John Taylor Gatto - Personal Review

Today I completed Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto.  First, let me start by saying: wow.

For those who don't know, John Taylor Gatto was a teacher in New York City for 30 years.  He received numerous awards during his time as a teacher, and later quite publicly became an advocate of radical educational reform.  This book was, as far as I can tell, the first in a line of books he wrote to discuss his ideas for why we needed educational reform, and what kind of reforms were needed.  He scratches the surface in this book, which is a simple reprinting of speeches and essays he had given and written at previous points in his career before he began publishing books.

I don't recall when, but I am sure I've heard of him before.  Recently, however, I heard CJ Killmer discussing him with two others on his Dangerous History Podcast Episode 173.  It was because of this podcast that I decided to really look into Gatto, and I purchased the aformentioned book.

Gatto's ideas resonate with me on a deeply personal level.  I wanted most of my life to be a teacher; I recall many encounters with teachers in my childhood that helped shape me into the person that I am today, and I wanted to be that person for future generations of children.  Unfortunately, I also recall many horrible teachers, terrible policies, and boring, uninspiring curriculum.  I remember being a straight A student that hated school as often as I liked it.  I remember how disappointed I was with so many aspects of my education, and how easily I could have walked down so many other paths due to my growing distaste for schooling in general.  I remember being told time and again how much potential I have, and how I was destined to do great things with my life, only to be disappointed when, upon encountering real adult life, how few real adults there are in life to work with toward any real achievements of worth.

I nearly chose not to go to college, but, like many people my age, I was convinced that without college I couldn't do the things I wanted to do with my life.  Specifically, becoming a certified teacher without a bachelor's degree at minimum is nearly impossible.  I chose my school based on very few criteria, and very little information for that matter, which would turn out to be both beneficial and harmful later in my career.  First, I chose a school on the mistaken assumption that I needed to get out of my current locality in order to fully grow up and explore my personality.  I learned rather quickly that, wherever you go, there you are.  Second, I was looking for a school with a good program for getting a teaching certification, which seemed like a great idea at the time but later led to difficulty when I no longer wanted to pursue that degree.  Finally, I was looking for a school which would not be too costly, as I was intending to become a teacher who notoriously do not get paid very well, and I did not want to be completely hamstrung by debt.  This choice has been probably the best choice I could make of a bad situation, though I will still be paying for this degree for another ten years or so.

My first semester I had an Intro to Education course, and one of the assignments was to find either a local school, or to contact the school system we had matriculated from, and schedule a day to shadow some current teacher or teachers.  The local school was quite small, and I had no contacts there (as I mentioned before: I moved quite a way to go to school), so on one of my breaks for classes I sat in a day at my old alma mater.  I can tell you for certain that it was quite a different experience to be on the other side of the classroom, and a complete shock to sit in the teachers' lounge for lunch.  This experience, for me, was unsettling to say the least.  Listening to teachers denigrate students was difficult for me; listening to those same teachers classify some students as successful and others as outright, unrepentant failures was nearly impossible.

In my third semester, the state passed new mandates for what was required to be a certified teacher, and my university (being state funded) quickly made the changes to their curriculum to account for these new requirements.  Unfortunately, since I was not on the standard track for a variety of reasons, I was faced with the need to either take the old classes that were no longer being offered during summer school, or start over with my degree and spend, at minimum, an extra year getting my degree.  I knew either of these options meant putting more money into a system I was quickly becoming disenfranchised with, and I actually disagreed with the new requirements, anyhow, so I dropped the education from my major and graduated three semesters later with a degree in applied mathematics.

As a quick aside, applying for graduate school was made more difficult by the choice I had made to study at a teachers' college instead of some better school, as my education was actually limited on many topics that most graduate schools want students with a degree like mine to have spent more time with.

