6 months with Jayme

6 months with Jayme

Friday was is a BIG day for our family, we have reached the 1/2 year mark, Six months of being a family!

It’s just so amazing to see how much he has changed over the past 6 months. He is simply not the same kid. We took him shopping for some back to school clothing and found his shoe size had jumped (within 3 months) from size 10 to a size 12 1/2. When he moved in we marked him on the wall….. as of today 2 1/2 inches in 6 months! It’s almost shocking to see this “stranger” running round the house, he is simply not the kid we studied for, read about or even drove home.

But beyond the 262,800 minutes of pure joy we have had with Jayme. Six months is an important mark in our adoption process. It is now at this point we can start moving towards finalizing our adoption. We started the ground work for this a few weeks back. Jayme had a CANs review done by the state which came back with a much lower needs score then everyone on his team felt was appropriate. So we had to file for review hearing. Luckily, we were able to advocate directly with the state appointed reviewer and were able to get him connected with Jayme’s therapist (something the first person had failed to do). After he did his do diligence he came back with a higher score. We still don’t think the CAN’s accurately reflexes Jayme, but it does score him at the correct level of support. So we considered that a victory and signed off on the new score.

Once the CAN’s score was agreed upon we were able to start filing out our adoption assistance request paper work. Both our adoption clinition and Jayme’s caseworker helped us with this. Because we are a special needs adoption, the State of Oregon will cover all of the finalization costs and will provide negotiated supports after finalization. So now we are at the “negotiation” part of that. The form was not too hard, for a government NCR 5 page document. We are now waiting to hear back from the State with their offer. Once everyone is in agreement we will be able to contact a vendor attorney to file all our documents for us with the courts. Jayme’s caseworker has told us that we have a court date set for the end of November, so now we just have to get all the DHS paperwork in place before that date. Everyone on the team feels very confidant we will make it. So looks like for super Christmas present we get to become 100% legal.

To celebrate the 6 month mark the Dads did two things. First – we bought Jayme a bike. Since day one, Jayme has wanted to go outside and play with the kids who live in our little neighborhood. The problem is the only ones that play outside are all 10 and up (mostly pre-teens and young teenagers). So it just has not be something we felt was a good thing. Well last week when Jayme and Anthony came home and walked to get the mail, riding around on his bike was a 6 year old with his 4 year old sister. They saw us and followed us home, as we got inside THEY rang the doorbell and asked if Jayme could come out and play. Seems they had no one their age to play with either. So Anthony let Jayme head out, and was PANICKED, the whole time. Only parent on the block who stands outside and watches the kids play BTW. The kids were happy to share a bike and a scooter with Jayme, but one could see this needed to be corrected quickly. So one quick call to Dad Joshua, who picked one up on this way home and then built it while Anthony and Jayme slept after both falling asleep watching Dr Who Friday night. Right before breakfast Saturday morning Jayme got his bike… utter joy. Even though it was a cold morning, he headed out for about 30 mins of trying to bike up and down the sidewalks, thank God for training wheels!

The second big thing we did was go out for a nice dinner. Per the usual we could not come up with anywhere nice to eat that we all agreed on. So we settled for Claim Jumpers at the mall. Anthony ordered the Chicken pie, Jayme ordered Mac & Cheese and Joshua ordered the BBQ Beef Ribs with a sweet potato. Everyone’s food arrived and we all tucked in. Before we ordered Joshua tried to get Jayme to branch out and try something new, mainly the kids platter of ribs. Jayme refused and and Joshua did not push as it was a celebration meal. Well as soon as the food came, Jayme saw the dads tasting and sharing, so he asked to try Anthony’s pot pie… yummy. Then he asked to try some of Joshua’s BBQ ribs, it was at that point Joshua’s dinner plans were readjusted and Joshua’s new dinner became just a sweet potato. Turns out Jayme LOVES BBQ, out of the 4 ribs served to Joshua, Jayme ate 3 (Photos on shutterfly). It was the funniest thing and everyone at the table was laughing as Jayme tried to chew/suck every last bite of meat off those ribs, he had a insane look in his eyes. But a happy one.

After dinner we came home and loaded up the Dr. Who season finale. We all curled up on the sofa with the cats and watched. At the end, Jayme announced he wanted to watch the next one. Anthony had to informed him the next new one would not be until Christmas…. about a month after finalization.

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