Homestudy/ppr Horror Stories!!!

We had our social worker over for our second post-placement visit yesterday (almost a year!). Before the social worker came, I went outside with our daughter to let her blow off some steam. Of course, she fell headlong on the sidewalk and scraped her chin, which led to some emotion. I gave her a Hershey's kiss to make her feel better, which she was still eating when the social worker arrived. After the social worker had been there for about five minutes, I looked at my daughter's face and was horrified to see what I thought was blood streaking down my daughter's chin. I ran to get something to clean it up (while the social worker looked on), only to realize that the blood was just chocolate.... Then, after the social worker had been at our house for about an hour, my daughter looked her in the eye, waved her hand and said, very firmly, "Bye, bye". She'd had enough!

This should be fun thread to read! Well, this is our first adoption. DH is "on-call" for work 24 hours a day, but he hardly ever gets called after work hours for emergencies. So of course, the night before our homestudy visit, he got a ton of calls and was up all night helping out for work! He didn't get any sleep, and of course by then I was so nervous and freaked out that he was going to be up all night that I didn't get any sleep. We must have looked like total zombies when our social worker arrived in the morning. I explained to her what had happened, and she was really cool about it, saying something like "Well that's Murphy's law for you!" Ha ha!

Our girls always fall face first, they just don't seem to put their hands down in front of them but to the side. So, the running joke in our extended family is that always one of the girls have a mark of some sort on their face. So...before our second PPR (1 year home) we made sure the few days before that we were doing some "light" acitvities so there would be no injuries. Anyway, ONE MINUTE before our SS rang the doorbell...our youngest ran from the living room into the kitchen and somehow tripped...and fell face first onto the ceramic tile. As my Dh opened the door I had my youngest DD sitting on the island in our kitchen with ice on her lip-she had a bloody lip and was crying!! My family and SS thought it was funny, but at that moment I was horrified.:fish:

DS was into Bite Stage. Everything had a Bite mark and whatever didn't had legs and ran, i.e. The Cats. The day before one of the PPR's, DS decided to bite his Brother, on the Cheek just below his eye. Needless to say, we were VERY nervous explaining 'how' he got the nice set of teeth marks on his face. She kinda giggled and said, "that probably won't be the last of the bite stage for either one of them." Then...........one of our Cats jumped up on the arm of the sofa, next to her and proceeded to lay down in her lap, on top of her papers, rolled over to have our SW scratch her belly. Yes, she is a Cat, who we believe was once a Golden Retriever. DH & I looked at each other horrified and mentally saying OMG!!. We both ran into each other getting up so quickly to remove the Cat from her lap. Our SW giggled as she knew we are all nervous. The Cat was the comic-relief although ill-timed.

We had to take DD to a SW holiday party (where we'd already RSVP'd) with a HUGELY swollen shiner. There she was with her little red velvet dress, white tights, little black patents, and she looked like a prize fighter who'd lost all the rounds. All the SW's were, um, a bit cool with us. After all, the child had only been home a month and a half.

Funny stories. Mine aren't particulary exciting but here goes. Our visits are done in the Agency office and not at home. Our first visit was after DD had been home for a mere 3 months and not speaking an awful lot of English or Spanish. After about an hour or so of the SS talking to me and DD keeping herself entertained in the other offices, she burst back into the room, stomped over to the window, opened the curtains and said something on the lines of Mummy, dark, bedtime, NOW!!.....I think I can safely say it was our queue to wrap up the meeting.

At our first PPR for Peter (16 months old at the time); he was keeping himself entertained by taking out all the cookie sheets and baking racks from the drawer under the oven. After he emptied the drawer out, he stood in it and opened the oven and fell backwards out of the drawer and onto all the stuff he'd taken out! He wasn't hurt, but he screamed bloody murder! He ran right to me for comfort and that's what the SW commented on, so all was fine, but we were horrified! Liz

Our final PPR for our son Erik the new s/w comes to the door just at the moment the plumber & electrician are going upstairs to work on our bathroom which was gutted AND the sprinkler guy is outside blowing out our sprinker system for the winter. It was a mad house to walk into but she understood:)

Our first one went really well. DS gave the guy a great big hug. Talk about zero stranger fear! EEEK! but he won him over and it went great. The second one, thank goodness we knew her from many an open house at our agency. DS decided to do a hostile take over on her phone proving that phones are super aerodynamic and can indeed break the sound barrier. She appeared amused abd commented on how active he was. Was that a nice way of saying "you've got your hands full"???? all is well that ends well though.Paperwork???? I600 a lost for several months, check cashed, possible incident at the Palm beach BCIS office but I swear I have witnesses so it could not have been me. My story is sticking..... WAd'nt me :-)

