We're Adopting!

I've seen numerous "our family journey" blogs in my lifetime, and I've always wondered why people made them. I mean, do people really care THAT much about what is going on in your life that you need to have some sort of CNN-like ticker tape to alert the masses about what is going on?

"News Flash: We were seen in the Harker Heights Target buying the entirety of the Dollar Spot inventory. The school year is really about to start."

or

"Hot of the press: The dogs are out of food. I repeat, the dogs are out of food."

Who really needs to know that? Well, you don't realize how many people need/want to know until you make an announcement on social media that your lives are about to change and that you and your wife have mutually decided to forgo your weekends for the rest of your lives because you are adopting. And it's not like we got pregnant, and said "well, we can't exactly take this back." No, we made a decision to do this. Which has to be right up there with Dwight Yoakum dating Sharon Stone in unlikely-ness for me, because, as my wife will attest, I have a hard time deciding ANYTHING. However, this is something I know in my heart we want to do. And of course, we are ridiculously excited. "It's So FLUFFY"-levels of excitement.  We've decided that we would like a child, age 0-5, any race, any gender, preferably with some genetic disposition to be tall. Perhaps this was really our motivation. We've got to get some height into this family....

So, I'm going to do my best to use this blog to keep you guys informed as to how the process is going. I'll try to give you a quick recap as to what we've done so far:

1. We have attended 3 classes with our agency, Helping Hand Home, in Austin. Each class is on a Saturday from 9-1:30 in the afternoon, with no break. It's Amanda and I and about 15-20 other people, from all walks of life, sitting in a conference room learning about all kinds of things that we never knew we needed to know about, and somethings we would hope a functioning adult would already know. Last week, we learned about Attachment, which I had no concept of, whereas yesterday we learned about abuse and neglect. And yes, abuse and neglect is very sad, very horrible, and entirely too prevalent in our society, but if you've worked in public education you are exposed to this all the time. We've got 6 more classes to go. Woohoo!

2. We had our first home visit. This entailed spending the night before cleaning the bejesus out of the house so the case worker didn't look at our house and think that we were going to make the future child sleep in the dog crate. The visit really consisted of her handing us paperwork that we needed to fill out, and then she looked around and said "oh good, you've got a toilet, toilet paper and running water. And there's no raw meet just laying in the fridge or in the middle of the living room. Way to go!" Part of me feels like the bar is way too low for potential homes for children if that is the standard that we are being held to. That's not to say that was all she was looking for. She could just see that we had taken care of our home and were making suitable for people besides ourselves to live in it.

3. We've had to fill out a bunch of paperwork and we have to have numerous inspections. The Fire Marshall has to inspect the home, which I suppose means that I better hide the Goblet of Fire that I keep under the guest bathroom sink. We also have to have a health inspection, not to mention be fingerprinted and have an FBI background check run on ourselves as well as our parents. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they don't discover that Dad is actually on the run from robbing banks in Utah. 

With the school year beginning to start, and Amanda starting a new chapter at a new school, we have both been tired, excited, hungry, hangry, scared, stressed, tired some more, anxious, joyous, and overall just flat-out happy about this new chapter in our life. I will do my best to keep this updated with what is going on. We absolutely love all of you, except you. Yes, you know who I'm talking about.... and we are so glad that we can share this journey with you.