Getting back to the story, though, I had spent time in school as a math tutor, and in times of financial difficulty, I was able to fall back on that as an extra form of income.  While Megan and I were living in California, I worked with a few students to augment my income since Megan was unable to find lasting work.  One student in particular really struck a chord with me, going back to the teacher talk in the lunchroom.  She was good, like, really good, just not in the specific sense that this particular geometry teacher apparently wanted her to be.  He had seemingly made up his mind that she was going to be a bad student, and continued pushing that narrative to himself, her, and her mother, even though every time I worked with her we were able to find a way to get her to fully understand the material.

Her story is just one of many that I could go into of students who are struggling with their current math classes.  Many of these kids can and do fully grasp the concepts, but are unable to fully communicate that understanding in a way that the teacher finds acceptable.  Others just are not currently capable of understanding concepts that they aren't ready for.  Some may never be ready for advanced mathematical concepts like algebra, trigonometry, etc, and that's perfectly acceptable.  Just because a person doesn't understand trigonometry, that doesn't mean that person is dumb or unable to succeed in life.

Between my experiences in schooling, and my time spent with these children in schools currently, I began developing a real desire to look elsewhere for educational opportunities for myself, and my (at the time) future children.  I spent some time researching and even advocating for reform, including a few posts from 2016 I made about the issues I had seen with education on this blog.  I started listening to podcasts in 2015, and that led me to start looking into research into alternatives instead of reforms.

This finally gets us back to Gatto: his book is all about how modern schooling cannot be reformed, at least not in any way that has lasting repercussions on actual education.  Gatto claims that learning does not and can not happen in schools.  This idea has really connected all the dots for me on all of my previous ideas and complaints.

My advise: read the book.  I can't recommend it enough.  I'll probably read it at least once more to try to more fully understand all of Gatto's ideas.

Mass Shootings

I need to talk about something other than my baby for a change.  Don't get me wrong, he's adorable and I could talk about him for hours, but today something else is really eating at me.

On Saturday, October 20, Megan and I were in Squirrel Hill for a training session to upkeep our foster parent resource certification.  That training was held at the Children's Center, directly across the street from the Tree of Life Synagogue.  A week later, a man opened fired in that synagogue and killed 11 people.  This is being described as possibly the deadliest attack on Jewish people in the US since its founding.

My department brought in a temp the following week to help with some data entry work.  She personally knew a lot of people that were in that synagogue the day this happened.

Personally, I didn't know any of the people, but I still have a visceral response to the story.  These people were in a sacred place, and a man filled with hate and rage entered their place of worship and shot at them.  It's terrifying just to think about.  I can't imagine just being in the situation, let alone the pain those whose family members were killed must be feeling.

I would have expected most people to have reactions like me.  Reactions that ranged from gut wrenching pain at thinking about what these victims must have gone through, to an overwhelming desire to help them in any way possible.

I certainly didn't expect the log onto Facebook less than 12 hours later and see that most of the posts about the event were either talking about how the synagogue should have had private security, or how guns should just be banned so things like this can't happen in the future.

I was so disgusted with the idea that these innocent people's fear and death should be politicized, and so quickly.  Can't we give the community a chance to mourn before we starting calling for political action?  I almost deleted my Facebook account right then.  Even though I didn't, I did log out and not return for two weeks.  It didn't matter, though.  Everyone was talking about it at work.  It was all over the news.  Everyone wanted to weigh in on whether someone carrying a gun on the premises could have saved those people or if banning guns would have saved those people.  Even President Trump and Governor Wolf were arguing (through the media) about how this should have been handled politically.  I was sick from hearing about it; the conversation rarely covered the actual people involved (except the shooter, and his motives, and his actions leading up to and after the event).  People weren't discussing the pain and terror and mourning this community and these people must be facing.  I couldn't believe it only took a few hours to completely dehumanize all of those victims, their friends and family, and the rest of that community.

