I’m in Tampa for a few days visiting with our little guy and spending time familiarizing myself more with his medical needs. It has been a great opportunity, and I imagine pretty unique as well, to be able to attend doctor’s visits before he’s placed with us. I’ve been able to go to the GI and pulmonology doctor in the last few weeks and tomorrow will be the cardiologist. Next week I’ll also be able to attend his IEP next week which will transfer with him to our school district.
I am very thankful that his foster mom has opened her home and schedule book to us and allowed us to be a part of all of this. Two things I would suggest to others considering foster-adoption would be to ask the social worker if you can have direct contact with the foster parent ASAP (even before the match if allowed 
) and to be as involved as possible with the child’s current needs and activities leading up to placement as possible!
Having done an adoption where the kids were handed to me and I had no contact to anyone who could answer any questions for me… I much prefer that James’ foster mom knows him well and is available to answer some things so we don’t have to do the trial and error route with him!
Yesterday the pulmonology visit went well. He’ll need to follow up with pulmonary by us in just a few months. After the appointment we went to his therapies. I watched “from afar” instead of being right with him this time. I love to see what he does when he doesn’t know he’s being watched. Last time I went to therapies he was showing off (or rather, not cooperating ). He was still trying to figure out who I was at that point, though… This time he seemed to participate a lot more. He did get pretty stubborn near the end, though, and that is probably because he’d had such a busy day having gone to pulmonology earlier in the day.
After therapy we went back to his foster home and met with his caseworker from CMS. Then we set up on the floor with some toys and just played . He did great for a long time, but eventually he started just wanting to clear off table tops and throw toys. He has a play area that I put him back in to and played with him over the side of it. He loves the word/hand play songs and was very interested in them, but when I tried to hold him he immediately shifted his focus to escaping! So, we played over the barrier…
James’ FM made supper for us and her daughter and friend and I and not too long after that I headed over to the hotel for the night.
Today wasn’t a bright and early day, which I appreciated! Around 11 Lynae and I left the hotel and grabbed lunch then met James and crew at the doctor’s office. He was just finishing up a ped appointment where we got set up with scripts to take home for some things we’ll need immediately with James. Then we went over to the mall and enjoyed just walking around and playing as well as a little shopping for the end of the school year.
Tomorrow’s plan is to go to the cardiologist and for the three of us to head back home right from there. I am looking forward to having James home again and this time, almost for good!
Oh yes… did I forget to mention that we are waiting for only a SIGNATURE to have James placed with us?? He may be moving in before next weekend is over Of course that’s my own speculation… we’ve yet to hear it from his social worker or CMS crew… but it certainly appears that it could happen!
