Child profiling evening

On Wednesday, Andy and I went to a child profiling evening.  I'd been looking forward to it for ages because it was going to be our first opportunity to find out about actual children, in our local authority area, looking for parents.

In some ways, it was a bit of damp squib.

There was film footage of maybe half a dozen kids who the authority is trying to place.  And collages about the children around the room, full of glitter paint and pictures of Thomas the Tank Engine and Peppa Pig.  But not a great deal of information.  The social workers of the children were there to quiz afterwards.  But without the information in the first place, it was difficult to know who you'd want to know about.  The DVD didn't even tell us how old they were in most cases.

For me, seeing footage of a child jumping on a trampoline and eating biscuits, in the absence of much information about them, didn't really help.  And knowing that a young lad likes Thomas the Tank Engine doesn't separate him from the rest of the male pre-school population of Britain.  My analytical and slightly cynical mind was trying to work out how old the kids were and what was making them difficult enough to place that they'd ended up being featured at the profiling evening.  I spotted a language delay or two, a severe speech disorder, a very odd gait and an obsessiveness with tidiness that could have indicated autistic spectrum disorder or possibly emotional difficulties.

I think the intention was to shower us with cuteness that would hit the maternal "Aaaaah!" button.  Didn't work for me.  I think I'm just very aware that a moment of cuteness is not going to carry us through twenty or thirty years of being parents and so didn't want to let my guard down.  That's not to say I don't have an 'Aaaaaah' button.  It's working very effectively at the moment and kicks into action at almost every opportunity.  Had a meeting in a cafe yesterday in some gardens and was constantly distracted by children playing in the grass and little girls giggling and running along hand in hand.

To be honest, none of the children hit the profile we've been thinking of.  There was one sibling group, but a little bit younger than we were thinking.

So.  And this is the exciting bit.  We asked the social work manager who was there, if they currently have other sibling groups waiting, perhaps a bit older.  She immediately knew who we were and her eyes lit up and she said that she'd been talking to Chris, our social worker.  There are older sibling groups and Chris is already thinking about some children who might be suitable.

How exciting!!!

How terrifying...

Getting in the scene

Now we're actually doing the assessment and might even go to panel at some point this year, I've started to communicate / meet up with local parents who have / are adopting.  Even joined a facebook group.

We had lunch with a local adoptive Mum and her rather wonderful 3 year old daughter on Friday.  It was great.

Fire Safety - a cautionary tale.

There has been a smoke alarm beeping in our house for weeks now. It's been a fairly gentle, ignorable beep, but a beep all the same. More conscientious house owners would have sorted it out ages ago. But the offending smoke alarm (one which is in my office and has been in the house since before we moved in) was not our only defence against dying in our sleep due to smoke inhalation. We had 2 further smoke alarms fitted by the fire brigade more recently. These are state of the art and made to last 10 years. So our ignoring the noise was not quite as irresponsible from a health and safety perspective as it might at first appear.

Andy and I were away last week and returned to discover the offending alarm had stopped beeping gently and was now beeping in an ear-splitting, DO NOT GO TO BED UNTIL YOU HAVE FIXED ME kind of way. Tired from driving, I'm afraid I didn't fetch a ladder and replace the battery. I hit it with a stick. Having dislodged the battery, however, I was appalled to discover that it was still beeping. How could this be? Assistance was summoned from husband, who concluded it must have some kind of secondary power source and unscrewed it from the wall. The wallpaper underneath is from at least 3 decoratings ago. Hardier than we thought. Battery replaced. Beeping continues. Second battery found.

I stand in office and realise beeping is still emanating from inside office. I have a moment of wondering if our house is haunted / possessed by the spirit of the smoke alarm. It really sounds like the noise is coming from the patch of ancient wallpaper. But no. Perhaps it is from the landing. I stand beneath the smoke alarm on the landing ceiling. This is a new one, very recently installed by the fire service. It is definitely beeping. Very loudly. It needs silencing. Funny 10 years, I think.

Husband summoned. Husband agrees this is the offending noise source. Husband disables the alarm, removing a large patch of paint at the same time. He reports it will no longer function unless fixed by soldering.