Things got worse when President Trump decided to come to Pittsburgh to honor the dead and mourn with their families.  You'd have thought that Satan himself was flying into town to belittle this horrific event, but though I do believe the action was somewhat politically motivated, President Trump did not go out of his way to comment on the action or make any political comments while he was here.  In the end, he acted more respectful in that day than basically every media outlet I came across, as he arrived to pay his respects, then left without comment.  News sites were screaming about how this was basically his fault and how he was just doing this to garner votes for his candidates.  Governor Wolf refused to support President Trump's visit and avoided the area altogether.  It was disgusting.  If this shooting had occurred during President Obama's (or any other president for that matter) tenure, everyone would have expected him to pay his respects.  President Trump has no history of anti semitism, but somehow this is his fault and he shouldn't come to town to pay his respects.  Disgusting.

Just when I thought it couldn't get worse, the focus on the shooter caused another outrageous thing to happen: Gab, the social media platform preferred by this shooter, was taken offline for "supporting" anti-Semitic views and actions.  Just when I thought I couldn't be more angry about the politicizing of this whole shooting affair, I heard some smug reporters talking about Gab being a "bastion of alt-right hate groups," and how it was good that the site's host and Paypal refused to continue service to the site.

Now, I'm honestly incensed.  I don't know much about Gab, but a cursory search online shows it to be a small competitor to sites like Facebook and Twitter, and claims, much as they used to, to be a free speech platform.  Unlike Facebook and Twitter, it appears that Gab has stood against public opinion, and refused to censor any speech by their users that was not outright threatening.  For that reason, many users from Facebook who have been banned since 2016, when the site really started cracking down on alternative voices, have moved to other services like Gab.  The fact of the matter is, Gab is just a website that allows people to communicate, and does not have any culpability in the murder of those 11 people.  Just because this particular shooter was a user of that website, does not mean that the website is promoting that kind of action.  There are plenty of criminals who use the web; do we need to shut down every website that every criminal has ever been a member of?  I'm sure there are murders with Facebook accounts, Twitter accounts, Google accounts, etc.  Do those services support and encourage behaviors like bigotry and murder?  The fact remains that, had Facebook not begun purging users with what can only be described as political motives, sites like Gab would never have gained any major support, and this shooter could have posted the same things on Facebook instead.  These are platform sites that purport to allow users to post anything, and allowing public dialog is a good thing.

Even if Gab really is a "bastion of alt-right hate groups," do you really think shutting it down is the answer?  I think the answer is allowing these people to be as open and honest with their views as possible.  Allowing them to express bigotry on sites like Facebook and Twitter means their friends and families are more likely to see those opinions and talk to them about change.  Forcing them further and further underground (first sites like Gab that are open but only really used by specific groups, then into closed and hidden sites that won't attract any attention from groups outside of those who the site is specifically targeting).  All we're doing by pushing these people underground is secluding them, and further polarizing them.  We're making them angrier, and further closing off their echo chamber.  We're not making public dialog better by removing hateful speech by force; dialog improves by working through those hateful thoughts and removing them from the minds of the people who have them.  Pushing them out of public discourse only deepens and expands those hateful thoughts.

I've been meaning to write this for a few weeks now, but never had the motivation until I heard of another shooting, this one in California.  Apparently this is the 11th mass shooting since the attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue, though it's the first one I've heard about.  This shooting just happened this week, but already I'm seeing people get political about it in the news (as I said, I've been avoiding Facebook).  Can we take a moment and stop talking about gun rights or banning guns, and just mourn for these dead people?

Can we maybe step outside our polarized echo chambers, and come together as people, and consider that the victims in these shootings were people, and maybe start to learn from them?  If all we do is argue politics, we're never going to resolve the issues that lead to these shootings, because we're never going to know what the real causes are.  All we're going to do is learn to hate each other more and more because we disagree politically.

