Other People's Kids

Incident Witnessed and Compared to Life

The small, tiger-striped kitten explored the house. He had lived there for awhile, but he still found wonderful things to play with everywhere he looked. The humans seemed to have an aneurysm when he climbed up on those wide ledges in by the food box and water spewer...and they didn't have much of a sense of humor about his climbing practice on the brand new funny-smelling tree in the living room, but they didn't seem to mind when he found something on the floor.

And here was a nice-smelling little piece of chocolate human-kibble on the floor. He loved these things. You could bat them with a paw and they skitter right across the whole room, and of course it must then be immediately chased and batted again before it could stop. Bat. Chase. Bat. Chase. Whew. Time to relax and consider things again.

As the kitten idly batted the piece of Count Chocula an inch here and an inch there, Willy walked in, sized up the situation, slurped up the human-kibble and then went to the watching human to collect some petting. The kitten sat where he was, puzzled as to where his toy went.

This is a little like how I've felt about the adoption thing. They tease us with possibilities, and so we chase and bat, and chase and bat. And then some other couple comes in and chomps up our piece of kibble.

Of course, it's not so much like our current befuddlement. In this case, they've known for over two weeks that the baby needs to be adopted. The baby is now a month old, and we've heard exactly zero, except that they confirmed that they received our home study when we badgered them about it. Our system is badly broken, ladies and gentlemen, and some days it feels like it's breaking my spirit right along with it.

Will we be able to adopt this child before we have to start worrying about college tuition? Stay tuned.

posted by Dan @ 7:34 PM