Hope is home.

The last 48 hours have been good.  My anxiety level is way lower than it was when she came to visit and I was terrified of messing up.  Sure, I’m anxious, but it’s not what it was.  I’m no longer terrified.  We’ll be ok.

On day one, she wanted to nest at home.  We had our belated Christmas with some presents.  We established some ground rules and expectations that we can build on.  We watched movies, had cocoa and just chilled.  The highlight of the day was when I beat the brakes off of her in Hip Hop Dance Experience on Wii.  If you are in your late 30s and early 40s, you must get this game for your gaming system.  As Hope says, the playlist is BOMB! The game has hip hop songs from the 90s until present.  I was jamming, do you hear me?  JAMMING!  I tried to let her win but then she got mad because she didn’t want a mercy win.  I eventually stopped playing so she could just rack up some points.  I will be secretly up at night playing this game just so I can get my groove on.  Seriously, I sweat my hair out!

We successfully got through our first social worker home visit today and I got the binder for the disclosures.  Honestly—it’s a huge ridiculous binder of every piece of paper captured about her.  I haven’t dug into it yet; I figure I’ll do a little at a time.

The WA social worker is moving to finalize in May, very early and possibly in time for us to just be able to fly out without needing permission for my graduation.  Well there’s motivation to finish, right?

I’m fully aware that we are honeymooning.  We’ve had a couple of tense moments, but no meltdowns.  Everyone recovers quickly.

I think we’re going to be ok.

So I always like to take a minute to reflect on what I’m learning on this journey, so here’s my current list and other random musings about Placement Life:

• Being called mom, even when she’s pissed, is really frigging awesome. I doubt that it will ever get old.
• Having the extended visit helped a lot.  I can’t imagine being as keyed up as I was 2 months ago knowing that she wasn’t leaving so I could get myself together.  I got a lot of angst out of my system during and after that visit.
• The fatigue isn’t as bad either.  Hope’s week night bedtime is 9:30.  Typing that is almost like typing a prayer.  Amen.
• I am not going to break Hope.  She’s a resilient little someone.  I will be good to her.  I’m sure I will mess up royally from time to time, but she’s going to be ok.  She realizes that this is the real deal and she’s here to stay.
• I’m learning that saying no is easier than I thought.  I have to say no a lot as she tests boundaries.
• Poor thing thinks I’ m not drinking because I haven’t used her wine stopper.  If she only knew…
• I managed not to freak out when eavesdropping on her phone call to a friend last night during which they compared the kissing skills of some boy who apparently hasn’t yet finessed his technique to exclude gnawing off the lips of his paramour.  Technically I wasn’t eavesdropping since she had the phone on speaker <shrug>.  The conversation was hilarious with a capital H, until I was like when the devil did you kiss some boy and almost lose your lips?
• I was internally gleeful to win at Wii.  I was also stunned by her growth in not having a meltdown about winning, even if it was a mercy win.
• She trusts me.  That will grow.  That’s cool.

We’re good.  Tomorrow is another nesting day.  Hopefully we’ll be able to get registered for school on Monday.

We’re doing fine.

And I’m waiting for a shoe to drop.  I’m ready.