Baby Log - 10 Weeks Out

Well, yesterday we hit 10 weeks!  I can't believe it.  I feel like it's taken this long, but we're finally getting into the swing of things.  We're getting sleep finally on a regular basis as of about two weeks ago.  For those of you who haven't experienced this before, I really cannot describe the absolute joy of having a child finally start to sleep through the night on a regular basis.

I'm still really tired most of the time, but it's manageable now that I'm regularly getting 6-7 hours of sleep at a time each night.  However, it makes me really jealous about my sleep, so I find it difficult to wake up as early as I probably should to get things done in the morning, or stay up a little later after he goes to bed so I can finish up some chores.

Chores will be the topic of this post.  Where do people with young children find the time to do housework?  I've been killing myself at work lately (another post for another time, maybe), and when I get home I have to be slave to an infant who constantly needs fed or changed or just held.  He's sitting on my lap right now as I type this because I tried to put him in his swing and he got upset with me.  Megan has had a bit of trouble adjusting her work schedule now that she has to fit in time to pump, and she's got to pump at home, too, so she's tired from work every day, and unavailable for chucks of time in the evening when she's hooked up to the pump.  Thus I'm often the one throwing something together for us to eat (our diet has really gone to hell these past three months), washing bottles (we go through a ton of those every day), and doing any chore that is so pressing that it can't be put off (I'm talking about you, dirty litter box).

By the time we eat, do those pressing chores, and get baby to sleep, it's 10:00, and I'm wiped out.  Every pot and pan in my house is sitting out on my counter dirty because I just don't have the time or energy after work to clean them.  Megan vacuumed yesterday for the first time in a while (honestly I don't know how long it's been).  My bathroom really needs scrubbed.  If Megan doesn't do laundry this weekend I'm not going to have socks to wear next week.

As an aside, here I am sitting and typing this post instead of doing any of those things.  I'm tired and baby is being needy, which are both good excuses, but mostly I just don't feel like doing chores right now.

It used to be that Megan and I would get the serious house cleaning done on the weekends.  We could each clean a room on a Saturday morning, then another on Sunday, and the house would be in good shape by the time we were done.  Plus we'd still have time in the afternoons/evenings to do things like go out or see people.

Now mornings are filled with sleeping as long as possible, then dealing with baby when he wakes up.  He's most needy in the morning.  By the time we're up and moving most weekends, it's nearly noon, so our mornings are shot.  Then we've basically had something going on every weekend since we came home from the hospital.  We've had parties and events and people coming over, without end really.  Even this weekend, I'll be helping my sister move and then I have a spaghetti dinner to attend for a band fundraiser.  Hopefully I'll have Sunday to just stay home.  I've been trying to plan that for weeks.

Then again, even if I do get Sunday home with the family, am I really going to want to spend the whole day doing housework?  I doubt it.  So I guess my question isn't how do people have time to do chores, but where do they find the motivation?

I'm at a loss.  Time to go change a diaper.

Baby Log 2018 - Post 3

So I am getting the hang of this dad thing.

Megan went back to work today, so I'm home with Kylan for the rest of the week.  He goes to daycare starting next week.  I'm not sure how I feel about that yet...though we are still hopeful about a few possibilities that will make daycare unnecessary.  We'll see how those pan out as the year comes to a close.

Kylan is 6 weeks old today.  I can't believe it.  He's getting so big, and he's finally starting to develop something of his own personality.  I'm currently sitting here watching him lay on his play mat and kick the piano buttons.  He is smiling and smacking the rattles hanging over him, though he does get a little upset if he kicks the button and music doesn't come out.  Long story short, listen to the internet reviews when they say the buttons are really hard to press.  Anyhow, when he does finally get the music it makes him smile and I love it.

I've come to terms and adjusted to just about every bit of having to care for this tiny human at this point; with one notable exception: bedtime.  I don't mind the early morning wake ups, or the crying during the day, or the seemingly endless diaper changes.  What I am still struggling with, though, is how reticent Kylan seems to want to go to sleep at night.  He's been fighting it every night this week and it's really difficult for me to cope with, especially when he's asleep in my arms for half an hour, but as soon as I put him down he wakes up.

