Jon-Jon

That's the cute pet name we're trying to get Haley to call him. Him being Jonathan Andrew Sanchez, our newest addition to the family. No, we haven't been hanging out at the kid store. Zak is with a different family and Jonathan is with us now. Zachary was moved with a new foster family that has been hoping a waiting for a baby for a year and a half. They were very excited to meet him and you could see their eagerness as I was handing over his worldly possessions. I had mentioned before that God is wild (on FB), here's why. The day we decided we just couldn't do it with Zachary anymore and he needed and we needed for him to be in a new home, that very day, just hours later, a home was already eagerly awaiting his arrival. We skated through the most exhausting days with him getting him on a routine/schedule sleeping more than 4 hours at a time and getting him off methadone. We breezed through, happily with no real complications or difficulties. When he was off methadone, daily I felt more and more pressure and stress and unhappiness. It wasn't until he was sleeping 11 hours at night and drug-free that I couldn't balance it all anymore. I believe God empowered us to provide for Zak for that specific time and when we were got through that phase it was time for him to go to a different home and God provided that home right away. Just days after we found out about the other home, we got a call from our CW. He asked us what we needed to be different to be successful in our next placement and how our expectations or requirements for potential placements had changed. After talking over a few things with him that we had discussed, he says "ok, I think I have a placement for you." I laughed with surprise. I half-expected to be on some probation list even though he had said that wouldn't be the case, and the thought of him knowing how overwhelmed and broken I felt, he still felt pressed to suggest this placement as the right placement for us. He told us about Jonathan, what he knew anyway. Jonathan is 7 years old, he was in respite care and needed a serious home that could commit to him because his parents had terminated their parental rights and he needed to be placed in his forever home. I was in awe of God's work as the Master Orchestrator. We talked about it. We prayed about it. Our CW said there were other families considering Jonathan. We agreed to take Jonathan. If we are meant to have him, we would and if not we prayed for another family to be chosen and we prayed for that possible other family. That was all Friday morning and we picked Jonathan up from school on Monday and he's been with us ever since. Meanwhile, we still had Zachary as well. After taking in Jonathan, it was a little more urgent for us move Zachary, but the papers couldn't keep up with us. So the new foster family for Zak agreed to provide respite care for us until they could sign as his family. I went to drop him off the day that we were set to go out of town. The new family is fabulous. They are The Parish family and they have been on the waiting list for emergency placements for infants for over a year and a half. They were shocked when they got the call about Zak because they couldn't believe they'd been passed up the first time he was placed. The Parishes shared that they too thought the timing of it all worked out perfectly because the mom was able to have a hand surgery she needed and she was able to provide respite care for a good friend with twin foster babies because her father had passed away. If they had gotten Zachary initially, she wouldn't have been able to do either of those things. Not only that, but this family was completely empathetic to our situation and didn't judge us for giving up Zak because they had been through almost the exact situation themselves last year. That just reiterated to me that God had a plan for the Parishes and us and Zachary and Jonathan all along. I imagine God knew we would have Jonathan, but before that Zachary needed us until he could be with the Parishes. I am still amazed at how the pieces have come together. So Jonathan is a typical 7 year old boy. He is doing well in school as along as he has structure to do homework and gets to bed on time. I was like structure...no problem. He does not have visits with his parents. He does have siblings that we need to connect with and he has started to miss them, but only seems to be bothered about it every other day or so. We still do not have his full file of information to know everything about him, but he talks, so we're learning anyway. Currently, it is a foster placement. In a couple months, if things are still going well, it will become an adoptive placement and we will begin the process to adopt Jonathan and make him a Wheeler. He is well-behaved and obeys without fuss. We have been working on manners and routines and he is doing really well with it. Jonathan has been blessed by many different people and families that provided him with A LOT of used clothing and A LOT of toys (both new and old-including a bike, although I think it's too big for him right now) and we have taken him into our family treating him just like our kids and including him in the hugs and I love you's. He has also taken well to us and the kids. He and Noah have a typical brotherly relationship and Haley seems to be relishing being the only girl with two big brothers. He calls us mom and dad and asks for hugs. There have been funny moments. I expect many more to come so I'll have to make sure to be better about keeping up with this thing. So that's it. Things today look drastically different than they did a month ago and especially 2 months before that, but it was all simple and logical with The Plan. God is wild.