a gift fot me

I am exhausted tonight. I am still recovering from the frenzy of preparing for Christmas and entertaining relatives and I have not yet gathered enough strength for New Year's. People drain me. Not to mention the wrapping and the buying and all of the eating. But this was the first Christmas that Q really understood that was such a joy. He is still talking about Santa and eager to ride his trike around the living room.
Of course we have gotten squat done regarding the homestudy. As the winner of the world's worst cramps award, I spent the last two days with a heating pad and major painkillers. I did pick up the medical form. I am a little nervous about the next meeting with the social worker. What will she think of us together? I need to finish my autobiograhy and take a breath. Kevin's folks are coming over tomorrow. But I refuse to get stressed out. I need to finish my autobiography, light a fire under Kevin to finish his stuff, forget the rest. Besides, they are hear to visit with the grandbaby. I could have a messy house and wear a fish on my head and they would not notice.

A Windy Night and Seaturtles

Today has been interesting. We took Q to see Santa today. This has been the first year that he really gets the whole Christmas thing. His whole face lit up when he came home and saw that his father and I had put up the Christmas tree. Each day for the last couple of months he has been telling me long, incomprehensible stories about Santa. Yesterday, our fire department drove around town with a Santa on the fire engine. Quincy freaked! He was so excited to see Santa Claus and it was not just because of the half dozen candy canes the big red guy was flinging out of the engine. Kevin and I were really looking forward to seeing how Q would react to seeing Santa up close and personal. The last two years the poor boy was terrified.
Today, we waited in a long, meandering line with a lot of other weary parents and hyped up kids. Q was super impatient. Finally we got the the head of the line.
Quincy climbed on Santa's lap and sat there as a stunned, shellshocked lump. The mall Santa guy tried to coax Quincy out of his stunned status and he asked Q what he wanted for Christmas. All Quincy would say was "seaturtle," I kid you not "seaturtle."
One of the questions we have to incorporate into our updated family autobiography is how having a child will change your life? That question is really unanswerable. How can predict seaturtles.
Tonight it is very windy. No snow or sleet, but the wind is vicious. All of our windows (we have 42!) are shaking noiselessly. There is no way Quincy is going to sleep alone in his room tonight. He is afraid of the wind blowing against the windowpanes on a quiet, gentle night. So as soon as I turn off the computer I will climb the stairs to sleep with my snoring husband and a pair of tiny toddler feet kicking me in the back all night.
A very good night

Promises, promises

I promised myself that I would blog every day. So that means int he real world I would blog at least every other day. But I have not been able to even do that. Q was off at his grandparents last weekend. I hoped we would repair the kitchen ceiling and get the plate for the wall socket. To Kevin's credit, we did fruitlessly look for the correct wall plate at the hardware store. And I also know it is sort of ridiculous to cover the hole in the kitchen ceiling until we repair the underlying plumbing problem. Financially there is no way we can afford a plumber until after the holidays. However knowing something intellectually still does not stop you from fretting and worrying what the social worker will think of my old house. When you faced with a state inspection your charming turn-of-the-century Stick-style house transforms into a leaky, creaky, mouse-infested hell hole with random wires sticking out of the wall. And do even get me started on the radiators.
The current state of fretting and craziness I feel is perfectly normal. I got this way while we were preparing for the homestudy for Q's adoption. It is more stressful this time around because we have less income and with Quincy less time to work on the house. The foster care system is also more exacting. I also remember that going through a private adoption I always had a feeling of certainty that things would turn out all right. Most private adoptions do, despite the horror stories on the WE channel. Foster care is much more iffy.
I have read that Pennsylvania is considered a parents' rights state meaning the state tends to bend over backwards to make sure biological parents have every opportunity to straighten their lives out. That makes me more nervous.
This process is also more stressful because of money. I am bringing in more from my freelancing but my biggest contribution is in the form of nagging Kevin to do things. I really hate being the nagging wife. I hate seeing the pressure Kevin is under to carry most of the financial burden. I am still going to nag, but I am just going to feel bad while I do it.

