One of those families spanned three generations. The Toledo Blade reported that a foster parent adopted her 4-year-old grandson at the ceremony, nearly two decades after she had adopted his mother and her two siblings — meaning the boy joined a family his mother had herself joined through adoption years earlier. WTOL 11 also reported on the day, confirming five children were adopted in four ceremonies on Monday.
Each of those adoptions carried a small ritual. In every case, Lucas County Children Services reported, Puffenberger presented the adopted child with a miniature gavel as a remembrance — a longstanding Probate Court tradition that gave every child who passed through his courtroom a keepsake of the day their family became permanent. The five children adopted on November 2 were the last to receive one at a public ceremony from his hand.
The November timing is deliberate. November is National Adoption Month, and National Adoption Day — observed on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, November 21 this year — exists to finalize adoptions and raise awareness of the children in foster care still waiting for permanent families. Lucas County’s early celebration put the spotlight on five children whose wait is over, in the hope that other families will step forward for those whose wait continues…