Family & Tradition

We had our first home study visit yesterday, which ironically was at the agency and not at our house. Actually, our next home study visit is also at their office. The last two meetings will be at our house, and then we'll be ready for certification. The counselors present their adoptive families to the rest of the agency staff at their monthly meeting, to determine if they are ready to be certified and placed on the match list. Sharon hopes that we are ready to be presented to the agency in May.

During this first meeting, we talked about our families - the relationships we have, memories from our childhood, stories that we've heard passed down, and family traditions. It was fun to hear each other's memories, even if we've heard them before. Things like:

-Grandma Fischer sneaking cookies to Matt and his brothers
-Visiting Grandpa & Grandma Fincke at the beach
-Fishing in Washington with Grandpa Schroeder
-Playing in the basement at Grandpa & Grandma Caskey's house

As we talked with Sharon, we realized that our two families are very similar. We have always commented that our immediate families have very similar characteristics, but we hadn't looked at our extended family as much. Toward the end of our meeting, we realized that even our extended families match up pretty well. That is probably why we are so comfortable with each other's family.

We talked about different traditions that our families have, and what traditions we would like to continue with our children. It was exciting to think about the different stages in their life, and including them in traditions (some that date back a few generations). As I thought more about the idea of tradition, I realized that it will be very helpful in assuring our child that he/she is truly part of our family. It will also be important to learn about traditions of the birth family, so that our son/daughter maintains a connection with them. Sometimes I forget that our family is not going to simply grow by one person, that we are essentially adopting the birth family as well.

Our next home study visit will reveal the results of the temperament test that we took. I'm really interested to see how we scored. We actually took the test twice; once to rate ourselves, and once to rate each other. It will be fun to see how well we know each other. I'll let you know how it goes!