Don't get me wrong: intellectually, I get it.  He wants to be with us and not in his crib.  He wants to be awake to see all the cool stuff that goes on after he goes to bed.  Frankly, maybe he's just not tired cause he just woke up an hour ago from a three hour nap.  Whatever the reason, though, it incenses me to no end.  I get interrupted all the time during the day (I've already had to change a diaper and give half a bottle since starting this), but it doesn't register at this point as anything more than a minor nuisance.  At night, however, when I want to go to sleep, having my autonomy to determine my bed time taken from me really triggers me in a way that I was just not prepared for.  Like I said, I still don't know how to cope.

I'd really appreciate some advice if anyone has it.

Otherwise, things are clicking along just fine.  Kylan loves being in the stroller, and really enjoys going running with me.  We'll probably do that at some point today since the weather is just perfect for being active outdoors.  The animals finally seem adjusted.  Megan and I are still able to get things done around the house when we have the energy, though that's not as often as either of us would like just yet.

Now we're just getting ready for Halloween.  Who else is as excited as I am for Halloween this year?!  I get to pass out candy with a baby on my lap! And he's going to be dressed in the most adorable bear costume.  I can't wait!

Well, it looks like half a bottle wasn't enough, so I'm off to give Kylan the other half.

Baby Log 2018 Post 2

Well, things have been going mostly better since my last post.  I've been able to get myself back into semi-regular activity (though I still struggle to be active daily), and Kylan has been keeping more or less to the same schedule for a few days now.  Last night was a little rough, but in the scheme of things one bad night isn't so awful compared with all the pretty good nights we've been having.

What I want to talk about today is just how different life in general is.  Like, the big things are almost all the same, right?  I'm still living in the same house, working at the same job, married to the same woman, driving the same car, etc, but life just feels so different now.  All the little stuff has changed so significantly that I can't even hardly remember life before Kylan was born.

Side note, I can't believe it's been a month already...

I've noticed that getting anything done around the house at this point is now a major chore.  Loading the dishwasher?  Who has time for that?  Cooking?  Not happening tonight.  Just need to sweep the kitchen floor?  Better hope I've got backup.  Wanna take a shower?  I'm going to need to plan that 4-6 hours in advance.

You'd think, since there are two of us, that we could handle one little dude that spends most of his time sleeping anyhow, and still get all of our daily housework done, but man, if you thought that, you're wrong.

I can't remember the last time I cooked.  Not warmed something up that was already cooked or tossed something in the microwave.  I think maybe once in the last month I have started with raw ingredients and made a meal.  Megan and I used to cook at least three to four times a week.

I kind of wish I had the money to hire a nanny; I could really use some help around the house.

The biggest issue is just how flipping cute Kylan is.  I just, don't want to be in any room that he's not in when I'm in the house with him.  I don't want to be outside mowing the lawn if Kylan is inside sleeping.  Megan had to bring him out to watch me mow the lawn a little this morning to give me the motivation to finish it.  I don't want to be at work dealing with all that drama; I just want to be at home snuggling with Kylan.  Megan sends me photos of him almost every day while I'm at work, and every time she does it's the highlight of my day.  It literally has the power to change my mood in a way that nothing else does.

I think I need to own a coffee bean company, or at least buy stock in one.  I feel like I live on caffeine now.  Before Kylan was born, I was actually down to one or two cups of coffee a day.  Now I'm just happy if I don't have to have caffeine after lunch that day.

Do you know how many people will stop and talk to you if you've got a baby with you?  When I walk around the neighborhood with Kylan in the stroller, people wave, say hello, and even want to stop and chat.  I've met a bunch of my neighbors in the last month; even had a chat with the mailman about his daughter.

