Standing in front of Douglas County Juvenile Court Judge Elizabeth Crnkovich, the 12-year-old stood inches taller Friday than he was the last time he appeared before her 2½ months ago.

His early-stage Mohawk was gone, replaced by short-cropped hair. He wore size 8½ Nike Flight sneakers. His right arm, broken on a church trip to a haunted farm over Halloween, hung from a sling.

Yet, to the judge, the adoption hearing felt like déjà vu.

“It’s kind of like we’ve been here before,” Crnkovich said as she considered a permanent home in Lincoln for the last of the Staton children — the nine children left by their father at Creighton University Medical Center on Sept. 24, 2008, under the state’s former safe haven law.

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The children were among 36 left at hospitals when the law had no age limit on children who could be left by adults without fear of prosecution. It has since been limited to newborns.

On Aug. 18, the boy cried and choked out his words to Crnkovich: “I don’t want to get adopted today.” So the judge held up his adoption by his great-aunt, nicknamed Aunt Tiny, while approving her petition to adopt six of his siblings.

In May, an Omaha foster mother was named legal guardian of two older brothers.

Friday was the 12-year-old’s turn.

Aunt Tiny testified that the sixth-grader was doing well medically, socially and academically and that she loved him like her own child.

Tom Incontro, the boy’s guardian ad litem, said he is doing very well.

The judge looked at the Staton child and told him it’s hard to stand out when you’re from a big family, adding that she knows this personally as the seventh of eight children in her own family.

“I find it in the best interest of this young man … that he be adopted,” Crnkovich said. “And it is so ordered. Hooray!”

The hearing also marked this milestone: ending the court’s jurisdiction over the Staton children.

Crnkovich handed the boy a congratulations card and six others like it for his siblings.

In the lobby, the child reached for his great-aunt, who at 4-feet-11 is now shorter than he is. He placed his arm around Aunt Tiny’s shoulder, smiled and asked about their celebration plans.

“So. What are we going to do, Mom?”

Contact the writer:

444-1136, erin.grace@owh.com