Ah, the pain..er joys of foster care

As most of you know, we are adopting Lucy through the foster care system. The operative word in that statement is SYSTEM. There are so many rules, regulations and red tape that you could start seeing red if you lose sight of sweet Lucy Bear. I could make a ridiculously long list of all the rules that are crazy. However, rules are rarely created without purpose....'no, you can't put your child in a bumbo, on a table...they WILL fall out.' Thank you foster family #1276589 for making this rule possible. (Please don't misunderstand, I do appreciate that rules are necessary and am thankful that we have a system that cares enough to enforce the rules.)

Seriously, though. We had a licensing visit on Wednesday. Different from all the other social workers and child advocates who come through our doors, this was a visit to check on our adoption agency. Have they selected a safe home? Do we have all the proper documentation? etc, etc. We were warned that the licensing agent would make sure our knives were put away and that medications were in a padlocked box. Let me remind the reader that Lucy is 5 months old. If she can get to the utensil drawer or 6 feet tall bathroom cabinets, we've got bigger fish to fry.

So, being the rule follower that I am I purchased a padlock box and bag.


I loaded up the meds:
Adam set the codes for the padlocks and we were set. So for $50, Lucy can no longer access any of our medicine.

The lovely Ms. Johnson stopped by, an hour and a half early, I might add, and did she even ask where we kept the medicine? Open the drawer to see where the knives were? Make sure we had the safety latches on all the cabinets....no. But everyone can rest a little easier knowing our house is a little safer thanks to foster family #342651 incorrectly installing a mobile over the crib and their foster child ending up with a face full of pooh-bear.