Hold on to your kids

We received our DCFS license yesterday. After all the work and classes and home visits and begging our friends to write up good references (and forget that I said when kids fly they should go in crates like pets in the cargo hold)...its here. And actually, it was rather anti-climactic.

I think I expected something more official looking. Unfortunately the whole web-intelligence thing passed me by and I don't know how to post a pic here. I thought it would look like the licenses that come from IDPR - blue with a nice border and all official looking. Even the reprint of my birth certificate from Cook County looks more official. Its a flimsy piece of paper off a dot matrix printer. In fact, it looks more like a voucher. I suppose I can go redeem it now for up to three children. Jerry said since everything is on the internet, we'll have to go to the kid shopping website and redeem it - he said we'll probably click on the kid, put them in the shopping cart, checkout...

Jokes aside, its a relief. The homestudy is not completed yet, but this is a major hurdle to clear. We are licensed to adopt up to three kids from 0 - 18. Jerry schwitzes at the thought of one. It's not like I am helping the situation - I've decided to go part time at Van Wagner so I can teach classes at Westwood, and I'll be starting my PhD program on August 23. Something is going to have to go, for sure, but its kind of fun hearing him tell me that I don't understand how much work children will be. As my mom says, you don't know until you know, but seriously - I do come from a family that thinks procreation is a hobby.

I contact the agency we had planned on switching to and the social worker was on vacation. So hopefully she will get in touch with us this week. We want to just meet with her first to get all the facts straight and make sure that what we've been told by her, her agency, her other clients, etc, is all in line with what we want. It seems like they make up the rules as they go. I do feel guilty leaving LCFS...until I remember that we paid $1700 to get licensed. There is an application fee at the beginning of $150, and then some other fee of $350, and the homestudy fee is $1200. (The Fed does give a tax credit but its so complicated I think TaxACT won't cut it this year).

Anyway, despite Jerry's paranoia and my being a brat, we are very excited. Unfortunately Friday Jerry and his mom had to put Toby down, he had internal bleeding and it turned out his liver was addled with tumors - really nothing could be done at that point. Poor guy - he was a really good dog. So the license was some much needed good news after a very sad weekend.

Til next time.