Great News: The meeting with the social worker went really, really well!
Mediocre News: There is another step! The county case worker will receive a few home studies and decide which of those he/she wants to interview. The final family is selected by the case worker.
Good News: We made it to the next step!
Back-Up Plan News: If we don't move onto the final rounds, our social worker is looking at another potential match for us--a boy.
Here's the story:
Since things went well, I will start to provide bits of information about PD, like first, her name is Rosie, and she is 9-years-old.
We sat down with Rosie's social worker and our social worker. We got to ask questions, and so did Rosie's social worker. As we left and sifted through our thoughts and feelings, we both agreed the meeting was "promising" - Mike's word, which sums it up perfectly. Neither of us felt scared by what we learned, and the social workers liked us!
Things we liked:
We learned that Rosie is very intelligent and curious. She likes to ask a lot of questions--which can seem annoying to some people, but really, she's just trying to figure things out much like a younger child. She'll be going into 4th grade and is reading at an 8th grade reading level. We chuckled at the idea of Mike the Scientist and Rosie the Inquisitive asking eachother never ending series of questions.
Rosie needs a strong mom or female role model. I told the social worker, both families are filled with them! Plus, I am a St. Kate's graduate so all my friends are pretty much the strongest women I know.
Things we found sad but feel we can change:
While Rosie is very independent for a 9 year old, she also needs lots of nurturing. She didn't get to play much (or at all) as a child so she'll love going on bike rides, playing catch, playing board games, painting, flying kites--all the things we took for granted as children.
Rosie has very curly hair that her current foster family doesn't try to take care of. This presents a nice bonding opportunity for Rosie and me because I have curly hair--not as curly as hers--but I understand the importance of taking special care of curly hair. I got a little giddy thinking of a special spa day for her.
Things that need to be explored:
How Rosie will deal with living in the inner city since she's been in the country almost all of her life.
Rosy Picture?
Yep, I'm painting a slightly rose-colored picture. There will most definately be challenges, but none of them seem like something Mike or I can't handle. Plus, we have several more opportunities to make sure that is the case and this is the right child for us.
Next Steps
Hopefully the county case worker will choose to interview with us. If they like us, then we become the only ones. Then it's really more us deciding if Rosie is meant to be with us. The interview, if we get one should be in the next 2 weeks. Which sounds long, but really, it's not considering how long we've been in the process and how quickly life can change after those two weeks!
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