We had our last post-placement appointment for Minor on Friday; our last social worker sighting ever, unless we develop temporary amnesia about The Wonder Years and decide to adopt another baby. The universe marked this occasion with a thunderstorm. In New England. In December.

We’ve had three placement visits with the social worker over the past 6 months. Minor has been 4 months, 7 months, and 10 months old at these visits. At each visit, she’s asked the following questions:

Does he crawl? Not to speak of, no.

Does he say Mama or Dada? Well, he can SAY them, but not with any specificity.

What does he call you? Pretty much just AHHHHH!

What does he call Aitch? Same thing.

Is he pulling himself up to standing yet? Nope, not yet.

Is he “cruising”? Just chicks. Not furniture.

Have you thought about calling Early Intervention?

You may recall that lo these many months ago, when we were starting the paperwork for Minor’s adoption, I had Early Intervention evaluate Aitch at this social worker’s insistence, and he didn’t qualify for any services. Since Minor has seemed, despite his deficiencies, to be more advanced than Aitch on most milestones, and certainly not behind on anything except crawling, it has not occurred to me to call the Early Intervention people for Minor. At least, it would not have occurred to me had she not suggested it three times in the past six months.

I feel the same kind of frustration that I did a few weeks ago when the pediatric nurse practitioner called to tell me, “All your daughter’s test results came back normal,” or when that same nurse asked me if I ate peanut butter when I was pregnant with Aitch. In other words, “You’re part of the infrastructure that’s supposed to be serving as a safety net for my child, and you can’t get even the most basic details right?  You can’t remember that my child is a boy, is adopted, is not yet beyond the normal age range for speaking his first word or walking? Even if you can’t remember, you couldn’t be bothered to read his file before you saw us?  If you can’t even keep the basic facts straight, what good would you be if I really needed help?”

But Minor is not ours yet, so when she suggested Early Intervention I just said, “Sure, I’m familiar with Early Intervention.  If he starts lagging behind I’ll definitely call them.”

And then she signed the papers, so with any luck, one day soon, we will officially be Minor’s family.