Noise gone? Surely? No. Noise not gone. We stand beneath the one remaining smoke alarm and listen very, very carefully. Having been fooled twice. The beep is not coming from there. After much careful listening we realise the noise is coming from my office. Eventually we track down an old, abandoned smoke alarm in a box of bits and pieces.

Andy says he will mend and refit the 2 perfectly functional smoke alarms we have wantonly destroyed. Oh well. At least the beeping has stopped and we can sleep tonight...

Korean body worship

Happened upon this on You Tube. It brings back strong memories of our time in Mozambique last summer.

I have not been a great fan, it has to be said, of 'liturgical dance' (sometimes known as 'inpsirational dance' and done to the accompaniment of worship songs either as performance piece at the front of some churches, or by enthusiastic members of the congregation waving large flags about whilst everyone else is singing slightly more sedately). I'm very happy for people to do it. It's a free country. I'd just rather not join the flag-waving fraternity, thank you very much.

However however however. God / life has a habit of trashing one's pre-conceptions, and when we were at Iris Ministries in Mozambique, there was also a party of Koreans. The Koreans were fabulous people. Fun loving, gentle, humble, generous, beautiful people who were just a joy to be around. Some of them did something called 'Body Worhsip'.

On the face of it, it should not have been anything particularly impressive. It wasn't very exciting. They didn't have many moves. They didn't know that many different routines. But every time they did it, it felt like someone in heaven had accidentally left the door open. There was one notable occasion when we were doing an evangelistic mission type thing to a village where the last team who went had rocks thrown at them. So there we were with the Iris Ministries truck and a crowd of several hundred, possibly a couple of thousand, villagers who had turned up out of curiosity because not much else happens rather than for any other reason. The crowd felt slightly edgy and hostile. Everyone was distractible and talking. Not the ideal audience for liturgical dance.

But the Koreans did their 'Body Worship' and for those minutes the atmosphere changed completely. It was incredibly moving. A hush fell and it was one of the holiest moments I've ever experienced.

So here are some Korean Body Worshippers. This is not an exciting video clip. And it is unlikely to make you want to take up Body Worship. But it brings back precious memories for me.

Our last assessment visit

Andy and I spent three and half hours with Chris, our social worker, this morning.  The last of our assessment visits.  Sometimes called a 'home study'.  It's been quite an interesting journey, this part of the assessment process.  And I have really warmed to Chris, who I think has warmed to us also.  She is very warm hearted and passionate.  And obviously has oodles of experience.  Now she has to meet our referees and write up the report.  

Today we spent a lot of time talking about what kind of children we would be prepared to take on.  It really meant ticking a lot of boxes about the kinds of children we wouldn't be prepared to take on.  By which I mean the questions were all about the potential problems kids would come with.  So histories of violence, sexual abuse, attachment disorder, learning disability, aspergers syndrome, illness, physical problems, behavioural issues of various kinds....  the list went on.    

It's not nice ticking boxes and excluding people on the basis of such things.  It took a bit of thinking and reflecting to find a way of approaching the task which felt comfortable.  Don't know about Andy, but my thinking was as follows:

1. We've got to fill this piece of the form in, however horrid it feels.  
2. The hard truth is that whoever we parent in the end, means excluding everyone else.
3. To do the best job we can, we need to be as honest as possible with ourselves about what we want to do and what we can offer.

So we ticked the boxes.  Effectively we said that we understand that children will come with all sorts of problems and issues, but that we are looking to parent children who 

1. we stand some chance of forming an attachment with and who have a good chance of forming an attachment with us.
2. have a good chance of living independent adult lives.

We're hoping for a sibling group of 2 aged between around 3 and 8.

Obviously, I have a deep desire to be a parent.  From a sort of 'making a difference' point of view, I want to break the cycle for some kids.  Give them a stable, loving base to grow into adulthood from and a good model of what family life can be so that they have a fighting chance of going out and replicating that.  I feel really passionately about that.  

We have been asked to write something about our faith and about church.  And we have a financial assessment form to complete.  And then our 'homework' for the moment is almost done.  I have to say, the pre-adoption course and the assessment itself have been by far the easiest and most interesting part of the process.  It might have been hard if we were very private people but we're not in the slightest.

So.  Next thing for us is the profiling event later in July.  Oh, and sorting out the house to make space for a family.  Bigger job than it sounds, I think!

Nigtchurch Video

We made this video for our launch event, last night.