home study interviews

Last Thursday we had our adoption home study interviews. Our social worker, Nancy, came to our house to interview Nathan and I together, individually and the girls too. She didn't actually end up really talking to the girls much, but she said she got everything she needed. The interviewing process is great (ummm....sure.....), they ask general questions about your and your relationship as a couple. They want to know all about your family and each person in it, their personalities, how you interact with them, what your childhood was like. All kinds of fun stuff, and since we have kids now we got asked all kinds of questions about parenting. What of the questions was what is the most challenging part of parenting. I answered disciplining, Nancy said I was in trouble if I thought disciplining the two we had was hard. But really, what would you say the most challenging part of parenting is? When Nancy sat down I had the girls come over and say hi to her. I had prepared them earlier in the week that she'd be coming and talking to them. I also told them she'd be the one to tell they only wanted sisters to, as they keep telling me that. So Evie said hi and then she says "We want a sister" It was quite amusing from my point of view, Nancy was a little confused, but that was ok. She then asked the girls what they would do if they got a brother and why they didn't want a brother. Evie's answer? Boys are rough. Anyway, the interview went okay I think.....at least she said we didn't fail, of course she said no one fails...apparently she hasn't interviewed enough people, because when we did the interviews before Hannah the social worker told us about a couple she wouldn't let adopt. There are only a couple things we have to do to get our house in compliance, two of which are questionable if we really have to do them after reading the regulations, but we will. Once is put up some sort of fencing at our side yard where our rock wall is so a kid can't fall off there, "inclose" our pellet stove (furnace is what the regs say) and we have to get a safety certificate for it. Nothing too hard. Those are the next things to work on along with continuing some video training we're doing. Oh yeah, and fill out the "which child won't you love" form as Nathan calls it. Which is probably one of the harder parts, as everything that you don't check as willing to accept is a child that you're saying you're not willing to take, at least that's one way to look at it.