At 18 months, our beautiful adopted child, Ami, has met many developmental milestones early. Her most recent milestone has to do with self-awareness. She has begun to take her toys away from our four-year-old and strongly say, “MINE.” This self-awareness increased the other night at the grocery store. Ami and I do the family grocery shopping while the older siblings attend AWANA on Monday nights. Ami pointed to a Dora dish set on the store shelf and said strongly, “MINE.” I thought it was so cute that I handed it to her. Then she saw a princess stamp set, a chubby animal marker set, a Diego sippy-cup, all of which she pointed to and said, “MINE.” For our family, having an adopted child reach development milestones early is a bit unusual.

We have been licensed foster parents for 14 years. Most of the nearly 100 children we have parented over the years have been abused, neglected, suffered from fetal alcohol, or drug exposure. Most of the infants and toddlers who came into our care qualified for Early-On services.

Early-On services are available for children under the age of three years at no cost to parents. Trained personnel use a set of established criteria to test infants and toddlers for age appropriate development. Depending on the age of the child, they test vision, hearing, muscle tone, physical abilities, speech, and mental abilities.

They have even begun to advertise their services in our state. I saw a billboard on the side of the highway that said, “Is your baby behind? Don’t worry, but don’t wait, call now.” I found their staff to be friendly, helpful, and professional. Our children have all enjoyed therapy and developed positive relationships with their therapists.

Our youngest child, Ami, was adopted privately. Her mother chose an adoption plan for her, which is different from foster care adoption. When you adopt from foster care it is because the parents’ rights were terminated by the state for neglect, abuse, or lack of safety. Luckily for our family, Ami’s birth mother chose to keep herself healthy during her pregnancy.


Photo Credit Julia Fuller 2007