Meeting 7

We only have 4 meetings left!  I am very excited to have my Tuesday nights back!  We had our first home visit (we will have 4 and a state inspection).  We cleaned the house, garage, yards, car inside and out!  We even shampooed our carpets.  Maricella is our worker, she came, Blake wanted her to hold him and look at him the whole time or he would scream.  It was super fun.  I would try to hold him or distract him and he would blow me off.  That kid is a ham LOL.  She came, talked to Dan and I for about 20 mins than left.  She didn't even look past the living room.  All that cleaning for that!  Oh well it is always so nice to have it done!  She is coming again tomorrow morning for our second visit and I will be interviewed this time.  I know that she called a lot of our contacts this week and I think they went well.  I was a bit embarrassed because I put down the wrong number for one of Dans' friends Chris Lowder who he has none since childhood.  Instead I put down our new neighbors number, I have known the guy for 4 months LOL.  Luckily I go to school with his wife, it took me a while to figure out why in the world they were calling them, but soon figured out my mistake.  
  We are feeling the exhaustion of constantly being on the go.  The boys are feeling it too and are rewarding us with lots and lots of crying fits.  Oh the joys!   Good preparation for what is coming though right?  This week we talked about separation, mainly preparing the child to go home and most importantly disruption.  Disruption is when you have a child in your home, things are not working out and you have that child moved to a different Foster Home.  My main goal is truly to never do this.  They say it happens to everyone, but I just cannot imagine doing that to a child.  They really want you to know yourself, we actually have to fill out a "know yourself" worksheet every week.  They list all sorts of situations and behaviors and go around the room and ask what you deal breakers would be.  Any good moral person would want to help and give everything they have to these little children who have been in these horrible situations.  The problem is that these kids have their personalities altered by what they have gone through.  Healing in a very slow progress, it can even take YEARS.  The first 6 weeks are what they call the "honeymoon" stage, than things start changing after that 6 week mark and are supposed to start improving around the 6 MONTH mark.  It is such a long term commitment, a very slow progressing long term commitment.  They for obvious reason highly discourage disruption but would rather you do that than snap on a kid and hit them ect.  I am trying to be very realistic with myself, in all honesty I think that before we dive into this Blake needs to be older.  I don't think it is fair to him to have to give up his mom until about 3, when I say give up I really mean share I guess.  I was told this process took a lot longer than what is actually does and I am not feeling ready yet.  He is still a baby really, I can't take on a problem baby and have my own baby at the same time.  I think for about a year we are going to go on the Private Adoption list and see if we can get a newborn but our chances are really low but it might bide me the time we are looking for.  After about a year when Blake is almost 3 than we will venture into the Foster side of it.  We haven't officially decided yet.  We are just playing with different ideas.  It is all getting so close and I am feeling so overwhelmed with school, being mom, fostering and my mother is getting married this week for her third time.  It is all just too much!!  I can't really make any rational decisions right now.  I need to focus on the immediate and that is really my kids and school.  We probably shouldn't have done this all at once, it was just so convenient to have a set babysitter here all the time.  What's done is done and I do believe things happen for a reason, so I am here for a reason LOL.  We will figure it all out and I am sure that it will work out for the best it always seems to.  Thanks for letting me ramble, it helps just being able to express what I am thinking.  We have all been sick lately too so it doesn't help anything!!