I’m starting to think that I should change the name of my blog from the harried househusband to the completely frazzled and unable to get anything done househusband. A couple of weeks ago, on the day when I had planned to write the second installment on the ‘Carlos Series’, we found that our computer (a mac) had crashed.  Eventually, we took it into the “Genius” bar at the mac store, where we told that it just happens sometimes and that no one knows why.  Really?  Genius much?  Software reinstalled (and all papers, pictures, etc., wiped from our computer), we left – and I thought, now I can get this done! However, a trip to the ER with my lovely wife, derailed those plans for a few more days.

Back in December, Kristin had taken a youth group from our church ice skating.  Just as they had finished and she was stepping off the ice, her legs suddenly split apart, bambi-like, and she was left with a torn MCL and ALC in her left knee.  For weeks, she had to keep her knee immobilized in a straight leg brace.  She has been going to PT for the last month or so and had finally been freed of the brace.  However, a week ago, her calf and ankle had begun to swell.  The PT said that could just happen sometimes.  However, when the swelling wouldn’t go down – no matter what actions Kristin took, we became a little concerned.  After a phone call to her doctor brother (thanks Mike!), we were instructed in no uncertain terms to head straight to an ER.  A couple hours later, the ER doctor informed us that Kristin did indeed have a blood clot in her leg and would have to be admitted  – she refused to say for how many days.  A nurse came in, put a line into her arm in preparation for admitting her.  Thankfully, Kristins doctor overruled the ER and said to send her home with lovenox shots.  The ER doctor, who had a little bit of attitude, seemed quite miffed at this.  The lovenox shots by the way, are horrible.  Twice a day, Kristin injects herself.  Each one leaving a plum sized, purple bruise.  Our 4 year old saw them the other day – she was quite concerned and upset.  So am I.  I feel like crying every time I see them. It really does look terrible (no offense, sweety) – I guess once Kristin’s stomach is all purple, with no clear spots left for shots, she can then happily move on to other parts of her body.  All of which, brings us finally to:  CARLOS, PART DOS

I last wrote about my decision to adopt Carlos – and     It had been in the Spring when I first met Carlos.  My decision to go forward with adopting him was finally put ‘pen to paper’ in August of that year.  Government run child protective services are not know for being efficient or well-run, and this was certainly the case with the Department of Children’s and Family Services (DCFS) in Los Angeles.  It took a couple more months of waiting and paperwork before I started weekly visits with him.  In December, he was able to stay overnight at my home once a week.  Carlos was at that time, living with the same set of foster parents who’d had him since he was released from Children’s Hospital.  He called them mom and dad.  They had him call me Papa Dave.  He slept in a small room with another foster child.  They had mattresses on the floor, but no beds.  There were also few toys, with t.v. being the main method of child entertainment  His foster mom told me that they kept a lock on the closet, with their clothes inside, because they were always trying to play with the clothes.  I wondered what else she expected.  With hardly no toys at all, they’d be desperate to play with just about anything.  Despite this, the foster parents were not terrible by any means – I have seen far worse.  It was clear they cared for Carlos – though clearly not as much as for their older biological children who had plenty of ‘toys’ – he was not abused or mistreated – just not really nurtured either.  They had decided to start a large group facility for adults and so had decided they didn’t want to have foster children anymore.

I had hoped to have Carlos placed permanently with me before Christmas of that year, but his foster parents wanted to spend one last Christmas with him.  I had to settle instead for giving him a Lincoln Log set a couple of days early.  On January 6th, when he was finally placed with me, those Lincoln Logs had oddly gone missing.

First time parents can often have a bit of a shock when it comes to getting used to a newborn.  The sleepless nights, diapers, etc.,  When an older child is place with you, there is also quite an adjustment period.  The child comes with ingrained habits, likes, dislikes; is used to certain types of discipline, or lack thereof; has foods he will or won’t eat.  I found that there was quite a bit to learn about this now 6 year old who had entered my life.  I found for example, that he had never been taught how to use a fork.  Or a plate.  His food, usually rice and meat, had been given to him in a bowl, with a spoon.  Vegetables, any kind of vegetable – even fake vegetables such as corn, and fruit, were not happening.  At first, when given vegetables, Carlos would simply refuse to eat them.  When told he had to, he would make this horrible retching, gagging sound, the minute they were in his mouth.  After making himself throw them up a few times at the dinner table, I explained that overtime he did this I would double the amount of vegetables on his plate.  Eventually, I resorted to putting only vegetables on the plate, which he had to eat before anything else would be put on the plate.  Carlos started to grudgingly eat his vegetables – though always with a very unpleasant look on his face – which took another 12 years to undo.  Mostly.  Even now, he stills looks like he is going to hurl when eating peas.   Of particular enjoyment, was that whenever I had a visitor, Carlos figured that was when he could get away with retching at the table again.  It led to more than one startled look.  That’s the joy of children though isn’t it?  They are constantly trying to outsmart us, there parents, and we are constantly having to up our game to stay ahead of the little rascals.

