Day of Forever Change.

Today started as many others but promises to end much differently as well as change the routine for the days ahead. We will be welcoming two new children into our home today with the intention of fostering to adopt.

Many times in the past I had wished that I had begun documenting the day to day adventures of bringing children into our home that others have cast aside. We have struggled so immensely with bad D.C.S. caseworkers, manipulative relatives, and the damage caused to children by parents and the system meant to help them and should have documented just for the sake of revisit. This time hopefully I will maintain this thread and a life story will unfold.

Let me set the stage for today's event.

We have an adopted special needs son named Raymond that is a story in its own. His adoption was final at the beginning of this year.

My youngest daughter age twenty-five along with her husband and baby of nine months are staying with us until the end of January or so when she leaves to rejoin her husband on the Caribbean island of Dominica where he will be attending medical school.

My grandson age fifteen is staying with us until he finishes high school in 2012.

We had two of our former foster daughters stay the night last night along with two of my granddaughters ages four through eight.

Our new girls ages ten and eleven will be arriving after three today with most if not all of their worldly possessions. These two little ones have issues that have bounced them around in Foster Care through five placements each one leaving its mark as well. They are bright, articulate, inquiring, active, loving, angry, emotionally disconnected, and damaged in ways yet determined but after today irreversibly connected to our family and our hearts.

While sitting here at work I realized that Patty and I were entering into another life event from which a demarcation is set and there is no going back to the way it was. We will be accepting two new lives into our hearts beginning today and no matter the outcome will forever be changed by what follows.

I am excited and trepid at the prospects of this new life adventure.

Thanksgiving 2009

Setting at work today with the entire floor of the Detective Bureau to myself. The pay is double time for working the holiday and with Christmas just around the corner the money is needed.

We have two children with us this year, Raymond and the newest addition Amanda. Both children are long term placements and possible adoption candidates.

I have renewed my relationship with my step-daughter Amanda who is the oldest daughter of my second wife. She has a good husband and two beautiful children.

We have been allowed two visits with our former foster children and their older sister. We enjoyed their visits immensely.

Haven't been as faithful to this blog as I should be but have been going through a period of busy distraction.

All is well today.

Marching in time.

It was a brisk late summer morning this morning. The cool 48 degree air wafted past my face and ears whispering of the coming winter as I walked to the barn to feed the horses and livestock.

It is this morning time that I usually use to organize my mind for the day and sort of allow my self to emotionally gage just where I am.

I’ve had some conflicts of mind lately while contemplating the demands of the present, the losses of the past and the uncertain future within my personal involvements. My youngest son will be moving out of town soon which will ultimately leave me without the interaction between us I have become accustomed too and brought on the latest emotional malaise.

I miss the relationships I had with my children whether they be natural, step or adopted. I miss the Williamson children terribly and worry about their future while knowing that I am powerless to improve it.

I realize that within all these conflicts runs the thread of natural change within a lifetime and concede to the inevitable while cautiously still peering forward to what might be.

I guess the most prominent thing I am sensing is the immediate lack of a young adult or adults to share with and teach. Is this empty nest syndrome?

Until recently I have always had an awakening mind nearby eager to explore new experiences and share the joy while searching for advice or counsel. I guess I became accustomed to vicariously reliving the discovery days of young adulthood through those young people who came my way by family or life’s events.

I always assumed that I would have my family around me no matter the situation and always be secure in a vision of the future with those I know being there as they had been in the past. It is a little disquieting when contemplating not having a young adult near whom you can attach or share dreams and hopes for their future and enjoy the experience of observing their discoveries within life.

I have plenty to keep me busy for at least the next couple of months and hopefully occupied.

I still have the pasture to divide up for the horses, Llamas and Emus.

I have horse stalls to build onto the back and sides of the barn.

Patty and I will be heading down to Vanderbilt University Hospital soon with a side stop on the way home to attend her best friend’s son’s wedding and I am contemplating an idea for a Halloween treasure hunt this year but still unsure as to the effort.

I guess this upcoming span of time through the holidays will be a time of transitions. Though the unknown future is standing there stark devoid and grey, it is also what every adventure is rooted in, Discovery, I’ll settle for that…

Finding Amber.

I found someone today who's memory like her namesake has maintained a warm glow in my heart. I found Amber.

I was browsing different records in an attempt to discover any news about her or her family when I decided to use the People search on My Space just on the chance that she may have an account. BINGO! There she was!

Amber is a young lady who became very near and dear to our hearts. She and her two little sisters and second oldest brother were members of our family for nearly two years and their pictures still hang from our stairway wall as family members. I am absolutely ecstatic!

I had recently cancelled my My Space account because it seemed to be a dead spot nobody I knew used often and a waste of time. I had to sign up for a new account again so I could send her a message advising that I had found her profile and asked for a reply.

This is great! I hope she responds.

Setting boundaries.

Summer is speedily passing by and it seems one can hear the howl of winter storms in the distance already. We are amazed daily at marked differences time makes when noticing that the new little ducklings are no longer all yellow, the corn that was just weeks ago was no taller than waist high is now too tall to see over and the evenings are progressively becoming cooler and cooler.

My time outside of our foster-parenting responsibilities has been focused on dividing up part of our pasture so as to give our Llamas and Emu (the gentler species) an area of their own and get them separated from our horses. I've been concerned more than once that one of the Emu or Llama will end up injured during feeding time because the horses will immediately kick out at anyone around (except me) so as to protect their portion of the feed.

I have also been planning the addition of horse stalls off the back of my little barn utilizing replaced telephone polls provided by a friend of my brother.

