Questions, Expiration Dates, and Evacuation Plans

Home studies are an interesting thing. They are an exercise in sheer panic . . . until they over. I was more than prepared to have my home torn apart, my personal life delved into, and my parenting skills analyzed and then reanalyzed. Thankfully, it wasn't nearly that bad. We had a really nice social worker, and while there were some personal questions, they were not personal on an uncomfortable level. The questions were a lot of common sense ones like, "What will you do if this child needs counseling?". "Uh well, let me see, yeah, well, I guess take her to a counselor." "Ding, ding, ding - we have a winner Bob!". We also had to talk about how we work out problems, our parenting styles, our disciplining methods, how we met, and how long we dated (to name a few). The first time she asked me how long we dated, and then she asked Patrick later. We dated for 5 years. Patrick told her we dated for 8. She started laughing, and I'm trying not to read too much into that one. I'm just glad she didn't ask him when our wedding anniversary is. July 12, 2003 - in lieu of gifts just send money . . .  I'm just playing. ;)

One of the biggest issues we had, was that I may have dominated the conversation a lot a little, but I did try to let Patrick answer some questions. It's just that every time I looked at him to answer a question, he got the whole "deer in the headlights" look, and I felt the need to save the day. Shocking I know. Because normally, I'm so passive and meek. (Okay, you can stop laughing now)

There are a lot of things that are long and tedious about an international adoption, but the home study (apparently) is not one of them. Unlike home studies done through CPS (or so I've heard), our refrigerator didn't have to be inspected and no one went through our drawers. Darn it! It was rather disappointing since I checked all of the expiration dates on everything and organized my sock and underwear drawer, but then again, those are things that I enjoy spending my Saturday afternoon doing. As I've said before, if you don't understand see my profile. She (meaning the social worker - duh Courtney) did check our smoke detectors and make sure that we have a fire extinguisher and a "fire evacuation plan". Now you talk about interesting. Drawing up a simple evacuation plan took me forever. Simple tasks can be turned into monumental tasks with me in a matter of seconds. I am the queen of making a mountain out of a molehill, and I take pride in that. Needless to say, our fire evacuation plan has a regular route and then it has a couple alternate routes because our house so large (said with sarcasm). So if you ever come visit you can consult this plan - just in case of a fire (especially if I'm cooking). By the way our house is 1836 sq. feet, it's kind of hard to miss the exits. The plan should've said "in case of fire head out the nearest door". But really, how exciting is that?

Now it's time for our nightly fire drill . . .