Other things I learned about Carlos:  He has quite the phobia of birds.  I learned this a couple of weeks after his placement.  We went to an open air market in downtown Los Angeles, to look for a new backpack for him.  As we were walking along, a couple of pigeons landed about 20 feet in front of us.  Without warning, Carlos let out a scream, turned tail and ran.  Fast.  I had no idea Carlos could run that fast.  His left leg was in a brace.  He fell easily.  All the time in fact.  He had little cuts, scrapes and bruises all over both of his hands and arms from falling so much. I almost always held his hand when we went places so that I could catch him when he would fall, before he got more cuts and scrapes.  So there he was, zooming away from me at full speed, blindly running to who knows where.  “Huh,” I thought, as I turned and ran after him.  “No one mentioned this.”

Bathrooms were another problem.  Mainly, bathroom habits.  “You have to hold it,” I would tell him, after seeing puddles and splatters everywhere.  “You have to hold it.”  “And aim.”  I finally gave up – and Carlos was relegated to sitting.  Which even then, did not always work.  “You have to push it down, Carlos, down! You can’t just let it shoot straight ahead!”

There were also the sadder moments too.  I had Carlos start attending kindergarten at the school where I taught – where kindergarten was a half day.  After kindergarten was over, he went to a nearby after school program, where he would wait until I was done with work.  About a month after placement, I went to pick him up one afternoon.  Carlos’s face screwed up when he saw me and when we got outside, he started to blindly run few yards down the sidewalk.  It was clear he was trying to hide, but there was no where to go.  It was a barren sidewalk in East LA with a chain link fence next to it.  He stopped, faced the fence and stood there crying, trying not to let me see.  I got him into the car.  He kept asking “why?”  He wanted to know why he wasn’t with his “mom” and “dad” anymore.  He meant his foster parents.  The only people he could ever remember as being his Mom and Dad.  What do you say to that?  I’m certainly glad that in the intervening years, those memories have faded for him and that the life which he has had with me and then with his new mom Kristin, has been one that no longer leaves him asking “why?”.  It also helps that there are no more awkward moments, such as the time I was in line at the going out of business sale for Montgomery Ward.  “Can I go home with you?” he asked the nice looking couple ahead of us.  He clearly thought they looked like better parents than I did.

It’s amazing to me how long it can take to adopt a child – and that it often takes quite a bit more time than having one the biological way.  By the time Carlos had finally been placed with me, I had already made the decision to move from Los Angeles to NYC.  Not an easy decision to make – but I had felt for some time a strong impression (which I had desperately tried to ignore) that NYC was where God wanted me to go. I loved living in LA though – and still don’t love living in NYC.  In fact, the longer I lived in LA, the more I liked it. The opposite seems true for me with NY.  I had been told by my social worker that after Carlos was placed in my home, that it shouldn’t take more than about six more months to finalize.  She was way off.  Figuring that his adoption should be finalized sometime in the Summer, I started making arrangements to move to NYC in the fall.  I flew out there a couple of times, found a house to buy and was ready to go.  DCFS, of course, was not ready.  The judge handling Carlos’s case went on vacation so when the hearing came to terminate Carlos’s birth parents parental rights, a judge that was completely unfamiliar with his case, refused to do so.  We had to wait for the other judge to come back and reschedule.  When it became clear that things were going to move much more slowly, I was given permission to move to NY with the stipulation that I would check in with a NYC social worker once a month.  We moved into our house about 1 month after 9/11.  Not a great time to move – and it was sobering to witness the aftermath of that tragic day.

Time does move on however, though apparently not for DCFS or New York’s Administration of Children’s Services (ACS).  The monthly visits stretched on and eventually, ACS decided since we now lived in NYC, that they were going to take over and started to demand that a new home study would have to be done – including having to now get approval from them to adopt.  My lawyer, a rather high powered, pro bono lawyer from a prestigious law firm, was almost as livid as I was.  After a few well placed phone calls to higher ups in California, things finally started to roll quickly.  I was still worried about ACS, but our lawyer informed me that we would do an end run around them – we would schedule a date in a LA court, not tell NYC, and once it was finalized by a judge, there was nothing they could legally do – even if they didn’t like it.  So, in July of 2002, we flew out to LA and happily went to adoption court.

