Janet's Blog

Victoria was four years old when God brought her into our family. She turned five just one week after she came to live with us permanently. For our youngest daughter, I was Mom #4.   Four-year-old Victoria There is so much I could share about little Victoria. She had a wonderful smile. As far as she was concerned, everyone she met was instantly her friend. She blended into our family extremely well from the very beginning. She loved to sing and dance, and dress up like a princess. She adored her big sisters and their friends, basking in the attention they gave her. She loved our dog, Kirby, and our cat, Libby, and any other animal she ever met. She worked very hard to learn to speak in complete sentences and overcome her developmental delays. Victoria didn't hesitate to call me Mom right away. She was used to bestowing that title on a series of caregivers. Her birth mother, step mother, and most recent foster mom came before me; her new mother-in-law is Mom #5. Her early years had ...

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a can of crescent rolls, like the one pictured, and put it in the refrigerator, so I could make some Tostada Pie, which uses crescent roll dough as the crust. I noticed the can in the fridge just a few days ago, and decided to make Tostada Pie the next day. Imagine my surprise when I opened the refrigerator to get the can of dough, only to find that it was missing! I looked everywhere--behind the romaine lettuce, on the door shelves with the ketchup and milk, even in the vegetable crisper, but I couldn't find it anywhere. I pulled the freezer drawer open, and checked carefully, just in case the cylinder had rolled itself down into the freezer, but still no luck. Next I asked Victoria, and then Levi, if they knew what had happened to it, but they both insisted they didn't have a clue about the whereabouts of the missing crescent rolls. I texted Bill, but he didn't know where it was, either, even though he remembered seeing the roll can...

Today marks the 37th anniversary of our first miracle baby's birth. Happy Birthday, Erin! Bill and I married young. It was important for me to finish college, so we decided, from the outset, to postpone having children for five years, or so, until I was thoroughly educated, and we were both a little more ready to be parents.  We never expected to wait for eight years. From the time we were first married, we discussed being foster parents, and even expanding our family through adoption, but we expected it to be through choice rather than necessity. When it became evident that we were having trouble conceiving a baby, we saw several doctors, and eventually a fertility specialist, three hours away, in Grand Rapids. Some of the doctors were more helpful than others. A couple of them told us outright that our chances of having a baby naturally were slim to none, and we should just adopt. That was a problem in Michigan, where we lived then, because the average wait time to adopt ...

This morning, when Levi first woke up, he asked me if he could watch a movie called Matilda . I didn't have to give it much thought. After he finished his Saturday morning chores, Levi found the movie on the free cable Pay-Per-View channel, and I let him watch the movie he had requested. Then, I sat in the family room and watched part of  Matilda  with him. Perhaps you remember the movie, which first came out in 1996, or even the book it is based on, a 1988 classic by one of my favorite children's authors, Roald Dahl. He also wrote eighteen other children's novels, like James and the Giant Peach , and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory . Like many of his works, Matilda is a rather quirky tale about a child who is magically able to overcome a desperate situation, emerging in triumph at the end of the story. Today, National Adoption Day, was a perfect day to watch Matilda with Levi. Our youngest daughter, Victoria, was almost five when she joined our family t...

Our youngest daughter, Victoria, turned 21 today. In honor of the occasion, she drove us the twenty miles south of Gering to the old Hilltop Cafe, now re-imagined as the Double L Country Store and Cafe. We enjoyed a marvelous, diner-style lunch, along with some good conversation, before she drove us home again. Driving hasn't come easily for Victoria. She is finally beginning to be a confident driver, and will soon be ready to graduate from her third learner's permit to a full-fledged driver's license. Victoria's life hasn't always been easy. As a young child, she was shunted from one caregiver to another until she was finally placed with a nurturing foster family when she was almost four years old. The following summer, I spotted her picture on a Nebraska HHS website for adoptable children. Early in our marriage, Bill and I had discussed adoption as a way to expand our family, but it was more than twenty years later before we were able to pursue that possibil...

My niece, Lindsey, is celebrating another birthday this week and, as usual, I can't help thinking about that day, thirty-some years ago, when she joined the family. But the story really started several years earlier. Bill and I were married just a few months after his sister, JoAnn, married Bill Lathrop. I finished college in Nebraska before we moved to Michigan. JoAnn finished college after she was married, too, and she and Willy lived in Omaha for a few years before they moved to Gering. JoAnn and Willy found out that they were unable to have a baby naturally, so they decided to pursue adoption. Bill and I had decided to wait at least five years before having a baby, but when the time came, we also faced infertility issues. We looked into adoption, too, but when we found out that there was a seven year waiting list to adopt an infant in Michigan, we decided to seek the help of a fertility specialist instead. Bill and I both wanted a baby badly, but I can’t say that...

You may wonder why we keep our marshmallows in the safe. The answer is simple, really. If anyone in the family wants to have marshmallows to put in our hot chocolate on a cold winter day, we have to hide them from Levi. We've tried lots of hiding places--on a high kitchen shelf, under the dresser in my bedroom, in my closet. No matter where we put them, Levi finds them and eats them all. Or, even worse, he eats half of them and puts the open bag under his bed for later, only to find that they have gone the way of all marshmallows left in the open air: they've turned into very sweet rocks. So, the best place for our family supply of marshmallows is in the safe. That's also where we keep the chocolate and the yogurt raisins. You see, some kids with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) have an extreme craving for sweets. Levi is proof of that. But, in addition, his doctors have recommended that he limit his consumption of sugar in hopes of preventing more menta...

