Almost 3 weeks as foster parents.

First and foremost, I want to thank everyone in the DU community for your kind words of support when I wrote of our foster son Tommy arriving in our home back on June 30th.

Back when he arrived, he was 4 days old and had his DHHS social worker brought him here directly from being discharged from the hospital in Augusta.

I said at the time that we would love the little jelly bean if for no other reason that it is a baby's RIGHT to be loved by his or her caretakers. We got to love him regardless of that. It is amazing seeing how this little peanut changes from hour to hour. He is a hungry little baby and he makes our 15 year old son look like he's on a hunger strike!

Maria (my wife) and I were very complimented yesterday when we took Tommy to his first pediatrician's appointment and the doctors who examined him stated that it was obvious that he was a very well cared for and well nurtured & loved & contented a baby he is. Apparently our treatment plan of lots of cooing, cuddling, playing, songs and belly bouncing has been successful.

We had a bit of good news/bad news yesterday. Apparently a cousin of his birth mother has expressed a desire to foster Tommy and it appears that they meet all of the criteria for taking Tommy into their family. The GOOD news is that Tommy will be with a younger family that is a blood relation. The BAD news is that, even though hi is only 3 weeks old, we will miss him and his company. The likelihood is that he'll be going by the end of this week.

Maria and I get the definite impression that we've earned a very good reputation with DHHS, so we're confident that they'll place another baby with us very soon. We hope so, because we really ENJOY parenting. SO, Tommy is likely to be moving on very soon. we'll miss him but we'll be happy for him. We will love the next baby as much and we plan on following the same treatment plan with the next little jelly bean!

Thanks for reading.

PEACE!