Clearing My Brain and Catching Up

Sorry for the absence. Even more sorry for the lack of pictures. I have a million pictures from the last few weeks...on my new phone...I have not yet figured out the best way to get said pictures off of the new phone...so you are stuck with these from our recent Valentine's photo shoot (I decided not to do Christmas cards, but to send out photos randomly through the year. If you didn't get a Valentine, don't despair. A random photo card will appear in your mailbox eventually!)

At first I couldn't even get anything that would remotely work...

We've had a crazy busy couple of weeks, starting with the move of our dear friends (the first friends we had here. Sob.). I'm still in denial they're gone. They only live about 30 minutes away and so far I've seen them just as much as when they were here, but I'm still sad.

Then we had our home visit with our social worker as part of our home study. As I'm sure you all can imagine, inviting a social worker to come to your home for the specific purpose of evaluating it and you to see if you pass as being a fit home for more children is incredibly stressful. And even if everyone tells you that you will be fine, you can't help but wonder if their job is finding things wrong, can't they find things wrong anywhere?

I told them to just "look normal..."

After looking in every single room of my house (even storage, even the furnace room, even the garage!), and going over all of our finances (we're talking every penny here), and asking a few more questions, she told us she was very pleased to recommend us for adoption and be part of our process! Yay! Now that it is over, I have to say that I really like our social worker and I almost feel more confident in my parenting now that I have a social worker backing me up with her support!

Some of our favorite moments from the home study:

- Ryan yelling from the bathroom "Miss Peggy, I pooped! Come and see!" And when she, of course, didn't come in, he ran out, jumped around her, and yelled, "I pooped, Miss Peggy! I pooped on the potty!"

- Allie correcting the social worker when she said, "Oh, my gosh." Allie says, "Oh, no! We say 'Oh my goodness.' If you say 'Oh my gosh,' again you will have to go in time out." We have never threatened time out for saying anything other than "Oh my goodness," but Allie apparently felt the need for consequences...

- In a conversation about the colors on his plate, Ryan held up his pea and said, "Green is poopy." Then Ryan and Allie both started proclaiming over and over and over "Go big green is poopy!" See...during the football season, the day that Nebraska beat Michigan State, I taught the twins to say "Go big green is poopy," so that we could call Uncle Logan (my football nemesis), and tell him. The call was never made, the phrase stuck, and I worried about what awkward moment it would come out. I hadn't thought about it coming out during the home study. It was awkward.

Kissy faces. Allie is too eager...Ryan is not eager at all...

At this point, the only thing left in our homestudy is the education portion. There is a lot. 2 books (1 is almost 500 pages), a 10 hour online class, an online seminar, several websites, some worksheets, and some exercises. All while gathering together the last of our paperwork. This is why you haven't heard from us in a while. Every spare moment goes to educating myself about adoption. It is a bit overwhelming. I swing between feeling like I am in way over my head, to feeling so honored that I get to be a part of this amazing thing, to being so incredibly sad about the time I am missing with my children and the things that could be happening to them during that time. It is intense. Thankfully, my personality and parenting style naturally fits with a lot of what is needed in adoption parenting, but it really is a whole different ballgame than parenting bio children (which I hadn't thought much about before). And the balance of both is something I'm glad I have time to consider and "plan" ahead of time. If anyone is interested in reading any of the info to have a better idea of the struggles our children (even if they are perfectly healthy children) will face, and what our lives will look like post-adoption, let me know!

From kissy faces to kisses. Getting better...

And then we swung into Valentines, with a big party for our moms' group at our house, and a fun day for the twins. I'm exhausted. But after tonight we have a few days to rest and regroup (i.e. read like crazy to try to finish our homestudy quickly before anything else requires our brain power). Oh, and Ryan and Allie are crazy cute right now. Doing so many hilarious things. But that will have to be another post...because I'm officially falling asleep and I still have to put the kids to bed!

Perfection! All it took was 200 pictures, bribery with suckers, and Daddy holding the computer over my head with a favorite muppets short playing on youtube!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!!!