Love Each Child

The Best-Laid Plans…

by steve

We’re a bit slow at getting this blog up and running, mostly due to our busy schedules. But I did want to provide a short update for at least the one person we know is reading this!

We are still in the process of finalizing our application for licensing for foster/adoptive care. Our social worker has been great at helping us through the process. But we’re also finding out that sometimes you think you’ve done what you need to do, only to find out that it needs to be done differently.

Such is the case with some changes we had made to the arrangement of our home and the usage of certain rooms.

Our home is a bit unique. It’s small, but definitely something we are content with (we are renting, so contentment is a bit different than if we owned it, probably). Basically, there are two very clearly-defined bedrooms in the house. Then, there is a loft, which had been our son’s bedroom for a while. The second “bedroom” was our school room.

Our basement has been pretty much finished-out, though, and in getting ready for the possibility of foster/adoptive care, we decided to rearrange a bit.

The decision was to put our son downstairs in the very large, finished-out area of the basement. He absolutely loved having that much space, and it made it almost feel like a little apartment for him down there — some much-needed feelings of privacy and space for a soon-to-be 15-year-old.

The loft became our school room and office space. And we have enjoyed using that space in this way. The second bedroom was made into a bedroom (imagine that!) in preparation for the future possible child(ren).

And so everything seemed wonderful.

Until our fire inspection.

We found out that the room our son was using as a bedroom cannot be used by anyone as a bedroom because it doesn’t have any windows or doors opening directly to the outside.

No problem. What used to be the garage (the other part of the basement) had been enclosed and was our music room. We’ll just swap the music room and our son’s bedroom. Then, he’s got a door to the outside and two windows. Problem solved. Right?

Nope. That room doesn’t count either, in the eyes of our dear fire inspector, because two of the walls don’t have sheet rock on them. And it will likely be a couple of months at least until our landlord can make that change.

So, our son is now using the second bedroom, and the loft will have to be made into a bedroom again. That means the school room and office space will have to go downstairs into the basement. Not the most convenient arrangement for us.

But, I guess it could be a lot worse. The inspector did “pass” us, trusting us to make the necessary changes. And there is very little left to do now for our application.

We all need physicals and TB tests, and I need to complete some way-overdue personal questions. But we’re still moving forward and making progress.

So what exactly are we getting licensed for? Up to two additional children, ages 0-10. However, our preference is 0-5 years of age. The only reason we applied for 0-10 is because our social worker told us that sometimes there might be a sibling pair where one is 0-5 and the other is, say, 6. If we limited ourselves to 0-5, we would not be considered for a pair like that. So, we changed it to 0-10, but told them we really would prefer to have much younger children. Mostly that is because we feel that the younger the child is, the better the fit will be for our family.

More info (hopefully) to come as we have it!