[NC_adoption_dad]

Do you have a funny Home Study Story to share? I can just imagine sitting there with the interviewer and the dog goes nuts, or 30 people come over to the house.
I am sure they are out there.....

[Cteal]

This was slightly humorous--I'm sure there are better stories out there.

My social worker came to our house around 10am, so we asked her if she would like to eat lunch with us. We were sitting in our octagaon breakfast area, that has floor to ceiling windows all around 5 sides. She had her back to my in law's house. They have 3 children ages 6, 4 and 3. They were out playing in the back yard. The social worker was admiring our view of the mountains and said what are you going to do to make sure the children don't fall off the bluff (not really a bluff, just a fairly steep drop off about 100 feet from the house)? I said, well my sister and brother-in-law just tell the kids that there are snakes down there and they never go down there, because they are scared. About that time, I looked up and saw my nieces and nephews right at the edge of the drop-off. I thought OMG don't let her turn around and see them-or I'll look like a liar. Luckily, she didn't look.

Christine

[NC_adoption_dad]

That is a good one. I am sure you didn't sweat that one a bit!

[schroeder]

Mine was with my wonderful dogs- we have a big screened in room outside for whatever (old house we bought) and we were sitting in the dinning room with the SW facing the sliding door and our dog deceided to go to the bathroom right there- I wanted to die.

[Military Momma]

This is sorta funny. My DH is sort of a jokester. So we finish the homestudy and deceided to ask the SW if we "passed". She, with a straight face and everything, says..."naw...I don't think you are really ready to be parents." My husbands face went totally white...then she laughed and said..."gottcha". Now understand...My Husband has been jokeing the WHOLE time with the SW. There was a great relationship and she knew he could take the joke. It wasn't meant to be mean just payback!!! LOLOL I laughed for hours and still chuckle as I'm writing this.

Lisa

[NC_adoption_dad]

those are great! i can only imagine what your husband was thinking when the SW said no. That does make me smile.
We have two dogs, Labs, and I am sure they will be doing something goofy during this process.

[Military Momma]

Don't feel soo bad! They are not as crazy as My Jack Russel, My Shiba Inu, and my Siberian Huskey! Not to mention our two cats! They were a trip when the SW was here! Thank gosh she loved animals!

lisa

[Abdulina]

I know this is not the topic but noticed your user ID and was wondering where in NC. I live in Clayton, near Raleigh. Just wondering. Funny if we were a few miles away. Thanks.

Sincerely,

The Boyd Bunch of NC

2 from Orenburg (home 5 years)
2 from Stavropol (home in May)
3 from Rostov (hopefully home end of summer)

[Krystyna]

Our SW didn't seem too fond of dogs so we gated our Jack Russell in the family room while we sat with our SW at the kitchen table. The SW's back was to the family room and all of a sudden our (usually well behaved) dog decided to climb our leather sofa and hang her paws and head over the half wall right behind the SW and start whiningand howling like a maniac. I thought I was going to die...I didn't want to yell at the dog because I thought she'd 'fail' us on the home study...so instead we tried to calmly reason with her to get down...I am sure we looked like complete fools...(I probably should have given her a time out for that! )

Thankfully, we were approved despite our terror terrier!

[marjo]

I cleaned like a maniac for our social worker's home visit. You could have eaten off our floor.

Fast forward to a few weeks later on a Saturday. We had some friends over until late the night before. I basically chucked the dishes in the sink. We got up early the next day to go to a neighborhood garage sale where I found a lot of baby stuff. When I got home I just kind of dumped the stuff on the counter, table, etc. My social worker unexpectedly stopped by that day to drop off some paperwork. I could have CLOBBERED my husband because her let her in the backdoor by the kitchen. There sat a sink full of dishes, baby clothes, etc. strewn all over the place. She must have thought she was in the wrong house because it sure looked different than before. YIKES!

My only consolation is that she had told us before she worries about people who are too orderly, because having a child might throw off their rigid lifestyle. I guess she didn't have to worry about us.

[Bcelli]

Not quite funny, but we live about 30 miles from "town." I like to say - in the forest - because, well, we LIVE IN THE FOREST. In 1998 with our first adoption, our SW came out for one visit and the house was pretty orderly. We had only been in it a couple of years, so there really wasn't much in it that could be out of order. We have 8 Catahoulas (state dog of Louisiana), a handful of cats, a collie mix and a mess of guineas and chickens and at the time, also goats.

Fast forward to 2004. We have had nearly 6 years of a growing young man and all the 'CRAP' that comes with them - dinosaurs, cars, stuffed animals, games, puzzles, books, computers, software, electronic keyboard, balls, videos, every imaginable happy meal prize ... and our once orderly house is orderly no more and we outgrew it about the time Clay was 2. We were trying to figure out how in the world we were going to get it into 'acceptable' shape for a homestudy update, when our SW passed on coming back out cuz it was 'so far out there.'

The Lord works in mysterious ways.

... and we're still working on clearing a hole for Luke.

[Animalcrackers]

Looking back, this is funny, but at the time, we were mortified. We have two 60+ pound labs that think they are lap dogs and think that they are rulers of the roost, so when our sw came, we decided it would be best to keep them in the backyard. Well, they knew we had a visitor and they wanted to investigate. So, after throwing their body weight into our back door over and over and over again, they busted in the doggy door and run straight for the sw. One jumps on the couch next to her and buries her head under the sw's bottom and the other jumps into her lap! They did not want to leave her and we kept pulling at their collars to get them to move. After about 3 min., the dogs finally lost interest and moved away. It was like a mad house. We were so embarrassed. We knew then that we would fail. Thankfully she said she loved dogs and even wrote what friendly dogs we have in our hs.

Melissa

[Ktates]

I am happy to see of your stories involving dogs - I have 2 (one an 80 pound lab mix who thinks she's a lap dog - sound familiar?). I am trying to think of what I can tempt them with that will be more interesting than a new visitor!

Bcellli - 8 Catahoulas! I love those dogs - my college advisor had one that he would bring to school with him from the time she was a pup - they are beautiful!

[PinkRibbon]

Ok, here's a cat story for feline lovers.

I have 3 cats and my SW is very allergic. My middle one, Puppy, decided he wanted to be her new best friend and plopped down on the couch and laid his head on her lap. I asked her if she wanted me to get him off and she said no. She was wearing a black jacket and it was covered with fur by the end of the 2 hr meeting.

My oldest one, Little One, was getting over a nasty cold. He was doing a lot better, but when he sneezed the snot flies. Fortunately he didn't sneeze on her, but did manage to projectile sneeze all over the carpet in the living room, where we were.

Fortunately the 3rd one, Birdie is afraid of guests and was hiding quietly in the other room.

[Javalita]

Thanks everyone for a great Saturday morning laugh! I love all of the pet stories and only wish my pug Java had done something fun to add here! I love the vision of 8 catahoulas doing anything-total chaos! Bcelli-if you are every in the Napa Valley area of Calif., there is a great little restaurant called Catahoula in Calistoga. There is artwork featuring, what else, Catahoulas!