Catching up

No, 11 years of posts aren't missing; I was.

I'd been doing temp work for six years but, in mid-2007, I took a regular full-time job. A year-and-a-half later, we moved out-of-state, I mostly didn't have to work, and happened on a different outlet for writing. About two-and-a-half years after that, we moved back, I went back to work, changed jobs, got laid off, and found an alternate, steady source of income. Several years later, here I am again, on the cusp of a significant life change.

About a month ago, my guy (hereafter also referred to as Himself) and I were presented with the prospect/opportunity/challenge of taking in two of young relatives at risk of going into the foster care system. Nobody else in their extended family had stepped up, so, we did. So I'm looking at becoming an instant, first-time parent to a 12-year-old girl and 14-year-old boy, instead of retiring. Life IS what happens while we're busy making other plans!

If you haven't had the joy of going through a children's services vetting process, let me just say that it's not as straightforward as one might hope, especially with a case as complex as this one is (our certifier says it's one of the most complex one the agency has seen). Suffice it to say that it involves familial dysfunction, generational substance abuse and the Native Indian Child Welfare Act (NICWA).

The certification process to become a foster parent (including "relative caregiver" and other sub-categories) includes a state and federal background check, a fingerprint check, no fewer than four references, one's primary care provider's completion of a form that includes the provider's assessment of the applicant's mental and emotional preparedness for the challenges of taking in traumatized children, and a slew of forms. And conversations and meetings with -- at a minimum -- the certifier and the caseworker, and the a home visit by the certifier to ensure that the home is safe and secure and contains the appropriate fire and CO2 detectors, fire extinguisher, evacuation plan, etc. It takes at least a couple of weeks. In our case there's been an additional complication that has involved extra steps and more time.

But back to the preparations. We currently rent a vintage 2BR, 1BA, 850-sq.ft. "starter" home that has a large-ish living room but no dining room, a small (and not very efficient) kitchen, and an unfinished half-basement, which we love. It's full (literally) of 20+ years' worth of life, including about a zillion books, more 2-D art than can hang on the walls, our "work areas," etc. etc. etc. It works for us but not for extra people, so we have the herculean task of significantly downsizing with no notice. We've acknowledged for some that it's needed to happen but we thought we'd have the luxury of planning and executing it over several months, not a few weeks! (For this, we're grateful for the complication that's extended our certification timeline!) Progress is happening -- a major milestone was reached the day before yesterday! -- but it's a tremendous amount of work, much of which, unfortunately, falls to my guy, though my turn's coming quickly. Our dozens of filled totes (that never got unpacked after our moves out of town and back, plus more recently filled ones) are almost all in the new , temporary (so it meets the City Code) storage building that Himself erected over the past week or so, but now he has to rearrange a few things he put in it prematurely, and move the old car (purchased for restoration) around which the unit was built, so there's room for the rest of "it."

Fortunately, DHS (children's services here) OK'd our putting the kids in the same bedroom (for now, anyway). We've been using the front bedroom, and I'd finally gotten ready to redo it but, since it's easier to do, we'll reconfigure the front bedroom for the kids and move ourselves back to the back bedroom, and my redo will have to wait (again). I still want to repaint it and change out the window treatments but I'll wait until the kids are here and they can participate in choosing the color scheme and a few other room elements; I think it's important for them to have a sense of ownership of their space. My computer station currently faces the south window in the front bedroom, and I love being able to look out on the neighbor's yard and watch the birds and squirrels that use the utility lines and the cats that walk the neighbor's fence, and to see the expanse of sky above their house and the trees that line the street (and the passage of the moon at night). I won't be able to put it in the same space the back bedroom -- there simply isn't room, and we have haven't yet determined where there will be room for it to go. Our only laptop is old and the keyboard sometimes gets attitude, so it's not a very good alternative to my desktop, which I prefer.

We'll also have to move our cable router, which now comes into the front corner of the front bedroom (where one of the kids' bed will be), and one of our house phones, and my computer's currently hardwired to it, which I'd also prefer not not have to change. The TV cable fortunately comes in elsewhere (though I wouldn't mind the kids having a TV in their bedroom).

Our back bedroom also has only its tiny, original 1923 closet, which won't begin to hold Himself's and my clothes (the front bedroom has a large, original, double closet plus a smaller one with built-in shelves and drawers behind a matching door). I'm not sure yet how many clothes the kids have but the plan for now is to keep mine in the existing closet and mount hanger bars on the outside of the doors for the kids' stuff (as well as providing them dresser drawers).

The bathroom (badly remodeled in the 1970s) has no built-in storage other than a not-very-efficient medicine cabinet, and what we've added for our own use won't accommodate two additional people's stuff very efficiently. We removed the (awful) towel bars but haven't yet replaced them (I guess we'll have to do that, since we'll have more towels than will fit over the shower curtain rod!). There's a linen closet in the small "hallway" but it's full of other stuff -- we'll probably have to move that stuff somewhere else (where??) and reconfigure the space to handle the bathroom overflow, towels and washcloths, bed linens, etc.

We think we're also going to have to reconfigure the living room for us to have room to set up chairs and a dining table large enough to accommodate all of us. (There is a tiny breakfast nook in the kitchen but it's not big enough for four adult-sized people -- the girl is an inch taller than I am and the boy added about 9" in the past seven months! -- and it's where Himself's desk and computer are.)

Probably around the same time the bathroom was "remodeled," framing was erected in the basement for a finished room. We will probably need to finish it for a 3rd bedroom (which, to meet Code, will need an "egress" window and a closet), since the kids won't really be able to share a room for long.

So many considerations ... and this is just the physical space!

School starts in five weeks -- what will the kids need? If they come here, they will probably be changing schools, so new registration will have to happen, including class selection, etc., and supplies will then need to be bought. Since they're growing so fast, they will likely also need new clothes, too. And personal stuff.

I think this all I can process today.