where we are

Sorry for not posting lately, but Jake Henry and I took a little trip. It was weird and fun and scary realizing that it was likely our last (and only, not counting our honeymoon) trip by ourselves! We went to D.C. and it was amazing; neither of us had been since elementary school (to Jake that was up through 8th grade--weird!), so it was great to go as an adult who actually cares. Anyway. The point of this post is to let you know where we are in this whole fostering process.

We originally planned to foster through our county, but were introduced to a private agency, and we decided to go through them instead. We have sent in our application and it has been approved. We have a meeting set up at the end of this month to begin our training. That will take about 6 weeks. We will also be training to foster special needs children, so that may take a little longer. At some point we will also need a fire inspection and home study. I'm planning/hoping all of that can be done by mid-July, so the agency can send everything they need to in to Raleigh. And then we will get licensed! We had initially hoped to have a placement by Christmas, and now we know that is a definite possibility...although I think it would be kind of cool to have one by Jake Henry's birthday at the end of August. He always said he wanted to be a dad by the time he was 30. I feel like that's a stretch, but it would be cool :)

Because we will be busy once we begin training, we are trying to get the kids' room set up by the end of this month. We have a crib and it is assembled. We bought bunk beds and we're painting them. We have bedding. We need to put in a closet system. And we need clothes. I am trying to have three outfits per age, per gender, per season. So 3 summer outfits for a girl size 4T. Etc. We will get a clothing allowance for the kids, but we don't want to be totally unprepared. I hate the thought of a child being ripped from his home, dropped off with strangers, and rushing out to buy all new clothes. I want to be able to tell a child - with words and actions - "we've been waiting for you!" regardless of the child's age or gender or time of year. Three outfits should allow us at least 24-48 hours to just get to know the child, and let them become somewhat comfortable we us and our home, before we go buy them a wardrobe.

So that's where we are. Prepping like crazy to have a room and closet furnished for any child aged 0-6, any gender, by the end of the month. Whew :)