Quarterly Inspection

Amidst all the new baby chaos of the past week, my foster agency's new Program Director finally made an appearance to introduce herself and to do my quarterly "inspection" (and I use that term loosely).  New Girl showed up 30 minutes early (a definite first in my experience over the past couple of years)!  She then walks into my house, straight to the dining room table, pulls out her paperwork, and starts writing "yes, yes, yes."  Not once did she get up to look at anything!

I've had previous inspections where caseworkers went so far as to dig around in my pantry to read expiration dates on green beans.  Another one walked around my house and had me physically show her how medications were stored by opening up the double-locked medication tackle box and showing her the expiration dates on the medicines.  That same girl also had me show her the pressure gauges on my fire extinguishers and demonstrate the P.A.S.S. method of how to use them!  She was also the one who told me that handsoap and a clean towel needed to be "readily accessible" for children to wash hands, but that handsoap needed to be "stored away from children."  HUH?!?  (Gotta love foster care "minimum standards.")

This chick, however...  Well, the most "inspecting" that she did that day involved asking me, "Do you have a gun?"  Me, "Nope."  New Girl, "Okay."  Heck!  I could have had a high-powered rifle laying out on my bed or an open hydrocodone bottle laying next to the babies' toy box and she never would have known!  If I had known she wasn't going to step foot out of the dining room, I wouldn't have bothered to hide my Tums that I usually have within arm's reach of my bed every night.  ;-)  It was definitely one of the easiest "inspections" ever...  It didn't exactly inpsire a whole lot of confidence in her dedication to her job though.  Hopefully, she just automatically knew that I am an awesome "minimum standards"-abiding foster mom and that she had nothing to worry about when it came to the safety of my house.  :-)

I was a wee bit frustrated when she ended the meeting with, "Okay...  So I'll be on the lookout for 3 children, ages 0-5 years old for you!"  HUH?!?  Um, NO!!!  Single, full-time working foster mommy here!!!  Let's start with one child, age 6 weeks to 18 months to start (as I have told her about 10 times now).  New Girl is already wearing me out!!!