Physical Profile

Health & Care

Personality

Lane is smart, crafty, energetic, affectionate, and usually moving. He can be rambunctious and rowdy, but he is also very tender-hearted and perceptive. He feels emotions deeply and, for his age, is very good at reading a room and recognizing how other people are feeling. He has a strong sense of fairness and will absolutely let you know when he thinks something is not fair. He asks a lot of questions, likes figuring out how things work, and pays close attention to what is happening around him. He loves jokes, roughhousing, hugs, and being close to the people he cares about.

What Lane Enjoys

Home routines

Playing with Stella, building with Legos, digging through old toys, showing me what he built, riding bikes, backyard games, and recreating things he remembers us doing together before the extended time apart. Lane can be very specific about these memories. On one return to the house, he recreated the last evening he remembered having here before the extended time apart, down to the music, the toys and activity, and the movie we had watched.

Home & Family Context

Lane has grown up in my house and knows where everything is. This is the home he was brought home from the hospital to.

After the separation, most of the furniture from the house went with his mom, so I was responsible for refurnishing and rebuilding much of the house. Lane was part of that process. He helped pick paint colors, helped me pick up furniture I bought on Facebook Marketplace, and joined my dad and me on a trip to Texas in a box truck to pick up used furniture. He watched pieces get cleaned and reupholstered and saw the upstairs bedroom and play space for him and Elle come together.

Although parts of the house changed during that process, those changes were not something that simply happened around the children. They were involved in seeing the house come back together and in choices such as paint colors.

Lane knows where his toys are, where things belong, the backyard, Stella, and the routines we have always had here. He still likes going through things he remembers from before the separation and reconnecting with specific memories associated with the house.

Physical Profile

Health & Care

Personality

Elle is expressive, affectionate, funny, and very direct. She will tell you exactly what she thinks and usually has a very clear opinion about how something should be done. She can be very determined once she has made up her mind. She is also extremely cuddly. She likes sitting close to me, being carried, asking for piggyback rides, and curling up beside me. She loves pretty things, tiny things, and anything that feels special.

What Elle Enjoys

Home routines

Playing with Barbies, Memory Match, Legos with Lane, playing with Stella, picking out little cups or other special things she wants to use, asking for piggyback rides, going outside to swing or jump on the trampoline, and deciding what everyone should wear. Elle enjoys picking out my clothes and dressing Daddy, too. One recent weekend she chose an outfit for me that matched her dress because she wanted Daddy to be "twinsies" with her.

Home & Family Context

Elle has also grown up in my house and knows the house, her room, her toys, Stella, the backyard, and the routines we have here. Before the separation, she and Lane shared the upstairs bedroom that is now my bedroom. Her current bedroom and the shared play space are on that same floor.

Like Lane, Elle was around while the house was being refurnished and changed after the separation and was part of choices such as picking paint colors. The house looks different in some ways, but the children were part of watching those changes happen and making the upstairs space their own.

When Elle is here, she settles easily into the things that are familiar to her. She goes through her Barbies and toys, chooses the little trinkets or other special things she wants to use, plays with Stella, asks for piggyback rides, and usually has a very specific idea of what she wants us to do next.

She likes her bedroom and especially likes seeing her dresses hanging in her closet and choosing what she wants to wear. Clothes are part of her play and personality, too. She likes choosing outfits for herself and also likes picking out clothes for me that sometimes match or complement her outfit.