An Adoption Update. Subtitled, The Most Unflattering Picture You'll See Today.

I just finished nine evenings of training required for our next adoption. I ended up calling that 27 hours of instruction, "Whereupon I Ripped Out My Heart And Drove Over It With A Mack Truck."

So, in other words, exhausting. In every possible way.

Here I am with my binder:

Hubs took his training back in January, in one lump sum over a weekend. Now we're officially well-trained parents who can categorize and give labels to the mistakes we make.

Bonus!

We have sent all our paperwork to the agency, that is, if by saying "we" I really mean just "me." So you know, I'VE BEEN BUSY.

Not that I'm prone to exaggerating, but this (THIRD) time around, in all seriousness, we had to obtain ELEVEN separate background checks.

I'm still not a criminal. But I'm getting awfully close.

Next we meet with the social worker, whose job is to evaluate every nook and cranny of our lives looking for signs that we are indeed Complete Failures of the Homesteading and Parental Kind.

She won't have to look very far.

Until she comes, I'll be spending my time in prayer stashing stuff at the neighbor's house. If social workers were smart, they'd make a surprise visit to the house the night before the scheduled meeting to see, ummm, how shall we say, how things really are.

On second thought, scratch that.

I like the censored version a whole lot better.

So. Once our kids' minds are erased house is cleaned, our social worker will conduct some interviews, write up a glossy report, and then we'll start to see pictures of available kids to adopt.

Piece of cake.

Stay tuned for future parenting and housecleaning tips adoption updates. Better yet, follow me on twitter for the nitty gritty. The ride will only get wilder from here.