A fall update.

At the end of October, we had our standard quarterly hearing. As with the last couple, it was in front of the hearing officer, who we do not particularly like (or, at least, we don't like how he rules on the case and seems to be overly forgiving towards Little Man's biological father). However, heading into this hearing, there were certain facts that even this judge could not ignore, so we were hopeful of a particular outcome.

Honestly, the hearing went about as we had hoped. The boys' visits with their bio mother were reduced even further, down to once every other week. She, actually didn't even show up at the hearing, so it was unsurprising to see this change. Unfortunately, Little Man went back to unsupervised visits with his bio father. Thankfully, these visits will just be during the daytime, at the same hours as his previous supervised visits. We were extremely grateful that the judge didn't go all the way back to the overnight visits (as he awarded back in the spring). So, it could have been worse. We still have many concerns with these unsupervised visits, namely the proper feeding of Little Man. There's a hope that the father will be just as disastrous with these visits as he was with the overnights.

Pirate's next hearing will hopefully be a termination hearing. After speaking with the county caseworker yesterday, there is some confusion as to whether the mother's rights will be terminated at that time or if it will just be the termination of an unnamed/unknown father. Obviously, we would prefer both to be done with forever. Even once that termination hearing takes place, the biological family members have many avenues to appeal. Given the total lack of any progress, no appeals should be successful, but it will still delay any finalization of adoption many months. So, while the termination is the next big step, it could still be a year or so before the case is totally closed. Little Man's case will remain open for the foreseeable future, given that his bio father is completing some of his goals. We remain extremely fearful that the father will do just enough on paper that a judge won't have much choice but to award our son back to him. We have never doubted this man's love for his child. However, there is a big jump from loving a child and being able to properly care for him. It's the latter that still appears to be out of reach for this guy. So we pray that there will be some mistake so large that the judges will finally see that our home and family is what is best for Little Man.

Pirate has been doing great in school! He somehow managed to finish almost all of his monthly homework a full week ahead of schedule. When I told him that he didn't have to do any homework at daycare because he had already done that day's assignment, he insisted that he still wanted to do some form of homework, haha. So, hopefully this trend continues for the next twelve years of school!

We're looking forward to the holiday season. While we celebrated Christmas and such as a family last year, I think this year will be even more special. The boys had only been with us a little over a month by last Christmas, so this year's holidays will feel extra family-like! Next week marks a very special day for our family, so we'll have another post up then (instead of only one every other month or so!)