Foster Parenting ... here we come!!!!

For all of you on pins and needles, wondering about the fate of our wretched basement, well, I just can't keep you waiting any longer. We can totally have foster kids! Yeah! Wahoo! Seriously, totally relieved.

As the Foster Care Worker explained it when she saw our basement tonight, we just need to tell the state that we won't allow the children to play down there. Seriously? that's it? Why couldn't people just tell me this crap over the phone??????

We are totally switching agencies. After this lady, N., came to our house tonight, she said all the right things. They just seem more connected with all the parties involved, and so interested in having 'good' families, not herding people through licensing like cattle.

There is some bad news for you all because of this switch. I'm sorry to say. Instead of starting public classes tomorrow, we are going to start Deciding Together classes next Tuesday at our house with two other couples. So, for real, we don't even have to leave our house! And we will be done sooner, because DT classes are 7 weeks (the first of which counted tonight) and the PS-MAPP classes take 10 weeks. But how does this become bad news for you, did you ask? Well, on the downside, we won't have really bad foster-care-parent-applicants to pick apart. Maybe we will, but I imagine this intimate little class at our house being filled with people just like us, in it for all the right reasons, from a similar socio-economic background, and perhaps, you know, sisterhood of the traveling pants kind of friends when we're thru. Sorry bout your luck, dudes, but I'm stoked about this turn of events. Did I mention Wahoo?!

We have some work to do in the next few weeks to get our house ready, and to get ourselves approved.

I won't bore you with the whole list, but its basically child-proofing your house if you were totally and completely paranoid and anal.

So, I'm going to start plugging through the list of crap we need to do right away. I'm thinking of starting small - like, maybe I will go around and count all the outlets tomorrow, and then put in outlet covers tomorrow night. Wouldn't that be fun and make me feel like I'd accomplished something? I mean, something I can control?!

I really need to paint the bedroom for the little one which is currently yellow and is being painted a dull green/beige but I won't have time this week. Maybe next week, after work one night. I kind of need to get this done before the 18th when I start my IVF cycle, because by then I will either be exhausted and nauseas the deadly combo of stims and paint fumes, or not want to be around paint fumes for fear of the risk it might cause my 'could be' pregnant self. So, definitely that is my biggest deadline - have bedroom painted before the 18th! No excuses!

EEEEEeeeeeeee (imagine high pitched squeal of delight!) I'm so excited. I am so excited. I....am....so excited!!!!!!