Anyone who has adopted knows that there is a little bit of pressure to have your home looking nice when your case worker comes to do the homestudy visit. Now, I know that we won't be rejected if our mantle has dust on it...or even if the kitchen sink is full of dishes - BUT it's normal to want your home to look presentable when you've invited someone over, let alone someone who is coming for the purpose of inspecting your home!
So, this Tuesday (July 9th) I worked very hard getting the house in perfect shape...and my mom took Noah and Lincoln to the park and a movie for a few hours prior to the appointment as well as the duration of the appointment so we could concentrate on the homestudy (and because the boys don't know about the adoption). Mark left work a few minutes early and all was on track. Phew! Until the case worker was late. Finally I called him to ask if he was having any trouble finding our home and he said that he'd written down next Tuesday (I checked the email, it was the 9th). He was very nice and apologetic and asked if we could do Thursday. Now, Thursday was our anniversary and that wasn't exactly what I pictured doing on that day, but I didn't want to delay things any longer so I agreed.
Now the next couple days was "interesting" trying to follow around the boys and keep the house perfect. I'm glad I don't live that way every day (having to have my home perfect) because it drove me crazy. It was good that we got out of the house for a good portion of the day on Wednesday! Nonetheless, my mom volunteered to come take Noah and Lincoln again on Thursday for the appointment. I polished the house back to where we wanted it to be, and the caseworker showed up just fine this time.
Josh, our social worker, did my personal interview and by the time we were wrapping that up Mark got home. We finished up some discussions, did the home walk through, and things went fine. We scheduled our next interview for Tuesday and were surprised to hear that he wanted to meet the other boys (he saw us interact with Max at our home). It would have been nice to know that since my mom took them twice to keep them out from under our feet for the homestudy - and because we hadn't told the boys about that adoption! So they'll be coming with us on Tuesday.
That being said, on Friday night we sat the kids down and made our big announcement. We made sure they know (as well as kids that age can understand time) that things won't be happening for a long time, but that we wanted them to know what all the paperwork and interviews were about and that over the next few years that they can always share their feelings or questions with us. We showed them the Ethiopian doll, talked about things, looked at pictures on the internet, and then all had ice cream cones.
So, at least this week had a couple concrete steps to share about!
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