At the Courthouse

This morning we were able to go to court to finalize the adoption of Sophia, who's lived with us for over two years! :) And I can post pictures of her on FB. We're now officially a family of 8! And there are more of us adopted (4 kids & me) than not (2 kids & Steve)
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At the courthouse:

• Even though we were scheduled at 8:50am, we had to wait until lots of other cases were heard. So we got to hang out in the hallway of the third floor of the courthouse for an hour. It's a good thing there was construction going on with jackhammers that drowned out all our kid noise or else the bailiff would have had to come out and tell us to be quiet.
• Sophia got to see her Sara again. She didn't really care about any of the rest of us once she saw Sara. I think she was suffering from withdrawl because they hadn't seen each other for two weeks. We almost had to have Sara sit with us at the front table in the courtroom because I couldn't convince Sophia to leave Sara. Don't worry, I told Sara long ago that even after the official case was closed, she has to stay part of our family!
• Anthony tried to stick his head in the security X-ray machine.
• Taylor refused to wear shoes in the courthouse. I finally made a deal with her that if she would wear them during the proceedings that she could leave them off the rest of the time. So she was the child who was all dressed up with no shoes.
• I'm pretty sure I caught all my children trying to push the large red button on the wall that had a sign beside it that read, "FOR HELP, PUSH THE THREE INCH BUTTON." I guess they thought we might mistakenly try to find another button to push, even though the big red one was the only button on the entire wall.
• The actual adoption itself was pretty anti-climatic. Fortunately we've done it before so we knew what to expect. After waiting for a long time in the hallway, we all finally filed into the courtroom. Our lawyer presented the paperwork to the judge, told the judge why we were there, the judge signed the paperwork and then said congratulations. The whole process took maybe 5 minutes. Then we took a picture with the kids and the judge and filed back out into the hallway.
• Riley had a meltdown in the courtroom after the conclusion of the legal proceedings but before we could take a picture. The short version is that he was dealing with a lot of his own memories and feelings about courtrooms, judges, adoption, etc. After all the other kids went back to school, I took him to Taco Johns and we had a good visit over nachos and burritos. I'd love to say it's all better but that wouldn't be the truth. He's doing ok and had a smile on his face when I took him back to school but the truth is that this is something he will be dealing with his whole life. I do know that it makes him feel better that we're facing it together. He knows that I have a lot of the same feelings and confusion that he does and we can share with each other.
• After court, Zeke shook our lawyer Jared's hand and asked, "Is Sophia my real sister now or my foster sister." Jared let him know that she was, in fact, his real sister. Zeke, still shaking Jared's hand, said, "Thanks for giving us Sophia!"

Pictures later :)