So, here goes...

Originally written November 21, 2005

A lot of you have emailed us asking to be kept in the loop of our adoption process. We believe that this is as good for us as it is for you – to document.

We had our second meeting (interview) today with our social worker,Michelle. This is the first phase of preparing our home study. Jennifer and I were interviewed together. Questions like: "how did you meet?", "why did you get married?" and "why do you think you would be good parents?" were the topic.

It's strange to answer these questions as it's often feelings and questions that we all tend to take advantage.

We had some very good dialogue with her that included what we want our child to learn from us -- what are our top goals for her to learn with us as parents.

Interesting dialogue. I don't want to go into detail as it'll often bore some of you, but also because it's personal between Jennifer and I -- oh and our caseworker.

But, we have turned in most of our paperwork. We are still waiting for our employers letters saying we're in good standing and all that stuff.

We've been fingerprinted once for the FBI -- that was interesting considering we were arguing with two women that were "off the clock" at 7:59 p.m. when their shift ended at 8 p.m. and all they had to do was write us a receipt for $20.

I think we argued for more than 10 minutes -- well enough time for them to write a receipt five times. But it ended on a high note when the Police Chief called our house to apologize for their behavior. So they got their due!

We have two more fingerprints to do -- one for DCFS and one for immigration. We won't do the immigration one for about a month or so. Our next meeting is set for December 5, 2005 -- Monday. We will meet separately with Michelle to talk about our parents and how we were raised and our childhood.

I'm sure I'll be there for a very long time on the topic of my mother. I've got a million stories -- like the one I like to share about how my mom cooked twice a week -- our big Sunday night dinner and then leftovers on Monday. Then we ate at the Little League park the rest of the week. Or how about the one when she used to make me buy her Merit cigarettes for her at the Sunoco Station on US24.

Too funny!