The Latest: Part I - International Homestudy

Suzanne from Families for Children came to our house on Thursday afternoon. She was very kind, very complimentary, and very knowledgeable about things we want to know. I briefly considered quitting ITI and working at home on an osmosis machine that sucks selected information from one brain and, with the flip of a switch, injects it into another brain. In the end I decided it would be more prudent, and arguably more realistic, to just listen and ask appropriate questions. I mean, we're talking about a lady who has adopted 11 children, 9 of which (yes, NINE) are from Africa. This lady could do corn rows in her SLEEP!
Unfortunately, the purpose of the visit was for her to ask Carrie and I a lot of questions, so we'll have to find another time to test out the osmosuk knowledge pump (patent pending).
She started out by asking me a lot of questions. I did my best to stick to pertinent information that would be useful to her, but of course, I couldn't help embellishing from time to time. We covered childhood memories ranging from catching horny toads and polliwogs to being baptized by my black muscleman primary teacher. We talked about education and work history, hobbies and sports, my Mom, my Dad, my reasons for wanting to BE a Dad, and my favorite topic; Carrie. How did we meet, what things have we done together, what are OUR hobbies. By the end of that discussion I think she really wanted to meet Nate since so many of our stories involved him. When we added that Nate not only introduced us, but that he was one of our references, she just thought he must be a terrific guy, which i guess is a fairly accurate statement ;o)
Then she turned her attention to Carrie and asked her a bunch of questions. That didn't keep me from embellishing though :o) Suzanne was very impressed with Carrie. She loved that Carrie has taught 1st graders for 9 years at a Title 1 School. She loved that Carrie knew all about correct discipline techniques and how to deal with difficult children, yet humbly recognized that being a teacher, while forming a great foundation, isn't the same as being a parent. She thought it was so neat that Carrie played clarinet in the school band. Apparently we'd be amazed by the number of adoptive parents who are either engineers, or who played in the school band. I'm not sure what that means. Good thing I believe in God, or I'd think Natural Selection was trying to rid our society of Nerds and Geeks ('shudder'). I wish she would have asked Carrie why she wanted to be a Mom, but I think she already knew the answer. Carrie oozes motherhood. On paper, in practice, and by design Carrie is meant for motherhood. I think Suzanne just looked into Carrie's eyes and knew. Uh-oh, maybe she already owns an osmusuk...
The meeting ended with reminders about the next steps and some advice about how to get the items done efficiently. We gave her a brief tour of the house and sent her on her way. It was a good meeting and marks one more thing we can check off of our list :o)