Unexpected

Sorry I have been MIA for the last week, I went on a cruise (which I will be posting about soon) and just got back home 2 days ago.

I have been trying to somehow manage having 3 kids 3 and under, and have them all fed, clean, changed, and happy  content. It has been awesome having my parents and my husband (shane) help SO much when I was gone and even when I am here.  Thank goodness for my village.. it’s so so good!

So just imagine you get home from vacation (5 days) and you want to relax, unpack, do laundry, hug and kiss and love on your kids.. BUT you get a phone call from the legal worker for baby girl saying that he is on his way to my house to do his first monthly visit.. UNANNOUNCED.. um WHAT?

I literally had a million thoughts running through my head such as:

• I haven’t been home to see what kind of condition it was in since I left
• My kids are going to be SO excited to see me, they are going to act up in front of new people
• My animals (dogs) were outside roaming the land and they need to be put up before he gets there
• I need to make sure everything is put up that should be.. (basically your house has to be perfect at every visit and make it look like you don’t have 3 kids who destroy it in less than 5 minutes, living with you)

It was crazy!  I had about 20 minutes to get things together before the legal worker and his supervisor arrived at my house and thankfully Shane cleaned up as much as he could during his lunch before he had to go back to work.. and my parents agreed to stay and keep the older two distracted so that I could just focus on baby girl and answer all of there millions of questions they have about her (that they basically ALREADY know).

Let’s just say.. two toddlers who were wanting to nap, wasn’t the prettiest of sights.. thankfully they kept them all in Brielle’s room and played.. and I answered as much as I could before having them walk through my house to make sure everything is up to “standards” with having baby girls needs met here.  It was a very stressful afternoon and I was so glad when it was over..

Well.. fast forward two days later (to today) and the CPS licensing lady decided to show up to my house UNANNOUNCED as well, to make sure our foster/adoption agency was doing everything they should be doing with us, and keeping up with the “standards”.. Well  when I saw her car pull up to my driveway (insert panic mode here) and I noticed my cell phone was going off and it was her, I knew it was going to be bad. I just didn’t know how bad it would get.

Well, let’s just say that I had 3 happy, content kids before she arrived.. and of course she was a stranger, so little man immediately attached to me until I told him it was ok and he could go say hi, Brielle doesn’t like too many new people (actually she is not a people person at ALL, so she had a meltdown when I told her that she couldn’t hold the baby on the couch and sit with me), and of course baby girl woke up and realized it was time to eat.. all within the first 10 minutes of this lady showing up..

I was SO nervous/anxious and starting sweating thinking of all the possibilities that could be going through her head seeing all 3 of my kids throwing tantrums (which they RARELY ever do at the same time), and judging how I would handle the situation. SO what did I do? I called Shane to get off work early (practically begging for help) so he could take the older two kids out to eat lunch/go play at the park, etc.. while I just had baby girl and the lady here so I could focus properly and answer her millions of questions so she could leave faster.. UGH! Thankfully Shane came and took the other ones and it was finally peaceful and I could feed baby girl and get everyone taken care of. Talk about CRAZY!

After doing a walk through (yet again.. thank goodness my house was clean this time since I had been cooking/cleaning/doing laundry ALL morning) and then going over how she doesn’t have to come for another two years (THANK goodness), she wrapped her things up and left.. I could finally breathe.. Shane brought the kids back and everyone (all 3 kids, plus all 3 of my animals) went down for a nap and I have a moment to just realize how crazy this foster/adoption journey is for us! Not easy at all, but God blessed us with the ability to do this and He always comes through to help me. He is such a good God!

Please say a small prayer that no more people decide to just show up at my house unannounced (which is allowed in this crazy system) so I can finally relax for the next couple of days before working this weekend!

©2016 Sheridan Johnson @Journey with the Johnsons. All Rights Reserved.