MILTON — Looking through small, round glasses, Sean spins coasters on the top of a wooden table with the tips of his index fingers.

"I want parents who will play with me," the 9-year-old says, pausing to look at a woman in her mid-20s with his brown eyes. "Younger parents, like you."

Sean is one of the more than 2,500 children and teenagers in Pennsylvania who are without a permanent home, and identified in the state adoption system by an ID number.

The various faces "” boys and girls, babies and teenagers, some smiling, some stoic "” scroll across the page of the adoption Web site, listing their names, photos and brief descriptions, differentiating each by an eight-digit adoption code number.

Many of the children involved are in a foster homes, in which the parents are attempting to fully adopt and gain parental rights. According to the state Department of Public Welfare, 2,714 children are looking to be adopted.

Seventy-three percent, or 1,980 of them, have identified an adoptive resource.

The remaining 27 percent, or 734 of them"” have not.

Sean "” known in the Pennsylvania Adoption Exchange as C2211005 "” is among the 27 percent. He has no connection with his birth family or extended family and is searching to find, what he calls, a "forever family."

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On the exterior, Sean seems unfazed that he has no relationship with his birth family. He plays and laughs. Looking at photos of himself, he erupts in giggles, hunching over in a belly laugh, and jokes with those around him.

Wearing a blue- and black-striped shirt and chewing a lollipop, Sean recalls his constant moving from foster home to foster home to foster home.

"I've lived all over the place," he said, counting seven. He's been at his current foster home for about six months.

Sean entered foster care when he was 4, and has remained with Family Care for Children and Youth Inc. ever since. Rebecca Rhodes, an adoption-permanency case manager at Family Care in Milton, has worked with Sean for the past year.

When he finds his forever family, Sean says he wants parents who will play with him, and who have a basement with a TV and video games. The possibility of living in a country setting or small town where he can have a yard would be ideal, he says. Sean also is hoping for young siblings who he can play with and teach things to, and pet dogs and cats to play with.

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Rhodes said most of Family Care's services pertain to children in the child welfare system, or foster-to-adopt programs; however, the organization does complete family profiles for private adoptions.

Family Care for Children and Youth Inc. is a nonprofit foster care agency, licensed to offer adoption services. With offices across the state, the adoption services include child and family profiles "” both necessary for the adoption of a child.

The profiles cover the history of the family and child, including foster care past, medical information, biographies, child preparation, a life book on the child, his wants for the future, what kind of adoptive family he would like, and finally, the supervision of the placement and paperwork for him to be adopted.

Sean is in the preparation stage of the adoption process and has been creating his life book with Rhodes. It includes photos and personal information.

One portion of the book includes questions and answers.

Question: "Sometimes I worry about ..."

Sean's answer: "Not being adopted."

Question: "My biggest worry."

Sean's answer: "Not being a family."

"When a child does not have an identified adoptive resource, then we may get a referral for the child-specific recruitment and this is what I am currently doing for Sean," Rhodes said.

The goal of child-specific recruitment is to find a family for a child through proactive outreach efforts.

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A fourth-grader, Sean says his favorite class is gym, when he can play sports. He also enjoys football, basketball and soccer.

A former fan of social studies, Sean says he doesn't like the subject in the fourth grade level because it's strictly about Pennsylvania.

"I like learning about all the other states, too," he said, later mentioning he could name all 50. When challenged to do so, he began rattling them off one by one, smiling at his accomplishment.

"He's very inquisitive," Rhodes said. "He asks a lot of questions and remembers things very well."

But states aren't Sean's only specialty. Ask him anything about dinosaurs and he will spurt off facts he's learned through books or movies "” his favorite being the "Jurassic Park" series "” without taking a breath.

"They lived until 65 million years ago and there are over 1,000 kinds and a triceratops has three horns and a Tyrannosaurus rex had short arms with two fingers," he said, giving as many facts as he could in one breath.

Sean will celebrate his 10th birthday next week and says he has plans to go to a gym to run around, wrestle and play. He is hoping to receive Bionicles "” toy figures you can build "” or a radio-controlled car.

"I like everything about cars," he said. "I don't have enough money to buy one. I only have $22."

If he could have any present he wanted for his birthday, he said he'd ask for a real car. Or movies.

"None of that girl stuff, though," he said, shaking his head.

Cars are a huge interest of Sean's, which is apparent by his drawings of race cars, his toys and his dream job.

"I want to be a race car driver," he said after drawing a large red car on a sheet of plain white paper. He signed the bottom, grinning at the finished sketch.

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Rhodes said it is more difficult to find adoptive homes for older children, especially teenagers, but she is receiving a lot of profiles from families searching for children Sean's age.

"I think the families who are willing to adopt a child out of the child welfare system understand that the children may be somewhat older and not infants," she said.

For Sean, and many of the other faces on the adoption Web site, that's a good thing.

For families who might be interested in getting to know him, he says he wants them to know he has a fun, silly personality, and is very active. Anyone who meets Sean will agree with him.

"He loves doing things and teaching things," Rhodes said, smiling as she watched the boy draw on the large easel. "He needs a family who will give him attention."