Do we want a teenager?

This past week has been a little crazy. Last August, we tried to adopt a teenage girl, but they placed her with her foster family. Her adoption disrupted (didn't go through), and she moved to another foster home. This last week, I got a call at 1:59 pm asking if we wanted her. The state wanted to just sign over legal guardianship to us. "Oh, and the meeting to make a decision is at 2:30 pm, (that day), so if you could please let us know by then."

Hello, I spend more than 30 minutes deciding whether to put the kids in swim lessons or not. And you want me to decide if I want a teenage daughter in 30 minutes. We hadn't heard anything from her or the caseworker since last August, so this totally came out of the blue. And the timing just seems really bad where we just got matched with the little boy in Texas.

We had a 20 minute phone conference with her, the caseworker, and the school counselor where we talked about our rules and expectations. I wanted her to really think about what she would be getting into. We also researched guardianship and learned it is NOT a good option. It is not good for us, it is not good for her. The only people it is good for is the state because it basically moves her off of their rolls, like she aged out of the system. We told them we would not do that, but that we would consider having us live with us under the foster care guidelines on a trial basis. We have only spent 2 hours with her, last August, and had 2 caseworkers there redirecting the conversation. So we want time to get to know her better, and for her to get to know us better and see if this is REALLY what she wants and is willing to commit to making it work. So we are spending this next Sunday with her and then taking the foster care classes in May and then she will come live with us for 2 weeks the end of May. And we'll see what happens after that. She may decide that a family with 5 kids is more than she bargained for. Or it may be a great fit and we'll end up adding a teenage girl and a 6 year old boy this summer. I just keep telling myself it will all work out how it is supposed to.

Not the Easter I imagined

This has been quite the weekend. My sister went into labor yesterday morning, so we have her 3 kids in addition to my 5. All was going great until yesterday afternoon when I was helping the kids dye eggs and Lincoln starting throwing up. EVERYWHERE. A couple hours later, Adam started, followed by Jeanisha, then Karma's 2 year old. (We've been everywhere together this last week during spring break, so both groups of kids got exposed.) The kids threw up constantly all night long. 4-5 times EACH! And of course the little sick ones aren't the best at hitting a bucket. My wonderful husband slept on the floor to take care of Adam and Jeanisha, my mom who had come up to see the baby slept on the couch to take care of Karma's kids, and I slept with and took care of Lincoln. At 7 this morning, Stephen went to sleep and my mom and I continued cleaning up throw up and doing the mountain of laundry until she had to go home.

Stephen and I figure we have cleaned up more throw up in the last 24 hours than in our 11 years of marriage combined. It's been that bad! Luckily of the other 4, 3 have complained of stomach aches, but not thrown up, and Ryan has been fine. So they have played games and watched TV all day. I'm hoping they aren't just waiting.

We told the kids we emailed the Easter bunny and asked him to come later this week when people aren't sick. We didn't get to watch any of today's conference, or make the Easter dinner I had planned. But I don't think this is an Easter I'll forget.

We were selected!!!!

We got THE call yesterday from our social worker that we have been selected as a match for a 6 year old boy in Texas. The picture is from Jan. 2009, so it is old, but it's the best we have at the moment. He is in Kindergarten and loves to play with cars, color, and listen to stories. He likes to play outside and tends to copy other children. (They felt having lots of kids to copy would be good for him. Yeah! Finally someone who sees our larger than average family size as an asset!)

They are getting all of the information from his case file ready to send to us. They have to go through and mark out and identifying info like SSN's and addresses and last names. They said that can take up to two weeks, but they sent it out "with a kind request for expedited service." We'll see what expedited service means when working with government agencies. :) Our social worker said to expect it to take a month. This file is likely 1000-2000 pages!

Once the caseworker gets it back, it will be overnighted to us, and we will be asked to look through it quickly for any deal breakers or things that would make us say he won't fit with our family. If we don't find anything immediately, they will set up travel arrangements for us to go down to Texas and meet him. We will then be able to look through the paperwork in more detail. We have received a 22 page summary already that was very up-to-date with information from this past month! That in itself is pretty amazing.

So, hopefully we will get the box of paperwork relatively soon, and be able to make a trip down to Texas. Emilio's worker is wanting to move things along and hopefully get him in our home the first part of June as school ends.

We are very excited!