scenario. No one does ANYTHING.

Wait. I am lying.

They *are* doing something. The adults are all praising his behavior. "This is so good!!! Wow!!! He is eating at school!!!Yay!! Such progress!" I feel like I have entered an alternate universe.

The child is completely in charge, running around, randomly grabbing food items and eating them all over the place and this is allright.

No one is teaching him to perhaps ask for the food. No one is putting food in a bowl, or on a plate. Heck, put several ziplock baggies of cereal, cookies or chips together and allow those for free access. I am just trying to see how this is beneficial for A) this boy and B) for the other kids in this room who are learning that this is an okay way to eat. I for one do not want Georgiy getting the idea he can go into my kitchen, open a box of cereal, take out the clear bag and eat it straight out of the box while running around like a maniac.

But guess what? My previous eight years of having a child in Special Ed classes where similar things were happening have taught me something from experience. This behavior WILL be mimicked. It WILL come home. And you will spend endless hours trying to eradicate this from your kids repertoire of Crap You Never Wished He Learned.

Zoom back in on the same child. Georgiy thinks the computer is cool and climbs in the chair. The child, although not using the chair or the computer, doesn't think this is cool at all. I decide to see how staff is going to handle this situation. They tell him he needs to share.

He doesn't think so. Staff turns around and does not complete or even supervise this intervention. They are too busy chatting. The child pushes Georgiy. Then he grabs Georgiy's arm really hard and yanks him down. So hard that my little boy has a mark on his small wrist.

*I* tell the boy :"No honey that is NOT okay. That hurts him!!! He is still tiny!"

No one else does anything. I realize that my gut was right. A room full of kids who are twice Georgiy's weight and size, who are allowed to pretty much do what they want and who are not supervised in a manner that I think is appropriate for a group of young children is not where he needs to be. The IEP evalauator who came with us confirmed that this class is "very laid back".

No kidding.

I could go on and on about this room but I will stop here. We got back in the car and drove home, while my husband repeated over and over:"No. Hell no. Just no. NO!"

As if I were going to disagree. Nah. No.


So our one option sucks. The other "not available now" option sucked just as much.

I told the IEP lady that this is not an appropriate placement and that Georgiy will remain at home until they can find something that does meet his needs. He will do speech at a nearby school, provided by the district. I will see if I can find a private preschool to take him so he can be with kids his own size and weight and ability level and he can meet his PRESCHOOL goals there....at preschool. Not at a Special Day kindergarten class where he ends up because his birth certificate says he is 5 and a half. He is the size of a 2 year old child for Pete's sake. With the abilities of an 18 month old.

Because that was just not it. Not it at all.

Song

You know what is frustrating? When you write this beautiful melody and the words are just not ready. I keep playing it and humming it and loving it, but no words come.

Please pray for this person, and for her mother

I will not post the entire message that was sent to me on another journal site. I won't reveal how I know this person, because they have the right to some privacy regarding their identity. I decided to post part of her message to me. Does the message hurt? sure. What hurts the most is that this person knows that what she is saying is a lie, as will my sister who reads here, because my sister obviously witnessed Sarah's visit with us to Holland in 2004. So much for "no interest" in her, I would say.

There is a vindictive person who I was once friends with. This person is very angry and bitter and has decided to post pretty vile stuff on her journal trying to hurt me. I have let most of it roll off. Sometimes I pray for her. Sometimes I just roll my eyes. Other times I have sent money for Christmas gifts for her kids via a mutual friend, because I hate it when they are so tight financially that gifts for holidays are an issue. Contrary to what she believes, I wish her well. Regardless. I don't like her much at this point. But I do care. She enfuriates me at times. But I still care.

A lot of what is being written now is that I "gave up a child when it was no longer convenient" and I "bought a baby in Ukraine" a child that she says I will give away when I am tired of him.

This evening I found a message from her adult child in my inbox.

I will spare you some of the really raunchy stuff. This is the last part of it:

"If only Sarah had been so lucky to receive such interest! Well, hopefully your next new child will be more worth your time. If it's damaged, I'm sure you can get at LEAST a partial refund, huh? "

You all remember Sarah. I suppose we did not give her enough attention or time. 5 years of boomerang foster care and nearly every single weekend of either home passes for her or us visiting her at the group home when she was unable to maintain in a home setting is apparently nothing. . I can prove this with documentation in no trouble flat, but there is no need to go there. Sarah ended her own time in foster care, she chose a different lifestyle than life in a family. There was little we could have done. No child was ever given up on in this home. The system might have given up, but I did not.For the record, we covered our journey with Sarah in our homestudy, so no secrets there.

What floors me is how low a person will go. "If it's damaged, I'm sure you can get at least a partial refund"

We are talking about a small boy with Down Syndrome here. My son. People who speak that way about a disabled child..."you get get a refund, if IT's damaged...." ...people like that need your prayers. I don't care how low they go to slander me. They need prayer in a big way when they refer to him as an object that can be returned for a partial refund. That is an attack on HIM. A child. A child with a disability.

So would you pray for these people?

Thank you.

If you had a choice

If you had a choice between adopting embryos or adopting a child domestically or internationally.....which option would you choose and why?