Carlos was quite nervous when our court day came.  He had watched quite a bit of judge Judy, apparently, at his foster family’s house.  He was terrified that out judge would be just like her.

My Mom, my brother Michael and a very good friend, Jan, came to observe the day and to celebrate with us.  The ceremony, as all good ceremonies are, was short, but moving.  Mostly, I was just relieved that I no longer had to worry about some ill-informed person thinking it might be best to remove Carlos from my home.  While there are a lot of good social workers out there, there are also quite a few rather incompetent ones.

When I returned to NYC, the social worker that we had to see each month from ACS, called to schedule a time to see Carlos. I declined, told him though, that I’d be happy to drop off a copy of the adoption decree. He really was a little miffed for some reason – but what a relief.  I now had sole authority for my son.

That authority hasn’t always been easy.  It involved suing the NY Board of ED when Carlos was held back in 3rd grade and threatened with being held back again – with no changes with how they were working with him mind you.  A private school for children with learning disabilities was found.  Carlos did well there.  Every year, the board of ed fought me on it – so every year, I hired a lawyer to compel them to provide the federal mandate of a “fair and appropriate” education.  There were surgeries to contend with as well.  Heel cord lengthening, to keep him from walking on his toes.  A muscle transfer to his knee and foot to see if they might take and help him walk better (they didn’t).  And when he was ten, hip surgery.  Due to the paralysis, his hip joint had not developed correctly and the femoral head of his femur, had slipped out of the socket.  His surgeon carved out a better socket in his hip, and then broke his femur in a couple of places so that they could straighten and re-align his leg.  The surgery lasted several hours.  The Surgeon told me to go watch a movie.  I did, though for the life of me, I still can’t remember what it was.  It took 3 months of hospital recuperation before Carlos was able to return home.  One benefit of this however, was that his hospital overlooked the East River.  On the 4th of July, they wheeled him, accompanied by me and his Grandpa, up to the roof where we had an incredible – and un-crowded – view of the Macy’s Fireworks display.

There have been other changes to life since I adopted Carlos.  There was the adoption of an older brother.  John.  I’ll write about him someday when I am feeling particularly brave.  There was a new mom, stepsister, younger siblings born, middle school, soccer, vacations, EFY (an LDS church camp for youth), high school, six years of Spanish (Carlos, being 1/4 Navajo and 3/4 hispanic, has always fancied himself being able to speak Spanish – he can’t he’s terrible at it – even after six years of it in school – I think he can count in Spanish though…), school musicals (all terrible – and yet I miss them), student government (he did a rap video for his ‘vote for me’ speech), and of course, the list goes on.  When I think of Carlos, I am so grateful to have been able to adopt him.  He has enriched my life, and I, him.  I love to think of all the things that this wonderful young man has been able to experience in his life – that surely he wouldn’t have, if the Lord hadn’t done some arranging.

When it came time for mission, we found quite a bit of pushback from some areas and from some well meaning individuals.  Our church has made great strides with offering opportunity to those who have disabilities, but it became clear to us that much work remains to be done.  In the end, Carlos was given the opportunity to serve a “two transfer” mission – essentially a ‘trial’ mission, but they don’t like you to call it that.  His wonderful mission president and wife, President and Sister Morgan of the NY North Mission, loved Carlos and recommended that he be given the opportunity to serve for a full two years. One story that they shared with us that I particularly liked, was that President Morgan had seven different missionaries come up to him and ask if they could be Carlos’s next companion.  I am often inspired by the youth of the Church and their goodness.  Carlos has a significant stutter, is not always the neatest person, and can require a little patience sometimes.  Since missionaries are with their ‘companion’ 24 hours a day, seven days a week, I could see a lot of young men thinking, “Oh please, not him.”  The opposite though, has been true. These young people see in Carlos what so many adults have failed to see.  They truly are learning to emulate Christ in their lives, and I rest easy knowing that “Elder Glick” is in good hands.

We miss him.  We have another year and a half to go before we see him again.  We’ll get to talk to him on Mothers day (not fathers day however, which I feel is an antiquated injustice), otherwise we are stuck with his not very informative emails.  He writes a couple of paragraphs, while his cousin who is serving her mission in the Philippines writes a book chapter each week.  But at least I know that Carlos is doing “awesome,” since that appears several times in each letter home…

I invite you to share this blog with your friends and to even sign up to follow my blog if you feel so inspired. Also, please feel free to leave a comment!  I’m also sharing the link to a blog of a great young man who served many months of his mission in our congregation.  We love him and are praying for him as he faces a diagnosis of cancer: http://seancancervive.blogspot.com/