Crazy Busy

We have been so busy lately.  I hope to have time soon to update our private blog with great pictures.  We have wrapped up another school year, Blake has started summer speech therapy, we co-hosted my mom's family reunion, we celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary, I started a woman's bible study, etc... We have been waiting for DCFS approval on our homestudy for just over three weeks now so in theory in the next two weeks or so we should have our approval....

Course 4 of 10 complete.  It was entitled "Effects of Institutionalization"  and here is a little exerpt from the course. Something to think about....
"Even children in clean, well-kept orphanages with lots of toys and games suffer from a scarcity of experiences of the outside world. Most have never been off the grounds of the orphanages (except perhaps for frightening trips to the hospital where they may be abandoned without familiar caregivers for weeks or months). Children lack the experience of going to parks, stores and different homes and of the life of their village or town. Indeed, many exist as virtual prisoners of the orphanage.Perhaps the most critical risk faced by institutionalized children is emotional neglect. Caregivers of young infants may all wear masks, depriving children of the experience of seeing human faces. Depression is common in orphanages. In virtually all institutional settings, children lack a one-to-one or 'primary' caretaker. A common schedule for caregivers is a 24-hour shift every 3 or 4 days. Thus, each day the child is faced with a different caregiver's style of feeding, baths, bedtime and emotional responses. As a result, the child experiences inconsistent responses to his or her needs. The problem is exacerbated by the common practice in most orphanages of moving children from group to group, depending on age and developmental skills. Thus, when the child learns to sit, he is taken from caregivers he has known and loved for many months. When the child walks, he is moved again."