Under a Striped Blanket

I have spent the day alternating between working on my computer and shivering under a blanket on the futon in my office. I feel a little ill today, but I suspect that it is really a response to yesterday's homestudy. I didn't realized how nervous I was until it was over and I finally exhaled.
The social worker was very nice, a pleasant, slightly frazzled looking woman with pale brown hair. I did a decent job of cleaning the house and getting most of our paperwork together. Looking from the outside in, I could tell the worker approved of our home and that I give the appropriate answers to her questions. From the inside I wasa wreck. I was fumbling. I am still pissed with myself that two of our four smoke detectors had dead batteries. I was mortified! I was kicking myself when I couldn't find some key papers. And to top things off, moments before the social worker arrived my normally sleeping cat showed up in the living the proud bearer of a live mouse. After screaming, I managed to shoo Henry and the soon-to-be dead mouse into the basement right before the worker rang the doorknob.
I know this first meeting went well and we are scheduled for a follow visit in two weeks. I suppose I am really nervous about committing to this terrifying, wonderful process. Sitting in my artificially clean living room with this very nice and overworked case manager, I was conversing calmly about parenting someone else's child, someone who has not made an adoption plan for this child, someone who could hate and resent me, an interloper. I am planning on parenting and loving a child where there is a very real chance that he could be taken away from me. I read online forums and articles and watch new reports and generally foster parents are right up there with evil stepmothers and man-eating giants as top villains. It is terrifying to be someone's bad guy, to be part of the child welfare system, a system where even the proponents admit there are terrible flaws. Is it any wonder why I want to lie under a blanket?
Parenting classes are scheduled for January.

Quietly Worried in PA

Well it is the evening of the December 2nd and the social worker from JFS will be here on the 5th. I am pretending not to worry. I am pretending this whole procedure is old hat. When we were getting ready for our first homestudy before we adopted Quincy, I was a wreak. And with good reason.
Homestudies are simple processes. The social worker is not checking for the perfect, Martha Stewart home. Instead they want to make sure you have working smoke detectors on each floor, heat, water, and electricity, a safe bed for the child, and no box of loaded guns under the coffee table . Before Quincy our old house was under major renovation, two of our radiators were out on the lawn, we had no banister, no basement door. It took a Herculean efforts and a buttful of money to get our house up to decent standards.
Now as we face our homestudy for our future foster to adopt child our home is in much better shape. But all I can see are the flaws, missing doorknobs, missing switch plates, and there is a ridiculous hole in our kitchen ceiling.
I am trying not to make myself crazy or make poor Kevin crazy, but I just wish I could wave a magic wand and create a Martha Stewart-worthy home.
I need to focus on what I can control. I need to gather together my paperwork and calm my spirit. Maybe I can guilt Kevin into picking up some Sheetrock.

Of Course

Of course, the second I start writing this my sleeping son begins to stir. We actually had a semi-adult evening tonight with dinner and wine and naughty toddlers running in circles around our dining room table.
My friend came over tonight for dinner with her husband, two kids, and her parents. It was a successful evening with children under four years of age, meaning I got to finish my most of my meal, a squeezed in some adult conversation while me distracted the kids with a video, and there was only one minor injury (Quincy split his lip tripping over the living room rug).
My friend's kids are four and nearly two years old. Whenever I spend time with people with two kids I think I must be crazy to want another one. From the outside it just looks exhausting. From watching other parents I know that two kids are not just double the work, it is quadruple the work.
And let's face it, I always dread it when people say to me, "Oh, you must love children to want to adopt again." I cringe. I like my kid. I like some kids. But I wouldn't say I love kids. I wouldn't say I love people and kids are just tiny people with sticky fingers.
But I do notice how I feel when I pick up a child that I do like. The wonderful, warm feeling of holding a child. And having that feeling lets my brain know that my heart is definitely ready to begin again.

Four Minutes Past Midnight

This is probably a ridiculous time to foray into the world of blogging. I meant to start yesterday at a reasonable time and after some research. But yesterday snuck up on me, covered my head with a pillowcase, and slipped out of the door. I started this blog to track my experience as I entered the foster care system as an adoptive mother. I wanted to share the journey. From the research I have already done, there is not a lot of adoption information written from the African American adoptive parent perspective. From the research I have already done, most of the foster care information is either painfully clincial or grisy horror stories.

Mostly I am writing as just a way to share my story, to vent and to reflect.

After months of reading and researching and receiving brochures from many different agencies, my husband Kevin and I went to our orientation meeting for Prospective Foster Parents at a local family services agency. We nibbled on pretzels while the pleasant but weary social worker spelled out the details of the foster care system. Most of the other prospective foster parents were older than me and my husband. Most were already informally caring for relative's children. I fazed in and out of the social worker's worn commentary because I had heard a lot of the information before when we adopted our son and also because I was too excited and too nervous to really retain anything.
All I could really thing about was that this was the beginning. This was the beginning. It could be the beginning of adding a new member to our family or it could be the beginning of a lot of heartache. But it is definitely the beginning .