Do you know how nice retail workers are to a dad with his baby?  I hope moms get the same treatment, but yesterday at Macy's I was given a VIP only coupon that I didn't qualify for because I don't have their card and wouldn't sign up for it, probably just because I was there with Kylan and I was buying him clothes.

Side note, oh my lord baby clothes might be the cutest damn thing in the world.

Sleep is still elusive, though one night this week Kylan made it through the night.  That was pretty exciting.

I realized today as I was looking at my photos, that pretty much the only photos I have of the animals in the last month are photos of them with Kylan.  I fear I may be neglecting them, especially Boswell.  I've been trying to walk Boswell every day, and have been successful now since Thursday.  We're supposed to get rain for the next three days, so that may break my streak...

This week we went grocery shopping, and for the first time in years we bought a ton of processed and pre-prepared foods.  Megan and I had moved away from that in our diet a few years ago, but, as mentioned about, cooking a meal from raw ingredients has just been damn near impossible so we just need food that we can eat.  A few nights I had ice cream and Cheese-Its for dinner because I couldn't get the energy to slap together a meal.  At least if I can throw a burrito or a pot pie in the microwave I can eat something that more closely resembles food.

Long story short, life looks pretty different in just a month.  It's been crazy, but I can't wait for more.  I just hope the next month doesn't go by quite as fast...

Baby Log 2018 - Post 1

A new chapter in my life started three weeks ago.  I became a father.

I knew that parenting was not going to be easy, but I don't think there was any way to prepare myself for just how different my life would be, seemingly overnight.

I'd like to use this space for a while to organize and discuss my thoughts and emotions about raising a tiny human.

What I really want is a solid 72 hours of sleep, but I don't think I'll be getting more than 3 or 4 tonight so I guess that's out of the question.  I knew that sleep was going to be an issue, especially in the beginning, but, again, I just couldn't prepare myself for how difficult this would be.  Kylan (my son) sleeps roughly three hours at a time before needing to wake up, get changed, eat something, and fuss for a while.  On a few lucky nights that three hours has been more like four or five.  On especially lucky nights, he'll get changed, eat, and go back to sleep all within thirty to forty minutes, so the disruption to our sleep is minimal.

Last night was not one of those nights.  Last night we couldn't put him down without him waking up and screaming.  This went on well past the time my wife told me to go to bed (as I had to work today and she is still on maternity leave and could sleep today while she was home with Kylan).  I was awakened around 2:00 AM by screaming, which she quieted down shortly thereafter, but apparently he hadn't slept at that point basically at all.  For reference, I had him asleep in my arms around 9:30 PM, and again at 10:30 PM, but both times when I put him down he woke up pretty much immediately.  I think she finally got an hour or two of sleep but it certainly wasn't much, and from the way she looks now it doesn't look like she was able to sleep much today while I was at work, either.  Hopefully tonight will be better.

I can't say I'm taking the lack of sleep well.  Last night, after I laid him down the first time, I got into bed myself.  He woke up as I laid him down, but he wasn't being fussy, so I had assumed he'd go right back to sleep (as he usually would).  Just as I was falling asleep, he started screaming.  I actually got angry, and since I knew I couldn't be angry with him, I just was generally pissy with all the inanimate objects I came into contact with for the next two hours.  I'm trying to be more intentional with my actions and choices, but I can't keep myself from being angry with a three week old infant for waking me, and I'm really frustrated with my lack of self control.

That seeming lack of control and need for sleep has spread negatively into other areas of my life.  I'm generally less able to tolerate people at work (and thus less tolerable to my coworkers).  I haven't run more than 6 miles since Kylan was born (and the weekend before he was born I was running over 7 miles a day).  I haven't even walked Boswell (our dog) in over a week.  I am sore, both from being tired and from not being anywhere near as active as I was before Kylan was born, and it feels like a spiral.  If I could force myself to start being more active, I should start feeling less sore, which, coupled with the activity making me more tired at the end of the day, should allow me to sleep better and feel more rested.  However, I don't have the motivation to do the work.  Worse, when I could maybe work up the motivation, I feel the need to be home with my baby and soak in all the time with him I can since I can't see him all day while I'm at work.

