Inspections and vets

I had sent email to Bert two weeks ago and in the craziness of the holidays it got buried. I thought there was a chance that she'd gone off to have surgery, so I emailed her secretary and got a call back from Bert.

The health inspection request never got sent, and the fire inspection request was sent to Charleston County instead of Dorchester County. So she's sending both again, and she will copy me on the request via email so that I know exactly when she requests it.

We're pretty much ready for the inspections, though we have to go buy a large bin to store paint in, get around to locking up the tools in the garage, and I keep finding matchbooks in various drawers, so I need to go around with a box and systematically search every drawer and closet and stuff for things like matches and scissors. The obvious stuff has been taken care of, but since I have candles all over the house I tended to leave means of fire nearby. I also need to buy another bin to put my quilting supplies in, since there's currently rotary cutters on my craft shelf and blades for it in my (low) drawer. Hopefully what we have left will take about two hours (not counting the shopping for bins), plus taking the fire extinguisher to the fire station and seeing if they'll recharge it for us.

Other than that, we only had the vet records left to take care of, and that appointment's in an hour. Oh, we also have to dump our dead garden pots. We were also going to dismantle the playset, but Bert says so long as we have a plan and she can verify later that it was done, we don't have to have that done when the inspector arrives.

I registered us for the next two training classes, the first on ADD/ADHD/ODD, and the second on Lying. Should be interesting.

Training

As part of the home study, we are required to take 14 training credits worth of classes on parenting or other adoption/child related issues. We also should continue taking classes throughout our adoption process, but that's what's required for this part. Last week we took a course on home safety that's geared towards passing inspections; foster homes need to not only pass for the licensing part of the home study but are re-inspected annually as well. We also took a seminar on Childhood Anxiety. It was incredibly informative, and really should be renamed just to Anxiety, since I know of many adults who still suffer from a lot of what they covered!

Unfortunately these courses cost something, but Foster Parent College has the best deals that also offer the certificates that we need to have on file. So we're waiting until our next monthly budget to take more classes. Bert has also requested that we take something on grief, but FPC doesn't offer one right now. We'll have to see what we can dig up.

No phone calls from inspectors yet. I'm getting antsy.

Training Credits Remaining: 10

UPDATE: I sent email to FPC asking about a Grief course, and they replied within minutes! They're in the process of developing exactly that course, which will be available in a couple of months. This is a good thing!

Home visit & Update

Bert will come and do the final home study meeting here at our house on December 4th, around 10:00 in the morning. We need to have as much completed for the inspections as possible, since she'll be serving as sort of a pre-inspection as well as doing other things. She'll offer her opinion on what things we may have to deal with for the inspection, like whether or not we have to dismantle the play structure for it, that kind of thing.

The head of Women's Ministry at church emailed me that there's a bag of child proofing things waiting for me there. Yay! Support is wonderful. I'll pick that up on Friday when I go for Bible Study, we'll put it all into action, and then see what we have left. I also need to see when Nancy can have me come down and pick up the baby gates from her, now that Lanse isn't in the office predictably enough for them to exchange at work.

We also got Bert's approval for the online classes we found at Foster Parent College, so we'll be signing up for some learning as soon as we can sit in one place together and decide on which class we want.

Adoption Blog Creation Day

Welcome to our new Tryon adoption blog. I've spent the last few hours transferring all my previous adoption-related blog posts to this one. If you want to start at the beginning, here's the first official post.

For today's update, I sent an email to Bert yesterday for a status report. I gave her mine, and I'm waiting to hear back to schedule her visit here. In the meantime, we discovered Foster Parent College, where we can take the required training courses and get a certificate for reasonable prices. I've also created a profile at Foster Care Central.* I'm excited to get started, but this week we're heading to Charlotte to see CR and Rachel and Kaylee, so when we get back hopefully we can tip the ball down at least a little of the hill.

*Yes, these all say 'Foster Care'. We're now sort-of-officially-but-not-really on the 'foster-adopt' track, and all the resources are shared freely between all of the different areas... but the majority of what I've been able to find so far have been filed under foster care. So we're going for it. I mean, like-minded parenting support is like-minded parenting support, wherever you get it.