Classes.

Most of our home study paperwork is complete and ready to turn in (thank goodness).  In Illinois, it is required by the state that we take 10 credits of educational courses on adoption.  We cannot do our final home visit until we finish all the adoption courses.  So...that's what we're working on.

We are doing most of our classes online through Adoption Learning Partners and they've been great.  Some of our credits need to be done in person, so this past Saturday we attended a class at an adoption agency near our house.  We walked into a classroom with about 30 people and I immediately felt uncomfortable.  We were the youngest people there by about 15 years.  Okay that's a slight exaggeration, there were two other couples there that were probably in their mid-thirty's but everyone else was much older.  We may be the youngest people in Chicago to have a child :).

The title of the class was called Race and Adoption.  The class was made up of a panel of people, an adoptive mom, three African American adoptees and a social worker.  They were asked different questions about their experiences with race and as adopted children.

We learned a lot.  My two big take aways were:

1.  Educate our child about Ethiopia.  Learn with them.  Celebrate the holidays and cook the food.
2.  Racism is still prevalent in our society today.  We need to keep this as we prepare our child for situations he might face in his life.

We're hoping to have our entire home study complete by mid-march.  Gotta keep moving!

Thanks for your continued prayers.