5 kids!

We got chosen for the Five kids!  the oldest is 10 and the youngest 1.  We don't know anything more at this time.  We are waiting for the full discloser paperwork now....

will update when we know more.

Ahh for the confusion and annoyance of adoption.  Well, we decided not to take Kr then since they have no where to place her right now we decided to take her for short term respit/foster care until they find her a place.  Which will probably mean- if she does not annoy us to death- that she will be staying permanently.  Still, I really have no idea what is going to happen. 

Robin, a social worker from OK, called yesterday asking my mom to fax in our signature page of the home study because she had a group of kids she thought we would be great for.  When Mom asked about them Robin told us she was not able to tell us anything until she got the signature page but that there were 5 kids and the oldest was around 10 years old and that was it.    Oh and they are going to committee today!  We know nothing about these kids but apparently we are going to committee for them...well, we will just have to wait and see what happens. 

I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens with everything! lol what an interesting life this is!

new lessons learned

Well, the lesson of don't count your chickens before your eggs hatch is a very good one.  

I said to soon that we would be taking in Kr.  After reviewing all the information my family has decided against taking her on even as a foster child.  Because lets face it with my family a foster child who is legally free for adoption basically just means a bit slower transition into our household as a permeant member of the family.  Once something or someone comes into our house they become family.   

Now the final "no" has not been made yet so I am not going to say with complete certainty that this is a no but i am pretty sure...as sure as i was last night when i wrote that it was a yes.  Which is to say I don't have the faintest foggiest clue in God's green earth what the hell is going to happen!   This whole adoption process stinks!  I hate being a 'child' in this situation and seeming to be one step behind everything.  I talk to mom for at least 3 hours a day about adoption ....so say we have been doing this for a year and a half thats 547 days x (at least) 3 hours a day that equals out to be 1,641 hours spend just Talking about adoption!  and yet i am still out of the loop.  I just don't know what to expect anymore!  I wish it was as easy as in the movies.  You want a child so you go to some orphanage and see a baby that is perfect and cute point to it- pick it up- and its yours!  no crazy crap, no massive expenses, no heart ache as you learn what people have done to a child and what the child has done....simple, clean, easy.  Still that is not how the world works and that would give a lot of people who really shouldn't be parents the chance to be parents.    

I have learned not to get my hopes up or count on something until it is signed, sealed, and delivered!    Maybe that is a jaded way of looking at things but it is the only way to survive this process.  I simply do not know what the future will hold.  Will we be a big family? or will we be so discouraged by the continued losses and hardships that we give up?  Should we even be a big family?  I suppose God only knows the answers to these questions...and right now I seem to be hearing what God wants wrong because I keep getting surprised by how things turn out.  I guess it was silly for me to ever think I had a clue what God wanted from us as a family and from me individually.  

full discloser

This evening we went to full discloser for Kr a 12 year old girl who will be coming to live with us.  I cannot tell you many details since it is not allowed (I signed a confidentiality form) but i can tell you that full discloser is a sobering experience.  You hear everything that the child has ever done- mainly just the "bad" since the good is usually not made note of.   If you think about it, none of us would sound like very good people or at least people you would want to invite into your home if someone was making note of every argument, of every mistake and thing done in anger/pain.  That is without most of us having gone through even half of what children in the system go through.  Needless to say full discloser is not for the faint of heart.  As a "child" or at least not a parent i was not allowed to read through the paperwork, I am thankful for that.  Just having heard about what Kr has gone through was enough.  Mom and Da have to read through a 3 inch stack of paperwork describing what Kr has gone through and then at the earliest let the social worker know tomorrow.  

 

Tomorrow we will make the call and say whether or not we will take Kristina.  We will.  She is a hard child and it is not going to be easy but already it is hard to imagine life without her in it.  It was not what we were expecting on our adoption journey.  We have only know about Kr for 2 weeks now and if we say yes (which we will) she will begin living here with us by the end of this week.  She will start out as a "foster child" and we will see how thing progress from there.  I find it very unlikely that once Kr is in our family for more than a week we will ever want to let her go.  I am not naive to believe that all will be pleasant and happy- it won't- but i also know our family and how deeply we love.  I cannot know the future and after our last adoption was disrupted I cannot say what God wants of us but my heart and my gut are telling me that we are on the right path.

I have already had several surprises from the way I reacted to Kr and not all of them were pleasant.  I was jealous and annoyed and angry.  Not emotions I expected to feel.  Along with those emotions were love, and caring, and wanting to protect her.  I guess that is what being a sister is really about taking the good with the annoyances.  

 Life is very rarely boring in this house and things are about to get a whole lot more interesting... Heaven help us (and I do mean that! Please God be with us on this journey!)

growing up

There are now 10 hours until my childhood friend Danielle marries her sweetheart.  I just got back from the night before party and was sitting here thinking about life.  Its funny how fast time moves.  One minutes I am playing in my back yard digging holes pretending to be a wolf and the next I am an adult who is trying to find her place in the world.  So many of my friends are getting married, its hard to believe that any of us are old enough to be adults let alone get married.  When other friends-who are not getting married- comment about it we will often both say "there is no way i'm ready to get married yet..." I lie.  I am ready or better to say I will be ready when the right person comes along.  Its the finding the right person thing that makes it hard. lol, oh well it will happen when it is supposed to happen.  

well i am off to bed, i am going to help Danielle with her makeup tomorrow before the wedding so i have to get up in about 6 hours to be all ready to go.  I so utterly happy for Danielle and Ben its really wonderful seeing two people who really love each other.  There is a tiny bit of jealously involved too because i want to find happiness like that but only a tiny bit because mostly i am just filled with joy for the two of them!  She is such a sweetheart and deserves all the happiness in the world and from what i have learned of Ben I couldn't imagine a better guy for her!