Thursday, July 26, 2012

When Your Life Becomes a Sitcom

Well the dreaded homestudy was today! We are past it. Thankfully.

But it's just never that easy is it? Nope, not with two kids, two dogs, plus an extra dog because you are watching your friend's for her (I owe her from this incident in which she starred. Plus she has bff privileges).

It all started well enough. We woke up early and started cleaning, doing laundry, reminding the kids for the 1,097th time that day to put their toys back away and stop making forts out of the couch's cushions.

We wait until the end to get ready so that everyone can look spanking clean and new and shiny. I am ready, Brewerman is putting his shoes on, and the kiddos are buck naked in the living room putting on their fourteenth layer of lotion.

I am about to grab cutie-spaz-o the dog to take to Vanerrellian's house (it doesn't like strangers very well) during the homestudy when...

Bam.

The doorbell rings.

I look at Brewerman, time stops...I choke out "No."

"No no no no no."

Oh yeah.

She's HERE! 30 MINUTES EARLY!!

Oh S&*$!

Three dogs start going bizerk. Barking like wild violent animals they aren't.

So I run up to the door, Brewerman shoves the kids in to our room to finish getting dressed, whispering sweet-threatenings to hurry it up already.

I am in full panic mode here. I open the door a half inch and let her know it will be just a second when the door gets shoved open by dog #1, #2, and #3 who proceed to pounce out of the house like this social worker is a juicy steak. I start yelling through my clinched teeth at dogs to get back in to the house.

Dog #1 goes back in, dog #2 stares me down and finally comes back in, but dog #3...my lovely dog...proceeds to take his time peeing on the bush two feet away from the social worker...still peeing....I wait....calling him ever-the-more preciously back in the house now. Finally he trots back in to the house and I tell her to please give me just one second, slam the door in her face, and hush the three crazy barking dogs by shoving them outside then listening to them scratch and whine at the door.

Then I pick up the lotion containers scattered about the living room, throw the leftover dishes I didn't get to in to the oven, slammed the boy's pajamas in the extra closet, and finally Brewerman whispers to me "You need to let her in!!"

Oh yeah.

Finally I let her in. She is nice, thankfully. But I am way off my game. She asks where we should sit and I stare at her blankly and ask her where she thinks. You know, since she just stepped foot in my house for the first time and has x-ray vision to view all the rooms to make that decision.

Brewerman finally comes up and suggests the dining room (which has a light out in the chandelier...fantastic) and then two bouncing boys come up talking at once. One with a shirt on backward. *Sigh.*

We give her a tour (she opens ALL doors including *EEEK* closets, to which the boy's pajamas fall out and I shove back in with my foot quickly). I open my laundry room door which has piles of laundry I was finishing and planning on putting away BEFORE she got here. All the while the boys are running in and out like I just gave them a jelly bean flavored soda.

I text the lovely dear friend of mine Carebearolyn who graciously offered to pick up my kids after their part of the homestudy and take them to daycare. It was either that (and I quote the social worker) "Or we can have them play in their rooms while we talk." Oh silly silly. Play in their....ha...while we....hahahaha. Yeah they were leaving asap.

She asks them questions, very easy sweet questions like "How do you feel about a new brother and sister?" You know what reaction she got? Nothing. Not a twitch in the face, not a word. Oh I take that back, she did get a shrug. A shrug! Ugh. Ah well, at least they didn't mention needles or closets. Carebearolyn comes and picks them up and silence descends....except the whining dogs at the back door.

So now it was our turn to do the talking. Did I mention I was nervous? And off my game? Yeah....I pretty much blabbed her ear off. Every question turned in to a five minute conversation. How long do you plan on living in the house turned in to future plans to buy a boat and ski trips and how much we love to tube and boat safety.

Finally a couple hours later, we were done. She told us to be ready for a 12 - 18 month wait. I guess the families with kids usually wait the longest as most birth parents want childless couples. That sucked. I mean I "expected" 12 months, but to hear it for sure sucked. I mean, it's not like I expected her to walk in and exclaim "I have the perfect birth mom for you!!!" I swear...I didn't. At all.

Pros? We have two kids that are black, which helps since we are in the ABC program that is specifically for black / biracial babies. We are totally open to visits after the adoption and open adoption. We are young (comparatively).

Cons? We have two kids. That is huge. We aren't open to all situations. Lastly, they have quite a few families right now and they usually show the birthmoms the couples waiting the longest first (unless they specifically ask for something that we would offer).

The nice thing is the "stay at home mom" that I will not be isn't that big of a deal. I guess most expectant moms don't ask about that. Huh, well there's that.

So except for talking way too long about every little thing and spouting some nonsense about gifts and non-gifts and lockets, things went well. And afterward we promptly went to a local dive and drank detoxed.

Then since we were minus-kids...we took a nap. It was fabulous!

Now it will be about 6 weeks for the final approval and then we will be on the books. Then it's sit back and wait 15 friggin months.

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