I don’t know if today is going to be more stressful than the adoption hearing itself, or just close.

Today is the home visit, where a total stranger comes into our house, and judges our fitness to raise Noah together. Then she types up a report that gets submitted to the judge.

Please send us your most motherly, calming, and stablizing thoughts this afternoon between 1:45-3 pm. :)

We have no real idea what to expect. All we know is that all three of us have to be there, and it should take 45-60 minutes. Some people look at the house for safety concerns, others focus on our relationship. We don’t know in what depth, except that how deep can you go in an hour? We’ve spent the last few days torturing each other with hypothetical questions.

The person doing the home visit isn’t a social worker, she’s a lawyer. At first, we thought that was standard, but on Sunday, we found out that a friend of mine does them. If we’d found out any earlier, we probably would have cancelled the appointment and rescheduled it with my friend. Our lawyer made all the arrangements with the other lawyer. Apparently they’ve worked together on approximately 200 of these cases.

Both of us took the day off from work, for last minute cleaning, organizing, and fretting. I dropped Noah off at school as soon as the facility opened, and will pick him up again a while before the appointment. All of that will go faster (except the fretting) without him here.

On a lighter note, we’ve started naming Noah’s stuffed animals. So far, there’s Shock the Monkey, Hank the Duck, Lee the other Duck, and Gina the Giraffe. We’re looking for a good name for a teal  & blue lion (male). And a trillion other stuffed animals, but "lion-headed thing" is in heavy rotation and really needs a name. Shock and the lion-headed thing are my top candidates for a comfort object, if Noah picks one.