Today's Special

Does anybody else out there remember that show from when "Nick" or NickJr" was "Nickelodeon?" Back then on Nickelodeon there was Today's Special, Double Dare, The Monkeys and a few other shows! LOL! Anyway...

I talked with my friend in Ghana today that is helping with Wise's adoption. I am so encouraged! She thinks that after her friend finds the boys' family Wise could be in her home in days rather than weeks. I was definitely expecting weeks! In addition, she thinks it's possible that he could be home for Christmas (if there are no delays). I really thought it would be well after the first of the year, but we shall see. My tentative goal is to have our paperwork to her by the end of August.

I'm sure some of you are wondering why Eric and I aren't adopting Wise through AAI. It's not because of a lack of confidence--at all! There are a few reasons. First, AAI's policy is that a family needs to wait 6 months between child placements. This is a GOOD policy, and I support it. But in our particular situation it would be very difficult to wait 5 more months before bringing Wise into better care. A lot can happen to a 5 year old in Ghana in 5 months. Also, I know the ins and outs of AAI's program and know that we would need to pay regular (or close to regular) fees. The program is just getting started and there's no cush in the budget. But my friend is able to help us to do an independant adoption as a sort of "gift"--at her cost. We couldn't do this any other way, so this is really God's provisions shining through. =-)

We've been thinking a lot about Wise's name. It's a hard one! We've talked about him enough that his name seems pretty normal to us, but that is NOT the reaction we get from others. Even die-hard "keep your adopted kid's name" people have said it might be better to give him a different first name. Just think about it....Wise N. Heimer....Wise -ss, Wise Crack, and a ton of other stuff I'm sure 5th graders around the country could come up with. So we're thinking of adding a new first name and keeping Wise as his middle name. An added bonus in this is that I believe my friend in Ghana would begin to call him by his new name when he came into her care--so he would have made that adjustment well before coming home to us. If he absolutely didn't take to a new name we would of course allow him to go by Wise.