Not TOO painful…

2006
03.23

So we had the "home visit" with the Social Worker (SW) today, and of course it went fine.  Charles and I have been pretty jazzed up about it, psyching ourselves out that if we didn’t get the closets cleaned out (she didn’t open them) or all the dog hair swept from under the couch (she didn’t check) that we would "fail" or something.

 Of course, it’s more like talking with a therapist than taking a driver’s test where they’re waiting to dock you points for every time you make a bad move.   ("So, how was your parent’s relationship…?") 

The talking was fine, Charles was "Chatty Charlie" again despite my best efforts both before and during the inteview to get him back on track with the questions and less with the anectdotes. 

The best part was probably her interview with Dillon, who was (of course) impressive, and gave perfect answers despite not having been coached in any way.  He says, "I am SO excited for my baby sister!  Even though I know she’s not coming for a while I still need to jump up and down because I’m SO excited!"  (He really IS that excited, believe it or not… He talks about it all the time.)  He told the SW that he helped his dad "lock up the cupboards" so that if she’s a baby she won’t get in trouble, but if she’s big enough they’ll "just take all that stuff off".  (They installed the cabinet latches that we had to have to pass the inspection-I wasn’t going to bring up the fact that we haven’t had them for the past two years we’ve lived in the house or whatever…)

 But basically, it was a lot of talking, three hours of talking…  (mostly thanks to my dear husband, who does tend to prattle on.)  But it was painless.  Afterwards, I gave the SW a two-minute tour of the house we spent days cleaning.  But if we can keep it spotless until Easter it will all have been worth it. 

In all fairness, they told us not to go nuts with the cleaning, and of course I couldn’t NOT go nuts.  Also, they told us not to panic about it, but I still tossed and turned forever last night, and finally got out of bed to do a shot with my husband so I could fall asleep–good tip: rum and toothpaste-not at all a good combination.  But really, as only peppermint schnapps and toothpaste are a good alcohol/hygene combo, and we don’t keep that kind of nonsense in the house, what can you do?  

 Turns out the best thing would have been not to do it at all as I was pretty sure I was going to puke one minute after I did it.  It’s been a REALLY long time since I’ve done a shot of anything, and I’m quite the lightweight these days.  So I went to bed with a terrible feeling in my stomach, but as it turns out, I fell asleep really quickly and slept like a rock. 

So, we "passed" the inspection, not that it really works that way, but now the SW will take three to four weeks to write a report, and then she’ll give it to us to fact-check, then submit it to Dept. of Homeland Security and our other adoption agency.  At that point, I think we work pretty exclusively with our agency out of Minneapolis which is the one that deals with the Ethiopian government.  In the meantime, we’ll be finishing up our dossier, which then goes through various channels in Ethiopia, and will result in the assiging of a daughter to us.  A little girl who is at this very moment, somewhere in Ethiopia and hopefully not in  too terrible of a situation.

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