Why we are doing what we are doing

I decided that since I had a little (small) heated conversation with my brother this morning about us changing Ricky's last name and him calling us mom and dad, I decided that I'd post on my blog why we are doing what we are doing.

So, first off, the name change thingy. This is still up in the air. We are going to let Ricky decide what he wants to do, since it is his name. Right now he said he likes Ricky Barton Johnson. But we'll ask him again when the adoption is offical just to be sure. I was thinking of changing his first name to Richard (still call him Ricky), so that when he is older and if he ever gets a professional type job, he can have a professional sounding name. That idea is still up in the air.

Now, onto calling us Mom and Dad. I know a few family members might not think it is right of us to have him call us Mom and Dad, and that's fine, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but the beautiful thing about life is that it's our own choice for our own family and pretty soon Ricky will be legally our family, our child. We feel it's important that while Ricky will never forget his real parents, he knows that he has us now. Because in reality his real mom and dad are never coming back. They won't get to be there for him, raise him, teach him values and moral, support him. They can't do that anymore. We have to now. We are the only parental figures he has now. He may be my cousin, but now I am raising him and he is becoming my child. I never knew him before all this, there was no relationship between us before all of this, so it's not weird. It's just the same if I took in a child off the streets and brought him into my home. Everyone would be 100% supportive if I treated this child like my own, had him call me mom and Mark dad, and have him take on our last name. But since he is my cousin I know that some people aren't getting the importance of Ricky feeling like a full fledge member of our family. Not just some kid we are taking care of. We are now all he has in this world as parents. It's important to us that we show him we love him like we love our own kids.

I hope this has brought some light to those who don't really agree with how we are handling this. There's no handbook on what's the right thing to do, right thing to say. I know that other's that have Ricky's brothers don't feel the same way as we do and that is fine. Everyone has the right to handle things the way they feel is right. But as for us, we feel we are doing what is the right thing for Ricky and that's all that really matters.

Thanks for reading!

Adoption is underway!

Mark and I have completed the 2 state required classes called the PRIDE program. We were forced to do it and was a little annoyed at the short notice they gave us. They told us a week before that we were going to have to drive down to Pontiac 3 times in one week, then once the following weekend. They said it was required by law that we get Foster care licensing. We didn't want to do the Foster care, we wanted to adopt. But that was all tied into the PRIDE program, so when we finally realized that, we were OK. The classes were very helpful. We learn a lot, but some stuff didn't pretain to us, like the visitation. Since Ricky's mom has passed away we don't have to deal with the aftermaths of the visitation. The videos they showed us were some scenerios of how a child reacts after visiting with their family. I know that Ricky only got to see his mom twice when we got him before she passed away and after the first visit (which was very upsetting to some of the boys) Ricky woke up the next morning with hives. But the second visit, which was upsetting too, but ended on a good note and not quite the same type of upsetting as the first time, so he didn't show any reaction to the visit. It was nice closure for him. Anyway the class taught you how to deal with those type scenerios. We really like it. So now we have to fill out tons of paper work (we each have to complete a 20 page autobiography) and gather a lot of info like marriage license, birth certificates, physical records, even our cat's shot records, lol. It's a little tedious, but in the end it's worth it all.

We are going to let Ricky decide if he wants to keep his last name or take on ours. I think he will keep his. I think it would be a hard adjustment for him to have his name change. We asked him a while ago and he said he wanted to keep it, so we'll ask him again when the adoption is final just to make sure. Mark jokingly asked him what he wanted his new first name to be and Ricky said "Richardo" LOL. That is what Mark and a friend of ours (Anthony) calls him. He said he likes Ricky Richardo, lol.

He is adjusting well to us as his new family. He still talks about his mom and still misses her (of course, he always will), but he doesn't show any signs of being upset about anything. He's just a go with the flow kind of kid. He's still young though too, and with his "cognitive impairment" he acts a little younger than what he really is. I say he is almost like a 5 or 6 year old. Markie is more advanced then he is and she is 6. So hopefully with the help he is getting from us and his school, he'll catch up.

I just can't wait until the adoption is final. It has been hectic taking him to meetings and only 1 court hearing so far. They have another one if Feb, but I am not sure they have to be there for that one yet. But once he is adopted, I don't think we have to deal with all that anymore, so that will be a relief.

Anyway, that's where we're at with all of that. Hopefully in the next month or so we can officially call him our son!

Ricky

Ricky is doing good. He is getting the help he needs at school and is starting to do better in the learning department. He's had 2 spelling tests so far and got 100% on one and 83% on another and the 83% was due to me loosing the spelling list and not being able to go over the words with him, so he did that all on his own, which I thought was great! I have him read everynight and he has some struggles, but it's getting better. He listens real well. I hardly ever have to yell at him. Although today was the first time I seriously had to yell at him when I caught him trying to get the lit candle off the entertainment center because he said that Markie wanted the other candles to be lit. So I yelled at the both of them telling them that when they play with candles they can cause fires and when you have a fire, you loose your home, clothes, toys, everything. I think it sunk it, lol. Especially when toys are concerned. LOL. He gets to see Nick often. Every weekend since my mom has had Nick. We took all the kids to Chuck E Cheese and they had a blast. Ricky has gotten to see Anthony often too, just not as much as Nick. You can definitely tell he looks up to his older brothers. He gets to talk to his mom too. He never asks to call her though, so he doesn't talk to her as often as I would want to talk to my children if they weren't home. So when I can remember, I call his mom for him. He's learned to ride a bike, which he is super excited about. He just has a little hard time at getting started on it. He just can't seem to get that you have to make sure the peddle is on the top. But once he gets going he is flying. I have to remind him to slow down or else he's going to hurt himself bad if he falls. Here are some updated pics of him also:

Here's Ricky being goofy with the camera:

Here is another where he is taking pictures of himself, lol:Here he is camping, he was acting goofy for his brother who took the picture:And this is his first day of school picture (2nd grade). My battery died after this shot, so this is the best I got: