Boy, 3, Gets ‘Married’ to Parents in Adoption Finalization Ceremony

— -- Thanksgiving is going to be very special for the Hodge family this year.

That’s because it will be the first holiday that Jaime and Arthur Hodge of Hesperia, California, will spend with their 3-year-old son, Todd, whose adoption was finalized in court on Nov. 10.

Jaime, 33, and Arthur, 38, took an extra step for their finalization by exchanging rings with Todd to symbolize their union as one a family. The exchange was Todd’s idea, his mother told ABC News in a telephone interview on Thursday.

“He kept seeing our wedding rings and he said ‘Todd wants a ring like you guys. Todd wants to get married to you,’” Jaime, an elementary school teacher, recalled.

She ordered three identical rings bearing the infinity symbol to symbolize her and Arthur’s unending love for their son.

The Hodges have been married for eight years. Todd is their first child.

The boy ended up in the foster system after his birth parents were unable to care for him.

Jaime remembers the first day she met Todd after being matched with him earlier this year.

“All we knew about him was that he likes balloons and Mickey Mouse, so we bought him some balloons, Mickey Mouse balloons, and he wanted to let them go in the air and we were like, 'Sure,' you know, 'Whatever you want to do,'” she said. “And then I remember when we were leaving he was like, ‘Bye new mommy,’ and I’ll probably, like, never forget that for the rest of my life.”

The Hodge adoption and more than 90 others were all finalized on the same day at an annual celebration at the Ontario Convention Center in Ontario, California. C.L. Lopez, a spokeswoman for San Bernardino county, said the adoption finalization event is held in November in recognition of National Adoption Month.

When it was time for the Hodge adoption to be finalized, Superior Court Judge Lynn Poncin granted the family’s request to incorporate the ring presentation. She made it official, saying: “With these rings you are now mom, dad and child."

Poncin had also waved a pink "magic wand" that she uses symbolically to finalize adoptions, Lopez said.

Jonathan Byers, assistant director of the San Bernardino County Children and Family Services, attended the Hodge family’s finalization ceremony. He called it “truly wonderful.”

“Every adoption is special and every single one is sort of life-changing and life-affirming, even, on so many levels, but this is the first time in my 19-year career I have seen a forever family celebrate a moment like this kind of lifelong commitment with an infinity ring ceremony,” Byers told ABC News. “It was fantastic and how appropriate ... and what a testament it was to the love and commitment that the parents have made to this young boy.”

Byers said his department will have facilitated the adoptions of about 500 children by the end of this year.

He acknowledged the hard work of the county’s social workers, and of Patricia Santiago in particular. She is the social worker “who worked so hard to make some good things happen for this family,” he said, speaking of the Hodges.

“It’s an awfully tough job and it can be gut-wrenching and heartbreaking but what you saw with the Hodges represents the best of what we do, keeping children safe and making sure they have enduring connections through forever families,” he said of the county’s social workers.

Jaime Hodge will introduce her extended family to Todd with a big party on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

She and her husband have already had professional photos taken with their son, and they all wear their rings every day.