Moving Right Along!

YAY! We have our second (and final) home check on Wednesday March 3, 2010. I am excited for more reasons than the obvious. First, we have a couple of small projects to finish this weekend, and this gives me/us the push to get them done. Second, I REALLY need motivation to clean and do laundry before my sister and the girls come on March 5!

So last night in PRIDE we discussed the importance of being there for the birth family and fostering not only the child but the entire family as well. This is a topic I have had a really difficult time with. It’s very hard for me to put myself in their shoes, because their shoes just don’t fit my feet!

I’ve never been a parent; I’ve parented in a sense of the word, but never my own, full time, biological children. They had us do an exercise where we closed our eyes and thought about the most important child we know. I thought of my niece Erica (sorry to pick favorites, but come on she’s adorable!). Then they said now think of how you would feel if you needed to take care of that child. Then how it would feel to be incapable of caring for that child in the full capacity it requires. Then imagine someone else caring for them and how that would make you feel. Then imagine if that person caring for that child didn’t want ANYTHING to do with you. The feelings you arrive at, in most cases, are the same feelings the child’s biological family will be experiencing.

That REALLY hit home with me. When I thought about not being able to care for Erica, I thought of how it would break my heart to never talk to her again, or see her face again, and it wasn’t her fault, it was my fault for not being equipped to care for her.

We live in very slow/bad economic times. My husband and I are beyond lucky to have great jobs, a nice home, and friends and family that love us. It’s sad to think that there are people who thought the same thing of their lives, but when the economy weakened, they lost EVERYTHING! They and their children are homeless, and in poverty. It’s very sad to think of how scared they and the children are.

This became a little more long winded than I had expected, but I wanted to be sure I wrote down some of how I was feeling, so that I can reflect upon it later.

Next week I will blog about our home study and the questions and answer portion.

Media Room

Well, we're almost finished with the media room. The great thing is that once we are finished, Rich will have a garage that is back to normal! I know both he and I are excited about that.

We painted the media room a medium gray color. We're getting light blue theater seats from Craigslist, and eventually, we will have a BIG screen down there. For now though while we finish things up around the house, we are going to hold off. In the end the cost is usually more than you realize it will be for home renovations, so I am happy with waiting until everything is finished to buy the big screen. In the mean time we will use an older 32" we have upstairs.

In even more exciting news, my sister and nieces are coming to visit March 5-15th. I CAN NOT WAIT! It will be a practice run for the kids room to see if my 4 year old niece Erica likes it. The baby is only two months, so she won't really know the difference. :)

I love being an aunt, and I know that once I get to be a mom I will love that too. My nieces and nephews probably won't like me being a mom though because then I will be spending on my own kids and not them as much!

Tomorrow in PRIDE we are going over the Genome stuff. I have already laid out my Genome. The hard part about these is that so many families are blended these days. I call my step-dad my dad, and I don't have much of a relationship with my biolocial father. So I listed both of them on my Genome. I don't think a Genome is about genetics, but about family, and when my kids look at it, I want them to see who their family will be, not who my biological dad is.

So, I will post again after PRIDE. Hopefully the tiny bit of weather we will get today won't cause a problem for PRIDE tomorrow night.

Finally, the ball is rolling!

We had our first PRIDE class last night! I was very excited to get started. We actually have a good sized class, probably about 13 couples/individuals. There are folks from all walks of life, races, ages and sexual orientations. It's like a melting-pot! I think that's great though. We get to learn from one another about one another.

The first class pretty much reviewed what PRIDE training is all about. Why it's important for us to be there, and be attentive. We also watched a circa, I will guess, 1992 video about foster parenting. It was funny because at one point they used a "Polaroid" camera. Did you know they don't even make film for those anymore? At the end of the video they had a candle lighting ceremony and gave thanks to the people that helped the youngest boy find his new adoptive home. My husband chimed in with "Is candle lighting required to be foster parents?" to which our quick witted advisor said "Yes, we want to see lots of candles".

Overall, it was a great time, catered food, and really good company.

Next week we schedule our home study time. The home study will be complete before we finish PRIDE! How exciting! Many localities take FOREVER to do the home study.

That's all for this week!

This weekend we are painting and putting in floors in the Media Room. Then my house will be almost back to normal. I can't wait!

Going Snowhere....

Well, I expected to be blogging about how great PRIDE training was going by this point, however for the last two weeks classes have been canceled due to weather. I am so over this winter weather. It isn't even able to melt before we get more snow!

So, this Thursday, we are hopeful class will not be canceled. Especially since we are not due for any more winter weather until next week. At this point, I wish they would just cram all of this into two Saturdays so that we can have a child(ren) placed with us.

Here's hoping I have a better update Friday!