Meagan was eight when we moved from our tiny, two-bedroom house to our current, much larger home.  She was so excited to choose her own second-floor bedroom, the long and narrow, pale pink room.  Meagan loved that room, and was perfectly content with it, until three years later when she started sixth grade. That's when she learned that her teacher, Mrs. Bahl, had grown up in this house, in that very room.  And, what's more, Mrs. Bahl and her sister had chosen that pale pink color for the walls. That's all that Meagan needed to hear.  As soon as she got home from school that day, she insisted that we needed to redecorate her room. So, a few weeks later, we bought two new comforters for her bunk beds, and decided to sponge-paint a matching color scheme on the walls.  First, we painted the walls white, cutting in carefully around the three windows and three doors with a paintbrush, then using a roller to complete the job.  Next, we used a narrow roller to pa...

Levi has been having a hard time lately.  And, when Levi has a hard time, so do I.  So does Bill.  So does nearly every authority figure Levi meets.  Reactive Attachment Disorder is the culprit. I'm ready for this current phase to be gone. Children with Reactive Attachment Disorder have a hard time trusting adults because, at some point in their infancy or early childhood, the adults in their lives failed to give them the essential care they needed.   Because they failed to form and maintain strong attachments to their earliest caregivers, children with Reactive Attachment Disorder have a hard time maintaining strong relationships with any adults.  RAD is quite common among children who have been in foster care, or who have been adopted any time past early infancy.  So, children with RAD tend to take charge of every situation.  They are bossy.  They take food without permission and hide it in strange places, just in case the adults...

Before we adopted Victoria thirteen years ago, Bill and I were required to sit through long hours of classes for foster parents and other people, like us, who were considering adoption of older children.  In this case, "older" means any age past infancy.  We learned all about basic child care for children with special needs.  We were introduced to all kinds of trauma that might have been experienced by children in need of alternative homes.  I remember, though, that one presenter reassured us that, statistically, only one percent of adopted older children would inherit their birth parents' mental illness. She lied. Or, maybe, she was misinformed.  Or, perhaps, there just wasn't enough research to disprove her claim.  Whatever the reason for her assertion, I can say, without doubt, that all of the numerous children I've known, who have been adopted past infancy, have been adversely affected by some form of mental illness, whether it was inherited or acq...

The challenge was daunting, at least to me.  One person would write, while the other dictated the highlights of his life in one minute.  I chose to write, because I didn't think I could possibly summarize my life so succinctly, in a way that would be entertaining.  Oh, I almost forgot to mention that the results were read aloud to the entire group as a way for us to get to know one another a little better. Some condensed life stories were funny, in spots.  Some were informative; I learned some things about certain people that I hadn't known before.  Many were predictable--"I was born, I lived, I graduated, I got married, I work, I have children and grandchildren..."   In a way, the vignettes reminded me of obituaries. I still don't think I can summarize my life, thus far, in one minute's time but, maybe, I can condense it to the length of a blog.  The real test is to make it interesting.  Hmmm, here goes... Grandpa Wegner often called me his...

     When Levi first joined our family, at the age of four, he was obsessed with the story of the Gingerbread Man.  "Run, run, as fast as you can; you can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!"  Levi was determined to learn how to draw one.  I spent hours with him, instructing him in the finer details of gingerbread men.  He practiced over and over, until he was finally able to draw a passable gingerbread man without any coaching from me.  For more than a year, he drew countless gingerbread characters, of endless varieties, sizes, and colors; painstakingly, he cut each one out.  He constructed gingerbread men out of playdough.  We baked and frosted gingerbread cookies.  For a while, our house was littered with faux gingerbread figures.  Now, four years later, I'll bet I could still find some if I looked carefully in the right places. Eventually, Levi moved on to bigger and better subjects--robots, ninjas, science fict...

As I was holding Tobin in church this morning, I noticed how he just sat back and relaxed in my lap, content to look around and listen to all that was taking place.  He felt secure.  When he started to fuss a little, I handed him to Meagan, who took him out briefly until he fell asleep. Then, he napped peacefully in her lap until the end of the worship service, opening his eyes once when the congregation applauded for some special music, then closing his eyes to continue his nap, secure in his mother's lap. How often we take such security for granted!  A child like Toby, who is raised in a stable, loving family, is truly blessed.  We are not always aware of the many children who do not share this blessing. When we first met Victoria, and then Levi, they were each four years old.  They had both experienced much trauma in their short lives.  The adults in their lives abused drugs or alcohol, or both.  Some family members struggled with mental illness...

It's November--National Adoption Month.  Bill and I first talked about adoption years ago, soon after we were married.  We wanted as many as six children and, even then, we planned to adopt and provide foster care, as well as raise our biological children.  The time frame has been a little different than we expected, but the results have been worth the wait. It was just eleven years ago this week that Victoria joined our family permanently through adoption.  We saw her picture on the internet in June, filled out reams of paperwork, and attended one training after another.  We first saw little Victoria, across the room at her daycare center, in August, and we met her for the first time in September, when we joined her foster family for a picnic lunch and a trip to Riverside Zoo.  Victoria was almost five years old, very tiny, and very cute.  A proposed six month transition period was shortened into six weeks of back and forth travel between our ...