I just don't know how to cope with all of these changes.  My normal coping mechanisms are hanging out with friends and running, both of which are activities I'm struggling to find time and energy for now that I have a baby to care for.  I've resorted to crappy coping mechanisms, like eating junk food, but that's only adding to the above symptoms.  Megan and I don't even feel like we can go out and get dinner with Kylan, so since we haven't felt like cooking much that's meant a lot more take out.

I guess I just needed this space to vent.  Hopefully I will find time to come back here and put out something more positive in my next post.

Difficult Spring

Well, Spring of 2018 has been no picnic thus far.  As I mentioned in my last post, Megan and I were placed with our first foster child last month.  There was nothing easy about that situation.  The placement only lasted a week before our kiddo moved on to her next placement.  We were only a short term stop on her journey from the get-go, but that didn't exactly make good bye easier on any of us.

Just before the placement ended, our wonderful home started showing off the dark side of home ownership.  Our toilet backed up, and then the shower did as well, and I realized that we had a plumbing issue that I couldn't fix (though that certainly wasn't for lack of trying).  Megan ended up calling in a plumber who had to snake a bunch of roots out of our drain line.  I guess the lines were laid with copper and they're susceptible to root invasion at the joints.  The amount involved in getting that fixed is staggering, but in the meantime there are remedies that we can take to push off the time when we actually fix the problem.

Then the very next week the weather turned warm.  Very warm, and our A/C unit just didn't seem to be keeping up.  Turns out there's a valve called a TXV Valve that regulates the unit, and ours is worn out.  Not surprising for a 31 year old unit, but we thought we had another year or three left on it before we had to replace it.  Now I'm in the process of getting quotes on a new unit because fixing that TXV valve is not worth the staggeringly high cost on such an old unit.

So we've been drowning a bit in difficulties this spring.  Luckily, though, I was able to go camping this past weekend with my sister and her husband, and the time off when I could just relax was very nice.  I wish I had a few more weekends to take time to camp, but this summer is looking pretty booked already with the baby on the way and a house to prepare for that.

Time to start the hunt for a good, affordable daycare for when Megan and I have to go back to work after the baby is born...

Life Changes Part 1 - Fostering

So, once Megan and I bought our house, it seems like our life changes started accelerating a bit.  Or maybe it's just that my concept of time has changed and all I can think about are all the important life events that have happened in the last year or so.

We had been struggling with having children of our own.  I saw a fertility specialist and he told me that I would need surgery in order to be able to father children.  I had that surgery last June, but by October we still weren't having any luck.  Megan saw another specialist, who prescribed her some medication, and by December we were finally pregnant!

However, Megan has for the longest time wanted to adopt a child.  Her older brother, whom she just finally met back in 2016, was put up for adoption when he was born because her mother was still in high school at the time and she was too young to take care of him.  Her best friend since elementary school was an adopted child.  So early last year when it really seemed like having our own children was going to be a real challenge if it was at all possible, I started really looking into the idea of adoption.  I had talked about it with Megan prior to that but I had never done my own research or really put much thought into it until early last year.

My research, however, took me down the path of foster care.  I never wanted to adopt an infant the way her brother was adopted, but I really liked the idea of providing a home for children who really needed one in a time of crisis.  Best of all, if we worked with the agency and discussed our desire to be a permanency home, we could provide that help for children who needed it and get the chance to adopt a child who was in need of a new permanent home.