In the last two days that I have had the opportunity to work at it I have dug by hand seven fence post holes and installed posts made from telephone poles anchored with cement. In the last week I have planted at least ten post in the same way.

At 53 I have to learn that the body just doesn't recover as it did in the past but I've now gotten to the point that the last couple of poles were placed and I didn't die at the end of the day. In fact I was capable of a shower and then sharpening 48 number two pencils for the children who started school today.

I feel it strange sometimes that right in the middle of a task so physically demanding as setting fence posts that a philosophical thought will make itself known as if I had been considering it for hours. In this instance I found my self considering the parallels of setting physical boundaries (fence posts) with emotional boundaries (defining emotional limits). It became suddenly clear that emotional boundaries where akin to the physical boundary of the a fence line I was installing, extremely hard to install but once set and strung lasts for a very long time with periodic maintenance while effortlessly keeping those inside safe and those outside separate. For the life of me I can't figure why in the middle of sweat and strain such a thought passed through my brain.

Saturday is the last swap-meet of the season up in Cromwell and I have set my mind to attend money or no. It is always a fun time and good place to get ideas for around the farm.

The children started school today and I think the wife is looking forward to the time it will allow for not just catching up on the cleaning but also catching up on the latest plot twists of All My Children.

I hope the weather holds and as time passes I improve in setting my boundaries.

I found a box of clay...

I was rummaging around in my garage yesterday looking for a suitcase or a suitable container to transport the clothing of our oldest foster daughter who was leaving our care for independent living. When foster children are moved it is not acceptable to put their clothing and belongings into plastic trash bags as it implies the stigma that their property is on the same level as trash. When moved with a suitcase it is more dignified.

Any way as I was rummaging around, I ran into a large box of artist quality modeling clay that I recognized as the clay that we had purchased for our daughter Misty when she first came to live with us five years ago.

I began to reminisce about our time with her despite a self imposed rule not to do so in an attempt to dull feelings of loss, as usual though it only takes that one trigger and off I went down memory lane.

I recalled that here was the box of clay that was meant to represent Misty’s new awakening or rebirth into a world of unbridled opportunity, to do exactly as she wished instead of everything wished of her. This box along with a large artist’s easel, paints, brushes, and whole room put aside as her art studio were the result of her mere suggestion that she always wished for the tools to express herself in her art. We were her new caretakers so it was our obligation to provide her with every opportunity.

I remembered that as the time passed, the clay was not used and the months slid into years. The box of clay began to take on another persona more to the negative instead of its original purpose of setting her free. The box became a reminder of Misty’s inability of original thought or creative thinking robbed from her by the lack of hope during an abusive childhood. This box of clay became both the symbol of the faint hope of one day sculpting something from her soul while also representing waste and unrealized dreams.

It hit me then in the close summer heat of my garage while obtaining that suitcase for one child preparing to leave just what that box actually represented… As nothing was done with the potential of the clay within the box it seemed that the potential we saw in Misty sat as the clay had sat unused and unrealized. It felt at that moment that five years of teaching, caring and loving were contained in that cold uncaring lump of clay and once again I cried…

Time will tell with Misty and hopefully some day soon she will come to know that her potential is limitless, her story inspiring, her person unique and her spirit deserving of true love.

Two new cats and the 4-H Fair.

Aside from having a ton of fence work to get done, horse stalls to build, and a barn to side before winter we find ourselves right smack dab in the middle of the Allen County 4-H Fair.

Our ten year old foster daughter is entered with Nabokko the most popular of our three Llamas obtained in a rescue. She has her poster to finish, her Llama's costume and her club paragraph to complete all before the start of the fair on Monday.

Anyone familiar with 4-H will tell you just how much of a strain that puts on the parents when everything is began at the last moment. It is a good thing that the wife has good friends who have volunteered to help out so the ten year old won't be left out. We look forward to an enjoyable week and an overnight next Saturday as long as we can keep our wits and schedules together.

I brought home two male cats for the barn last evening. Both are about four months old and hopefully right at the best age to be acclimated to the barn without bringing bad habits with them, namely hunting birds. I am a little concerned about the chickens with chicks and the momma duck with her fifteen ducklings if the cats take to hunting the little ones.

We may have gotten lucky though in that when I let them loose in the hay loft of the barn it was already occupied by two of our Guineas. When I dumped them out of their carrier they slunk for a couple of steps and then as if a fire cracker just went off jumped about a foot into the air when the Guineas began sounding their distinctive alarm and then ran for the nearest cover. I think I got them at just the right age. The one thing that I want them to hunt though are the mice that are beginning to over populate the barn and even though it is summer they are still getting into the animal's feed.

I think I will name them B1 and B2 for Barn cat one and two. Both cats are actually pretty good looking cats with distinctive pastel tones to their coloring in varying shades of white, blue grey and patchy yellow.

The peacock chicks are beginning to grow their crowns and should be ready for free ranging in another week.

I just found out yesterday that I won't be able to tell my male Emus from my females until they are approximately a year and a half old. I learned that the females make the distinctive booming or drumming sound familiar to those that have been around Emus while the males grunt or growl. Oh, well I just have to be patient... The Emus are really fun to watch and are quite friendly. It's neat to watch them circle or turn as they run as they lean into the turn just like a rider on a motor cycle.

I recently added a photo of Gypsy my mare and I on my My Space page along with a photo from last year of three of my girls. Time has passed and as is life things have changed. I know I'll catch hell from some of my family for also including it in my My Space slide show but after considering how it depicts a nicer time for my Three Musketeers I decided that it was the moment that was of value and shouldn't be lost.

My next writing will come if I survive the two new cats and the 4-H fair.