this is us... Part 2

I wanted to give ‘yall an update on this crazy life we have been living with our foster kiddo! My last letter ended around the time we took him to get a taco and he asked us for a hug. Boy how things have changed!

We didn’t really know what to expect when having a foster kiddo, so we were overwhelmed to find out that there is a TON of home visits, daily and weekly paperwork, reports that need to be filled out with every incident, and very little time to feel like a “normal” family. The first few months were tough. We went through several caseworkers with the childrens’ shelter and Danny’s CPS case worker changed twice. As you probably know, I like to talk about EVERYTHING, the good, the bad and the ugly. That's really how Jason and I are with our relationship, so we didn’t know any better than to do the same when trying to parent Danny. He came with “Anger” problems and was on a ton of meds. There were several times when we would correct him and he would become irate. He would look at us dead in the eye, clench his fists, and scream. It was scary. Many times we didn't know if we were fully prepared to help him. He needed help and he desperately wanted help, but we didn't really know HOW to help him. We began asking him open ended questions; tried our best to get into his mind to see what was really going on. Jason and I came up with an agreement that if one of us were to reprimand him, the other would show him love. This way he wouldn’t think that we were both were upset with him. (Even though many times we were.) This somehow worked! We learned that colors are associated with moods so when he would become upset, we would ask him what color he was seeing. This was obviously the first time he was asked this and many times the color he would see was black and red. When he would get upset with one of us, the other would hug him and tell him to try to feel our heart beat and to try to make his match ours. This worked too! Little by little he began to open up to us, many times, without us asking, he would tell us stories of his past. He began to express his emotions more freely when he was happy about something, when he was nervous, what scared him, and what made him angry.  We learned that he felt that people were always against him, that people didn't like him, and that he wasn’t wanted. We kept reminding him that WE love him, WE want him, and we told him that we will never be against him. We promised to always be right next to him, guiding him until he becomes the great man he is destined to be. Once he is that person, we will then be behind him, always pushing him to be the best he can be, but we will never be against him. Danny was 10 when he was placed with us, and we learned that he had been exposed to so much more than what a typical 10 year old should be exposed to. We learned that we had to talk to him a little differently, because he is able to understand much more than a typical 10 year old does. It was very interesting because this kid with an “anger” issue slowly became a kiddo who started to learn how to control his emotions. Little by little, the outbursts became non-existent. Jason and I worked with his doctor to slowly decrease the medication, many of which, as we discovered through Danny, were added on because his aunt who he was previously staying with, would research them online then demand that his doctor prescribe them so he wouldn’t be so active. His doctor appointments were virtual, so the doctor never really took the time to ask Danny how HE felt and they increased his dosage as his aunt deemed necessary. It made so much sense as to why this poor kiddo would fall asleep at 6:30 everyday. 

Danny slowly began to change in really big ways. He became more loving and compassionate, he started to have a sense of belonging and pride to be a part of our family. He started to call our parents Grandma and Grandpa. He loved being home with our dogs and would help around the house very often. His weekly visits with his therapist were cut down to every other week and we got his meds down to the very bare minimum. It’s funny because even his choice of music began to change. He started listening to pop music and Adele has become one of his favorite artists. Lol, but he still has some “hood” to him, now and then we still hear him rapping .. “I love it when you call me big poppa” when he is getting ready for school. He absolutely LOVES to make people laugh, and oh..his laugh makes our heart soooooo happy and his smile is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen!

