Our Home Visit

Yesterday we had our home visit which is needed to complete our home study.

For those who don't know- a home visit is when a social worker comes to your house and then does a report on the information they gathered during their visit.

Even though we have three kids, and I feel we are raising them in a comfortable home, I was nervous for this visit.  We never really did any baby proofing in our house.  We subscribe to more of a relaxed parenting style.  Of course, we gate steps or make sure the basement door is closed, and it's not like we leave knives and Clorox bottles laying around.  BUT our kitchen drawers open freely, our outlets are uncovered, and even though we have had a toy car "disrupt" our plumbing, our toilet is not latched closed. (With the ages of our kids- there would be pee everywhere)

Prior to the visit, I did some googling, as anxious people are bound to do.  It did NOT comfort me.  Shocking right?

On a totally unrelated note-- Our house now has a smoke detector in every room, two carbon monoxide detectors, three fire extinguishers, our outlets are covered, our medicine cabinet is secure, our doors with questionably toxic cleaning supplies have annoying knobs, and never have the door crevices been so dust free. (That last one is a little weird, but the night before I suddenly noticed all the dust on our doors... )

When our lovely social worker arrived she had the kids show her upstairs and she took a look around our main floor...

She did not demand to see the safety measures we had taken because of the children in the house, she didn't demand to see a printed copy of our fire plan (which I don't have...), she didn't even notice how clean our bedroom doors were.  It was almost like she was more concerned with the kind of people we were and whether or not we would love any child we were blessed with...more than the items on my downloaded How to Prepare for Your Home Visit book.

Our kids wrestled and ran around the whole time she was in our home.  It did not faze her at all.

My past medical history of depression and anxiety, that I was so worried about-- was a non issue.

She even knew a member of our church because he was her daughter's favorite teacher.

It could not have gone better.