I have officially lost it!

Yesterday I spent untold hours cleaning the house in unbelievably hot and humid weather for our home study visit at our house (I know that sounds redundant but the first home study visit was at the agency office). My house wasn't that dirty to begin with (Grace hasn't been here for a week) but that didn't stop me. I spent an hour cleaning the shoe scuff marks off the staircase risers. Why? What is the correlation between dirty risers and good parenting? I don't know but I felt like it reflected poorly upon me as "keeper of the house." Woe to anyone who messed up this house before Sarah arrived. We ordered in pizza for dinner.

The home study visit itself went fine. It lasted a little over an hour. We had a joint interview and then Steve had an individual interview. We were asked questions about childcare, how a second child will impact the home, how we handle conflict, what our parenting philosophy is. Quite frankly, I don't think that we have something as well-formed as a "parenting philosophy." We just get up every day and try to do the best we can. Some days are better than others. Of course, that isn't what we said. The home study process appears to be much like a job interview where there is a certain amount of fluff (that's my polite term) because we are being evaluated. And unlike a job interview, we can't be evaluated on our performance because Grace is only 4 and who knows how that is going to turn out, so we are being evaluated on our aspirations. This is somewhat comforting to all involved because it allows us to project all kinds of lofty goals and ideals.

Gracie P comes home tonight. We are very excited to return to parenting. Our third and final (I hope) home study visit is on Monday. Now if I can just keep the house clean until then . . .