By March, Jason and I realized that he was truly meant for us and that we couldn’t imagine our life without him. We knew we wanted to adopt him. We had a plan to take our parents on a cruise in April and we just knew that it would be the perfect opportunity to tell Danny and our parents that we wanted to be his forever family. We had to get permission from sooo many people to allow us to take Danny on the cruise with us and thankfully, we did. When we told him that he was going with us he was so excited! He said that he had never been on a boat before and had only seen the beach on TV. The days before the cruise he was a nervous wreck, he had packed several days before and was nervous he was going to forget something. As we got on the ship he was in awe. He kept talking about how big the ship was and kept asking if it was going to sink lol.  It was such a weird feeling going on a cruise with a kiddo. It’s alot of responsibility! lol. - Okay so before I go further, I need to rewind a bit. 2 weeks before we were to set sail on the cruise, I reached out to Royal Caribbean and let them know that we were planning on asking our foster kiddo if we could be his forever family. I asked them if they had any ideas of how we can make it special for him. They said they were going to reach out to the cruise director and would get back to me. I didn’t hear back from them so we came up with the idea of getting him a build-a-bear with a voice box of Jason and I asking him if he would be our son. We had planned to give it to him during dinner on the first night of the cruise - Ok, so back to the cruise… as soon as we got on the ship I was asked to go to guest services, where one of the ship managers took Jason and I to the back and told us that the entire crew was told about our announcement and that the Cruise Director and the Maître d’ wanted to talk to us about how we were going to surprise him. Jason and I met with them both and we came up with a plan to do it at dinner that evening.  As we got to the dining room, we were escorted past the long line of people waiting, and shown to our private table. Danny was super excited and ready to eat his first steak. Right after they took our order, the cruise director and the Maître d' made an announcement and got the entire dinning room’s attention. They mentioned that they had a very special guest on board and called Danny by name. Oh, you should have seen his face, he was freaking…out! lol Our parents had no idea what was going on and the cruise director handed him the build-a-bear and told him that if he gave it a good squeeze, he would hear a very important message. Danny took the bear, held it to his chest and gave it a squeeze. … “Danny, you show us everyday how much you love us, and we can’t wait to show you how much we love you!…Will you be our son?” I will never forget it, he looked at me, as we both held back tears, then looked at Jason, and for the first time, he was speechless. He nodded his head “yes” as tears flowed down all three of our faces. He got up and gave us the biggest and best hug that we have ever gotten. Everyone in the room was in tears, our parents were crying with joy and the room erupted with applause.

The trip was a huge success! Danny was able to spend time with both sets of grandparents and have them all to himself. He played cards with his Grandpa Rodriguez outside of the casino while his Grandma Rodriguez gambled the night away! He walked the ship holding hands with his Grandpa Losoya as they were in deep conversation. He had his own dinners with them, and he would check on them to make sure they were okay. He really got to feel what having loving grandparents is like. Danny got to experience the beach for the first time, his first steak house, he found his favorite drink -a virgin strawberry daiquiri, saw his first live theatre show, ate tons of food and sweets and had the time of his life! Over the course of the week, Danny would randomly hug us and tell us that he was having the best time that he has ever had in his entire life. We saw a really different part of Danny that week. It was very life changing. We saw a very considerate Danny and an even more loving Danny. We noticed that he walked around differently, he had a stride of confidence that we had never really seen before. We saw him smile and giggle more, we finally got to see him… relaxed, for he knew that he was right where he was supposed to be; right with the family who God intended him to be with.

OK side story… Jason and I were at the casino one night while Danny was at the kids club, right? Well, we had given him $50 to spend at the arcade. We THOUGHT we had set it up correctly on the cruise account. Well, we were wrong! while at the casino we suddenly got notifications of all of these random charges on our cruise account.. $1 here $5 there $3 there totaling up to $176 dollars!! Naturally, we freaked out and went straight to the room where we met up with Danny. We were like omg what did you do? Confused, he looked up and said “What do you mean?” Jason said, “we have charges for the arcade! its $176!!” Danny looked at us totally surprised and was like WHAT?! $176?! I thought I only had $50! We said, “uhh we did too!!” he said “Well the card kept going through I thought it was broken and the games were free, but its okay Dads, look what I won!” He goes into his bag and brings out 4 little rubber duckies. lmao Those 4 rubber ducks cost us $176. ??????? Welcome to parenthood, I guess! lol  All in all, the trip was a lot of fun, the crew all recognized him and they made him feel like absolute royalty! They invited him to get anything he wanted at the bakery, and just made an already special trip even more special. YIKES! I’ve ran out of room! I can’t wait to tell you about the events following our trip, trust me, its gets so much better! 'Til next time! 

Click HERE to see the video of us asking Danny to be our son!