Adoptive Parenting Traits, More Part 3

I didn’t finish my third blog in the traits of adoptive parents series. I had illustrated how recovery and restoration from the hurtful and damaging things in the child’s past might sometimes take a very long time to be fixed. This blog will focus on the fact that many of those things sometimes heal rather quickly. My statement that it doesn’t always happen should not be taken to mean that it can never happen. Tommy came to us at age two and a half. He had experienced two open heart surgeries to repair a badly malformed heart valve. Once we … Continue reading →

Child Killer Executed in Texas

A man was executed tonight by the State of Texas for the 1998 murder of a three year old child. Carlos Granados was the ex-boyfriend of Katherine Jiminez. When her marriage to another man failed, he moved from New York to Texas to live with her. Sometime later, their relationship faltered She had told him to move out of the apartment that they shared. He did not want to leave and a brutal fight ensued. He stabbed her over 25 times with a large butcher knife. He also killed her three year old son with the same weapon. Relatives of … Continue reading →

Child Abuse: A New Case and Two Updates

Fifty miles north of Houston, a 26 year old father has been arrested for causing very serious injuries to his four month old twins. The children had been separately taken to the hospital, both with hemorrhaging in their brains and eyes. On December 23, the female twin was brought to an area hospital by her mother. Later in the day, the father came to the same hospital with the twin brother. The parents do not live together. Police investigators believe that the assaults took place in the father’s home. Apparently, there is undisclosed evidence that the father injured the babies. … Continue reading →

Against All Odds

Tomorrow will be Caleb’s birthday. The first child that came into our home will be four. We will celebrate his Gotcha Day on February 5. He spent the first two weeks of his life in a hospital and the next two weeks in a shelter. He came to us from there. The circumstances of his birth were very grim. He was taken to a hospital six hours or so after he was born. According to the hospital records, the first doctor who treated and examined him was unable to predict whether or not he would survive. When we received him … Continue reading →

Legal System Fails Child in Horrible Abuse Case

The legal system has failed to protect a 15 month old girl, who had the misfortune to be born into an abusive home. State investigators were first in her home in late July in response to reports of injuries to her five year old brother. His most serious injury was a broken ankle. Authorities took no action because the child insisted that he had sustained the injury while skateboarding. On October 4, police were called to the hospital when his sister, A’Anya Cantley, was brought in by her mother’s boyfriend with second degree burns to her face and torso. The … Continue reading →

Child Left With Caretaker is Dead

Last Saturday, a seventeen year old Dallas mother of two left her children at the home of Detress Richmond in order to go to work. She needed money and she had been hired to braid hair. Richmond had assured her that she would watch her two daughters. The decision to rely on the woman’s promise turned out to be tragic. A nine year old boy, who lived in the home, stabbed her two year old daughter to death with a knife. Apparently, no adult was in the home. Richmond left her fifteen year old daughter in charge of at least … Continue reading →

Child Neglect: An Update

Yesterday, I reported that two young girls had been found aimlessly walking the streets. The children, one and two years old respectively, were naked. Police picked the girls up. On returning them to their home, officials found that the home was in such bad shape that the girls, along with two siblings ages six months and seven years, were all placed in foster care. State investigators had visited the home in March and found nothing wrong. More facts have come out today. The mother, who is 25 years old, suffers from extreme depression and seems to be unable to take … Continue reading →