PART 2: From Beach House Bliss to Bureaucracy: Getting to Know Children and Youth

And then the chaos began...

When the school day ended, I raced home to meet Holly. To say my emotions were all over the place would be an understatement. I rushed past the calendar on the refrigerator, noticing an upcoming social engagement and made a mental note that it would need to be rescheduled. Then I realized there were a LOT of things that would need to be rescheduled. What about the random happy hours and long walks around the neighborhood. What about our unscheduled random dinners out? Or our trips to the casino? Our quiet weekends at the beach? Life was about to change, for sure.

Amid all of the concerns about my social life, my privacy, my "me time," there was another combination of emotions, a combination that left my head spinning, my heart pounding, and my stomach flipping. There was excitement, fear, and a nagging feeling of inadequacy. "What if I can't be what they need?" "What if they don't like me?" "What if I'm not good enough?"

But there was no time to perseverate on that. We had so much to do and the clock was ticking. Off we went to At Home, the local home decor store. What transpired next can only be described as the home decor version of Supermarket Sweep! Two of everything! Two bedframes, two mattresses, two sets of super cute bedding, two headboards, and wait! They need something to feel comfortable and safe on the first night. Two Squishmellows it is!

We barely fit everything into the car, but somehow we got the back hatch closed just as the store lights were being turned off for the night. It took well into the evening and the wee hours of the next morning to get everything set up. There were no toys yet, no clothes in the closet. The room looked bare with two perfectly made little girl beds, each with their own Squishmellow. At about 2:00am, we took one final last look around the room. "Perfect," Holly said. She was about to drop, so eager to get to bed. "WAIT!" I said. Something is missing. Each of their beds had a blank space on the wall above them, and I couldn't bring myself to go to bed without filling it. As I contemplated starting an art project at 2:00am, I went searching through my art supplies, and I found two blank canvases. I got out the paint, arranged the paintbrushes and bottles of paint, sat down on the floor, and realized just how tired I was. But then it hit me...

We were told that when the caseworker brings the girls, she will need to speak with us for a while and do some paperwork as well. In what was either a stroke of genius or a stroke of exhaustion, I hung the blank canvases above each bed. I don't remember going to bed that night, but I must have, because before I knew it, the alarm clock was ringing and we were off to the races.

You know those 20 minutes before guests arrive? That sudden desire to clean like you've never cleaned, rearrange every room, and hang all new decor on the walls? Imagine those emotions times 100. In those 20 minutes, we ran around to the circus music in our heads, alternating between getting ourselves presentable and reducing the bags under our eyes, and sweeping up the continuous flow of dog hair that is so plentiful our dogs should be bald by now. I probably ran up and down the stairs to check the girls' room 30 times or so. Would you believe in that time nothing changed up there?

Before we knew it, the doorbell rang. I was so startled that you would have thought we weren't expecting anyone that day. I'm sure the crazy barking of the dogs didn't help my nerves, and as I shooed them out the back door, Holly opened the front door. Before us stood a woman with two of the most ADORABLE little girls I'd ever seen.

I don't know what I expected, but this wasn't it. We had been warned that although we were excited to meet the girls, they might not be so excited to meet us. Within the course of two months, they had been through a lot, and their worlds had been turned upside down. But the two girls standing on our doorstep were smiling from ear to ear, eyes sparkling, and they were bouncing up and down. As they walked into our foyer, they looked all around, trying to take in their new surroundings. I won't say our home was grand, but it was definitely not what the girls were used to. They took a few more steps into the house, and as I offered to give them a tour, they both asked the same question. "Do we have separate rooms?" I told them to go upstairs and see for themselves!

When they found their room, I couldn't tell if they were disappointed, relieved, or just plain neutral, but then their eyes rested on the Squishmellows. They squealed with delight and each ran to the bed that had the Squishmellow of their choosing. Thankfully, they didn't run for the same one, because as we would later discover (over and over again), they have a very competitive nature.

As they took in the rest of the room, their eyes settled on those blank canvases above their beds - the ones I'd put up the night before when I was too tired to do anything else with them. They didn't say anything. They just stared. At just that moment, the case worker asked if we were all set to discuss everything downstairs. I took each canvas off the wall, handed them to their respective new owners, and we all headed downstairs.