Know what? I didn’t miss it as much as I thought I would. Nobody else seemed to either. Not feeling as sorry for myself as that might imply – Just the facts.

What’s been happening? Everything and nothing. Last Wednesday and Thursday were Data Gathering Days at School Girl’s school. We went in for about an hour on Wednesday for ability testing, picture taking, and various odd and assorted stuff. After that, she went to a friend’s house for a sleepover.

She was sick Thursday night, so I made the decision to let her stay home on Friday (which was idiotic scheduling on somebody’s part anyway, but that’s another rant for another time).

Yesterday we went to a parenting group meetup at a local water park. Well, we were there at the same time as the parenting group…That’s what I get for not checking my email before I leave the house every day. But School Girl had a great time, so that’s what was important.

And it’s another week that Mr. Evil is away (for his birthday, no less) in Boondocky, LA. He gets to do it next week too…

A surprising number of her good friends in 2nd grade aren’t in her class this year. There are some, including one friend who lives up the street from us, but not as many as I had hoped. Some people I recognized, others were new. The hardest part is making small talk with the other parents that I know. Really hard. But School Girl was excited and ready to go, so that made it a little easier.

Her teacher came up and introduced herself to me, which was nice. She seems very pleasant – Best Friend Bear’s big sister had her and said she was very nice. I feel a little better about having her in her class. I wish she had sent School Girl a letter like her teacher did last year, but I’m sure things are chaotic.

This year I left right before they went into the school. I held myself together until I got back into the car this year, too.

M seems much better and brighter even since the last time we saw her. She was smiling and joking, and spent some time talking to School Girl in the car on the way home. The three of them even rode the pandas, side by side, on the carousel. We had lunch over there, and headed home.

School Girl seems more…relaxed around M than she had been. She was really excited for them to get here, and couldn’t wait to get to our destination today. M said she’d never been there, which surprised the hell out of me. But she seemed to have a good time too. She showed them her room when they came back here, which is always a big deal for her.

And I (finally) got WordPress to upgrade too. My first manual install without any huge fsck-ups (I think). A good day all round.

We each interacted with at least one professional during the adoption process (agency, lawyer, facilitator, consultant, hospital social worker, etc.). What was one thing that they did that was most supportive of open adoption? What one thing was least supportive?

Hmm…

Let’s start from the top. Our state requires all adoptions to go through some sort of agency; either a county Department of Social Services or a private agency, non-profit or for-profit. There are also separate social workers for potential adoptive parents and expectant parents. We didn’t deal with lawyers per se, not even really for our finalization hearing. The people we worked with were with our adoption agency; a non-profit agency, supposedly non-religious and LGBT-friendly.

They also advertised themselves as being pro-openness. One of the first things that we did with our social worker was to put ourselves in the place of an expectant parent deciding whether or not to place. That really helped me to choose more openness rather than less. She also gave us the packet of things from M that opened up our adoption a little bit more. That was huge in determining how our adoption would start off.

Unfortunately, our social worker also did her bets to caution against opening our adoption fully. Just letters, pictures (according to the schedule, of course – oh, and could you send the first set of pictures as soon as you get home from the placement? You know, to keep on that tight schedule) and occasional visits. In a neutral location, with both sets of social workers present. Like all the other “open adoptions” she had worked with before. Give out an untraceable cell phone for a phone number. Don’t put your last name on any correspondence. Oh, and all correspondence must be according to the schedule and through the agency. “Once you give a piece of information away, you’ll never get it back.” Such a big help when we were struggling with how open to be with School Girl’s other family.

We have had a more and more open adoption with M, C & J over the years. But I cannot honestly say that our agency was a help to us. I’ve also learned that that particular agency is much more supportive of openness than previously. Which is nothing but good for new clients.

We’ve gotten far more help from School Girl’s other family and our own instincts than from anyone else when it comes to our open adoption.

We’ve gotten to go on at least one mini-vacation; basically a long weekend where we drove for two entire days to have a couple of days with my half of our family. It was nice, but I think we all wanted more time. Mr. Goth’s mother will be here next week (next week? *shudder*), and we’ll be doing at least a couple of things with her. Not camping – we don’t want to go there – but possibly some day trips into the mountains.

I’ve started a job hunt again. It’s not going very well, but at least this time I’ve got two emails notifying me that they received my application. Better than anybody else.

School Girl has had a couple of sleepovers here, and has been on one. The ones here have gone…okay. The one with two kids was a little shaky, but she wants them to be here for her “6 month birthday” next month. That one’s primarily a response to her having a birthday in February. If we lived down South it wouldn’t be so bad, but here you never know when there’ll be 6′ of snow and/or cold to contend with. This way she can have some fun outside.

It’s hard not to dwell on all the stuff we didn’t get to do this summer. Way too little time, way too many people to juggle who want some of that rare commodity.