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It was a busy week around our house, and stressful. We had not one but two inspections of our home scheduled this week. We cleaned for days and double-checked all of our safety requirements were met in preparation for visits from our adoption agency as well as a more official visit from Residential Child Care Licensing (RCCL), a division of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS). We got the call last week that we’d been selected at random for a foster home inspection by the state, and our agency wanted to do a dry run before they came. So Tuesday morning Shawn met with our caseworker for a walkthrough and Thursday morning I waited on the state inspector.
The state evaluates about one-third of all licensed foster homes per year. We were surprised to be chosen because we had assumed they didn’t come unless there were kids placed in the home. This is not the case, however. So I held my breath as the inspector made her way to our front porch. I hadn’t slept well; images of citations danced through my head. Did I leave out the Neosporin? Lock up the Windex? Was there an outlet somewhere without an outlet cover?
I wanted everything to be perfect. The inspector came. We talked about the agency, the training we’ve had, the communications we receive. We walked through the house and I showed her all of the steps we have taken to meet the safety standards. She was very pleased, and we received a report with no citations. We had a bowl of pasta salad in the refrigerator that was not covered – a more hard-nosed inspector, she said, would’ve cited us for that – but she just reminded me that we couldn’t have open food containers and moved right along. Whew.
Living in a fishbowl is taxing enough. Living in an empty fishbowl is much harder. Striving so hard to meet these ridiculous requirements, being told what a fabulous job we’ve done, and then going back to waiting for a match…it’s very anti-climactic. If everything is so fabulous, the environment so perfect, then why must we wait so long? The pasta salad is covered, ok? Now give us some kids.
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Teaching in middle school, I hear a lot of horrible things come out of children’s mouths. Foul language, bullying, apathy, disrespect – it can get pretty depressing some days. After a certain point, one is not often surprised by anything that the kids say. But one day this week one of my girls said something that stopped me in my tracks.
“Miss, I had a dream you got your baby.”
My heart shot up into my throat. You WHAT?
Some of my more conscientious students know about our search for children. They tend to view adoption as being only about babies. I like to explain the process to them because I think it opens minds to different definitions of family, as well as promotes awareness of the cause of abused children.
She went on. “For some reason they dropped him off at school. I think he was mixed [race]. You had to leave…I think to go sign the papers. So you left him with us and we were feeding him chicken nuggets.”
I was shocked that our adoption had made it into her subconscious. Not as surprised about the chicken nuggets. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to think of this. I’m not much of a believer in signs or visions or finding reasons for everything. But this gave me pause. Why would she dream this? What is the meaning of her telling me? For someone like me who has been through so much on this road, it was almost too much to take. Some things just defy explanation. Then she told me the ending.
“You came back to school and said, ‘Come to me, my baby.’ And he ran to you. And then I woke up.”
From her mouth to God’s ears.
