Jason Alexei the escape artist...

Back in May we were interviewed by a social worker as part of the home study for our second adoption. We went through the same process with Jason Alexei's adoption. Normally this is the most anxiety causing step in the whole adoption process. A social worker coming to our home? What if it isn't spotless? What will the social worker do in our home? Will she inspect the cabinets? Wipe the mantle for dust? Will she ask us if we have stopped beating our child?

There are a lot of irrational concerns, but some people's experiences are worse than others. It all depends on the social worker. We have heard of some folks who were interviewed for up to four hours with individual one on one grillings for both the husband and wife. In contrast to that extreme, our social worker is very low key. We have met with her several times since Jason's return home for post-placement visits so we have a good working relationship with her. Our approach to the home study was confidence laced with little concern or fear.

Can you guess where this story is headed?

The day came for the interview. It was scheduled for 11:00 am. That meant I had to leave work for a while. I got stuck at work a few extra minutes and could not get out as easily as I thought and ended up arriving five minutes late for the interview.

When I came through the door, Jason was sitting in "time out". Yikes! It is only 11:05. I am five minutes late and the boy is already in time out! Wendy and the social worker were sitting at the table in the kitchen, Wendy with a pretty concerned look. I asked the dumb question, "What's going on?" So they brought me up to speed.

The interview had started normally with Wendy and the social worker meeting at the kitchen table. Jason was in the living room. After a few minutes Wendy thought things were very quiet in the living room -- too quiet. She went out to inspect the situation. The front door was wide open and our little guy was standing in the driveway pointing at the social worker's black Lincoln saying "CAR! CAR! CAR!" Fortunately the car was there to distract him from running into the street. Apparently he had just gotten tall enough to to reach up to the front door and unlock the dead bolt! He was hardly two years old at this point!

As a side note, Jason Alexei loves cars. Especially fancy ones like a red Mercedes or a black Lincoln. When we upgraded from our Saturn earlier this year he referred to our Honda Pilot as the "car car" whereas the Saturn was just a "car". He also likes trucks, especially "big trucks".

Back to the interview. What can you do at this point? Wendy put Jason in "time-out" and he stayed in place. This is when I showed up.

The social worker was pretty easy going about it. She said, "Now I have had a chance to see how you discipline" and was impressed that Jason actually stayed in time-out and listened. She did recommend we change that lock to a double-keyed entry lock, which I promptly did after a long search throughout town looking for a lock that would match our existing keys.

In the end we approved for a second adoption, so we must not be horrible parents...Wendy handled the situation very well and showed that despite appearances, we try to maintain control around here.

Jason Alexei can no longer open the dead bolt to the front door and come and go as he pleases, but he's on to the next trick. Whenever he gets keys, whether they be his plastic play keys or a real set of Mommy's or Daddy's keys, he tries to insert them in the lock. All the while saying, "a lock...keeeeysss...it lock." Soon he'll figure out how to put them in and we'll be in big trouble once again.

Now that home is in lock-down mode, Jason resorts to escaping from the nursery at church. He just moved into an older age group and in his second week took advantage of his new nursery workers. They left the gate unlocked and it was an easy escape for our Houdini. One of our friends told us, "I just saw your son running that-a-way!!!" He got pretty far from the nursery by the time he was corralled. When we asked the nursery about it we were told, "in my five years of working here I have never had one escape like that!". I have not been more proud...My son has literally gone farther than all the other kids.

In adoption news, we received our BCIS approval. This means we have legal permission from the fed's to bring an orphaned child into the US. Our future child's immigration status will be clean. That means all of the US paper work we need to complete the adoption is done. The next news should be regarding the registration of our documents in Russia. That will dictate where and probably when we will travel.