Almost....there

The local sports news is full of signing dates right now as various players "commit" to play football in college. We have a different -- much more life-changing --  kind of signing date coming up!

The county caseworker finally has all her stuff together and we will be signing the Intent to Adopt paperwork later this week. Once we've done that, the lawyer gets involved and as soon as she gets all the paperwork she needs and files it, we can set a court date. And the lawyer is fantastic, so I'm confident things will move quickly from that point on. She says to expect a court date in February.

C will turn 6 months old in February.

Whenever I get frustrated by the "delays", I make myself repeat the above sentence. 6 months old and legally adopted? That's ridiculously fast, even for a case as simple as this one was. We just got spoiled by Lucy's county caseworker who probably would have had us final before Christmas. 

One of the questions DFCS had for us recently was about whether we would continue to foster after the adoption. We gave the same answer we had after Lucy's adoption; in general, no, but we would like to be notified if another biological sibling comes into play and we would make the decision at that time about whether we'd be open to another one. Just typing that makes me a little terrified. I really, really don't see how we could make another placement work in the next 2.5 years. And after that? I don't know if I could plunge us all back into this system after having been out of it for so long. But, we will cross that bridge if (or when) it is before us. It's honestly hard to believe (given the girls' birth mother's track record) that there won't be another baby, eventually.

Random Updates for the New Year

• We still don't have a finalization date for C's adoption. The new caseworker has a new reason every month for why she isn't ready to schedule a meeting for us to finalize the paperwork. (October: She has everything she needs, just needs to write this narrative. November: She's missing something, so agency caseworker forwards her the email (sent in early October) providing her (again) the items she's missing . December: She just needs to write this narrative. January: someone will be calling us soon with some questions (thought we did that months ago, too?) Wonder what the February excuse will be. At this rate, she'll probably be "missing something" again....)
• Since DFCS has let this slip into the new year, I'm going to spend another clothing allowance. I was feeling a little guilty about that, knowing how thin the resources are in foster care; the case manager's lack of organization has gone a long way towards helping me get over that! I'll buy the girls both Easter dresses and some other "fill-in" items in C's next size up as well as in Lucy's. Lucy's next size up will be 2T and once we hit 3T, I have quite the stash of hand-me-downs. The clothing allowance may be for C, but she'll wear the things I buy for Lucy eventually and I still have all of Lucy's hand-me-downs from the last year or so so there's no point in trying to buy for those sizes.
• Speaking of benefits I don't think we should still be getting, C's next WIC follow-up visit is next Wednesday, so we'll probably have another 3 months of her formula covered. At 5 months old, she's only just started eating some cereal, so there's still a lot of formula to buy in the next few months.
• It's already time to think about preschool for Lucy for next fall. I love my church (and the preschool there), but we live 30 minutes away. Having an hour of travel time during a 3 hour class window drastically lessens the list of things I can get accomplished while the child is in school. So, we are researching closer options. And having to think about things like: 2 or 3 days a week? 3 or 4 hour days?
• Lucy's favorite word right now is "No." Fun with the terrible twos and she's not even quite two years old yet!. (It would probably help if I could always resist the urge to laugh or smile when she's so matter-of-fact about it. I say it's "time to go!" and she replies, oh so sweetly and reasonably, with a smile: "No." )
•  I googled their biological mother for the first time in a while. She was arrested just before Thanksgiving and tested positive for several drugs. So, the "surrendering rights to C so she can focus on getting and staying clean" plan hasn't really stuck. It makes me sad, because I keep hoping that she'll be ready and able to make that change in her life that will allow us to include her in the lives of her daughters as they grow up. Right now, the drug use makes her too unstable for any kind of contact to be an option.
• Nothing turns up on google for their biological father. I don't know whether he's clean or just not getting caught. He's not interested in contact, so there's none there either.