adoption picnic

on may 6, 2004 we attended an adoption picnic that our social worker had informed us about. at an adoption picnic perspective foster families and waiting children meet. we thought it sounded strange and knew that there would be more families than available children in attendance but decided to try it once, if only for the reason that we could meet face to face with workers from all surrounding counties and could look through books of waiting chidren who couldn't be at the picnic. it was a beautiful sunny day and the picnic was by a lake. after spending some time being uneasy and talking with another couple from our parenting class we decided to look through the books of waiting children. i brought a notebook to keep track of social workers that we met and children we were interested in. we had a one page synopsis with our photo and discription of us and the type of placement we were interested in to hand out to workers. we found 11 children from 4 counties in the books between the ages of 1 and 7. two of the children were twins, a boy and girl, 2 years old, they looked african american. it didn't take long for my partner to notice that the twins were at the picnic. the little girl had her nametag on her back. we watched them from a distance playing with bubbles. we then found their social worker and waited patiently to speak to her about them. we talked to her for about 15 minutes but didn't want to keep her from speaking to other parents. we told her we were interested in the twins and exchanged information. after that we stayed close by the twins, asking there caregivers about them. we then were able to spend the last hour of the picnic with them. i spend the time with the little boy and my partner spent the time with the little girl. they were just so adorable. the little boy didn't speak at all but was smiling a lot and drinking orange soda. we did see him get very upset when the social worker walked away from him. the only thing that calmed him was when i held him. the little girl was repeating words with my partner, "nose," "ear," "eye," etc. they were there with their foster mother's mother, who was deaf. she had taught them some sign language. they had been in the current home only 3 months. the picnic came to a close and the twins had to leave. the little girl was cuddled up next to my partner, she had a hard time leaving. the little boy waved bye to me. that was the day they entered our lives amd most importantly, our hearts. we called our social worker as soon as we got home to give her a full report and the information on the twins. she needed to initiate the paperwork to the other county.