February 22, 2008 • 3:36 pm
One of the requirements for our adoption is that we attend a “parenting workshop” offered by Family and Children’s Services in Waterloo (they have a lot of great introductory material about adoption of you’re looking for someplace to start). The “PRIDE Training Course” is in high-demand, since every potential set of parents needs to attend, and there’s a limited number of teachers.
Originally we were scheduled for April, but we’ve recently been accepted into an earlier timeslot, and we start next week instead! This is great news; we’ll be done at our coursework at the end of March and one step closer. Once we get our paperwork together, we can arrange for a home study. Wow, this is coming together faster than we expected. Time to get moving on those home renovations!
Filed under: Adoption
February 13, 2008 • 4:45 pm
Carry a long canvas bag into work, slung over your shoulder. When asked, tell then it’s just your “weapons”. Yeah, that’s exactly the look I got 
After the aikido seminar a couple of weeks ago, and the chance to use some higher quality weapons, I’m looking at buying some new aikido weapons (specifically, a new jo, or short staff). It sounds simple right? Then you start looking around and realize how much of an art this is to many people, and how important the details can be: type of wood, how it’s shaped, exact measurements down to the 1/4 inch. It can be quite daunting.
Mike came across this site, which specializes in hand-cut weapons made from hickory. Japanese oak is popular for its durability (that’s what my current weapons are made of), but hickory is supposed to be durable and slightly malleable; if you warp it, you can straighten it again. Now the question is: which jo to purchase? Standard grade are probably fine, although I’m tempted by the hand-cut jo, with inscribing. At ~$179 USD though, I’ll probably stick with the cheaper weapons!
Filed under: Aikido, Work
February 3, 2008 • 2:35 pm
Adoption = Paperwork
It’s part of the process and a very important part of the process in my opinion. Any idiot can get pregnant and birth a child – we tried so we know . It takes a lot of careful process to take a child that is seperated from birth parents because of neglect and/or abuse and find a stable set of parents to work with that child to heal and grow.
Last Thursday night (January 31) was the night to work on adoption paperwork. Jeff and I went to the Police Department in Waterloo to fill out an application for a local police clearance. Ten minutes and fifty dollars later we were on our way. It will take a couple of weeks for the results so we’ll have to invest another ten minutes in the future to pick up our reports. We then popped up to the mall to get driver abstracts for each of us from the handy, dandy kiosk. Ten minutes and twenty-six dollars later, we were on our way with abstracts in hand. This adoption expense is minor compared to the many, many expenses our friends are experiencing in the international adoption stream. We are fortunate to be adopting locally in terms of finances. Hopefully, the rest of the process will also make us feel thankful.
At home, we filled out forms for financial information, family and personal references, a Child Welfare Agency record check, home and car insurance, pet immunization, marriage certificate, and a memorandum for adoptive applicants. Whew! It took the entire evening but was a great experience. I’m photocopying everything so I have this information on hand if I ever need to submit it again.
We’ve got appointments with our doctor for our medical reports and will have to call to find out if Jeff needs letters from his medical specialist but that is the bulk of what we need to do in terms of paperwork. We also need to get a family photo done for our profile, attend parenting classes, and complete a home study. That’s it. It sounds like a lot but really isn’t such a big deal once you know what to do. The secret is to deal with it in manageable chunks. We’re learning as we move forward.
I’m sharing this list of tasks for all our friends who ask about this work we are required to do. It is hard to remember all forms and tasks associated with the adoption process when asked.
Thanks to everyone for the encouragement and offers to act as references. We feel very fortunate to have so many supportive friends and family.
Filed under: Adoption