I talked about it with Megan, and after four months we decided to take the leap.  We had finally settled into our house and seemed comfortable with our current lifestyle, and it seemed like the appropriate time to start mixing things up a bit.  Megan made an appointment with the agency, and in August we officially started our journey to become foster parents.  There is quite a bit involved in the process as the agency has to vet potential foster parents before just allowing them to be involved in these very vulnerable children's lives.  It took months, but we were finally 95% of the way done with the process by December.  At that point, we were just waiting for the agency to review all of our documentation and make us a parent profile.  Once that was completed, we'd review the profile and sign some papers and we'd be certified as foster parents.

As I mentioned above, this is around the time we found out Megan was pregnant and we were actually going to have a child of our own.  Due to the holiday season, we didn't end up becoming certified until around mid-January.  By that time, both of us wanted to put the fostering thing on hold.  With the newness and excitement of our own baby on the way, we weren't sure when we'd want to proceed with fostering a child.  Plus we had a whole house that we needed to get ready now for not just one, but two kiddos, and we had lots of work to do.

We let the agency know we wanted to be removed from the emergency list, and we didn't meet with the matching specialist until near the end of February.  She let us know that the agency would follow our lead as far as when we were ready to start fostering, and she took down some new information as to what we were going to be comfortable with now that we were expecting a child of our own.  Then after that, it seemed like all she wrote until two weeks ago.

We hadn't heard much of anything from the agency with the exception of asking for updated insurance documentation as it became necessary, and we put it out of our minds.  The matching specialist said she'd call us if she found any kiddos that she thought we'd be a good match for, but she was focusing more on potentially permanent placements and less on the emergency care we had originally signed up for, so it wasn't much of a surprise to me that we hadn't heard from her in months.  Then one day near the end of April, it was like the flood gates opened up.  We received four or five calls in the course of two weeks.  Half of those calls were outside of the realm of possible for us do to the circumstances, so we had to say no.  Two of them we sent out our profile to the child's case worker, but we never heard back.

Then this week we got a call about a new kiddo that needed a short term home.  Her story is one that I am not able to share here, but suffice it that it was sad and we opened our hearts and our home to her and she arrived at our house on Wednesday evening.

Everything has been up in the air since then!  Thursday we had to go to court for a shelter hearing, where she was officially remanded into our care until such a time as they were able to get her someplace that would be better for her.  She is scheduled for an interview Monday to determine if she will be leaving our home and where she will be going after that.

Beyond that, Megan and I are feeling really overwhelmed and incredibly unprepared.  We didn't have a bedroom available for her to sleep in on Wednesday, so I had to leave work early and call in the cavalry to help me move four bookcases and build a bed.  The bed has three drawers, which I figured would work as a quasi-dresser (I know my clothing could probably fit in three drawers and a closet), but the drawers are smaller than I thought and she came with way more clothing than I had anticipated.  We had to buy a dresser and build that to accommodate all of her clothing.  But now three nights in and I think we're finally starting to get into a rhythm.  I don't know what we'll do if she ends up staying here longer term as we were originally told this would be just for a few days, but right now we're all just enjoying the time we have together.

Honestly, though, the biggest issue we've faced is not with our foster kiddo, but with the government agencies we've had to deal with in this process.  The CYS agency in charge of her care didn't assign her a case worked until Friday afternoon.  There has been a plethora of misinformation, or often just a complete lack of information.  Our hearing Thursday morning was an hour late and the actual proceedings were mostly just about fixing incorrect information on official documentation.  Between Megan and I, we've spoken to two lawyers, three case workers, and a medical professional, just in charge of our kiddo's care, and it wasn't until late yesterday afternoon that we finally started getting some concrete information.  Even our case worker through our agency was uninformed and seemed to be learning a lot of the information from me, which I had in turn actually learned from our kiddo's previous family.  It's been a very frustrating process wrought with incompetence, and I've been struggling with feelings of powerlessness since the moment this child arrived on our doorstep.

This experience so far, as you can tell, only reaffirms my belief that government agencies are by and large incompetent and nearly worthless.  I hope the resolution turns out to be beneficial for all parties involved.  In the meantime, I'm not holding my breath for any straight answers.