5 Minutes

Most people think there's not enough time in the day. Apparently for Ben and Will there are about five minutes too many in the day. It seems like each night they get tired a little bit earlier. Which wouldn't be bad if they were getting up at the same time. Before the time change a few weeks ago I got them up around 7. They would be awake and talking before then, but I went in at 7. With the change they were supposed to get up at 8, which would have been great. This morning they were up and talking to each other at 6:45 and by 7:15 were getting upset they were still in bed. We'll see what happens, but I don't think I can keep on getting them up earlier. They'll just need to deal with it. Apparently they didn't get the sleeping in gene from mom.

On a slightly more serious note, we decided to start the adoption process again. It took over a year last time and who knows how long this time around. We decided to go through the county. One of the joys was going to a six week class on Saturdays. During the orientation, there were a lot of upset people who couldn't get six consecutive Saturdays off and while I took a lot of heat from work, we figured it out. They shared nuggets like a child who's been abused may have issues, you need to bond with your child, hitting your child isn't always the best way to discipline, etc. When asked how to deal with these issues there first preferred answer was therapy. Way to add some value guys. They even had a bunch of people who came in to tell us why birth parents were better parents than us simply because they could give birth. The curriculum hadn't changed meaningfully in decades and everyone in the class couldn't wait for it to be over. If this was a normal parenting class that people had to pay for there would be riots. I don't want to rant about this because clearly it's worth it to get a child. However, it shows how ridiculous and messed up our government is even when you're trying to do good. The only people who could change this have no incentive to because it would negatively effect their own jobs-they'd have nothing to do. They complain about the number of kids in the system and make it prohibitive for people to help out. Our own social worker from the class (who subsequently quit after umpteen years on the job) even told us how much she hates how she has to send foster kids back to awful birth parents. But no one does anything. Insiders have no incentive to and outsiders have no pull to make things happen. It's frustrating but what's a g to do? We'll write letters. Offer support. But we also need to find more ways to be have a more meaningful impact.