My first visit the house was immaculate-everything perfect. By the 2nd visit after dd was home, so our 4th meeting, my dd was potty training. She basically hung out in the family room and went back and forth to the bathroom. Sometimes choosing not to put pants on and off. So in the middle of the visit. She got completely naked and then proceded to sit on SW's lap. I was motified. DD was persistant and would not get off. Thank goodness she is a good sport. Dina

Gosh, too many to recall--LOL. Okay, we have to "prep" the kids before the sw's come. Some social workers have experience with FASers and RADishes but those that don't have NO CLUE how our household has to run. And the fact that anything that they think, will come spitting rihgt out of their mouths no matter how embarrassing. So, we told Max his tools were up and he wasn't allowed to use them while she was here. He does his own wood working adn has his own set of tools. He also makes stuff w/ my husband. No biggie. Anyhow, my wonderful husband forgot to put HIS toolbox away as well. So, we're sitting at the dining room table and Max comes in w/ a hacksaw. We play "shock and dumbfounded" and say" you know you are not allowed to play w/ any of daddy's tools." He responds "but they are MY tools and you always let me carve." :eek: Oh yeh, try explaining that one. Another visit...we have a social worker comes that should have been a caseworker for OSHA. No lie. She complained b/c we had bunkbeds. Complained b/c we had a pool. Said what if they fall in??? Well, it's an above ground pool I told her and unless they can jump 5' high, there is no chance of falling in. Plus, ALL of them can swim very well. She also said we didn't have a fence for the pool. Lie, we have a fence that goes all the way around the back yard. Well, we were rennovating the upstairs to put more kiddos in it. So, during rennovations, all 3 boys were crammed into a small bedroom downstairs until it was going to be done. Had no choice. 2 bunks and a twin. Well, the bunks were right under the ceiling fan. She said aren't you afraid they'll hurt themselves on that. My dumb daughter decides to reply, "it doesn't hurt. Look, I did the same thing yesterday!" Yep, she busted her head on the ceiling fan. And this was my oldest daughter. Same sw complained b/c I was letting my 12yo cook her own Ramen noodles. Heaven forbid. She said mortified, you let her cook by herself? I said yes, after I teach her, then she's on her own. I'm hoping the next visit goes well. It is in two weeks. Two different agencies, two different social workers coming, two days apart. Oh yeah. I can see it now. We've told the kids to SHUT UP about our whole moving situation. Keep quiet. See, if we do go ahead w/ building our own house deal, we will have to live in a tent on the property while being built. Kids know this. Should get very interesting that day. And this is yet another new social worker. Last one here, we had to "break in." I said have you ever been to a house w/ 5 kids? She said not too many. I said have you ever visited ahouse w/ 4 FASers? She said no. I said okay,here's how it's going to go. They will come home from school. It will break the sound barrier..the noise. There will be chaos, mayhem, eating and more chaos. She said, well, we'll see. Sure enough, they coming barging in from school w/ their friends no less. So 8 of htem in the house. Get snacks, go upstairs and start dancing. :banana: The social worker leans over the table and says Can you hear that? I said yes. She said isn't htat loud? I said no, that's normal around here. She was stunned. I said you get used to it after awhile. Doesn't phase us any more. I'll report what happens in the next two weeks. Should have some interesting stories to tell w/ that one I'm sure. Can't wiat to hear more stories. Take care,

It was a basic home visit..kids clean, animals out, house immaculate.We have been parents for years and foster parents too so we werent particularly unnerved by the visit. All goes good until youngest son gets off bus ( he was 9) social worker askes him a few basic questions.. name ,interests etc.. then she calmly asksHOW DO YOUR PARENTS DISCIPLINE YOU? well, I knew he was still coming to grips with having a new sister and all the changes but.... HE LOOKS RIGHT AT HER AND SAYSSHE BEATS ME WITH A STICK! I was BEYOND horrified!!!! I had never even thought about beating my child until that moment! ;) :) my face said it all because she looked at him and said Really?he sighed and said. "NO. But I had to try!" Then he smiled and told her as long as the "new kid" didnt touch "HIS STUFF" he would be ok with it!

We've never allowed guns in our house (toy or otherwise). It's not that I have a big problem with kids playing cops-n-robbers or anything, I just prefer not to have guns in the house.While we had the social worker over for one of our post-placement visits, my son was bopping around the family room while we were talking to the social worker. Then he got a kazoo, of all things, out of the toy box, pointed it directly at the social worker and said, "Pow! Pow!" I asked what he was doing and he replied, "Mommy! I shoot her!" Fabulous... I guess you can take the guns away from the boy, but.... We did have a discussion afterward about how it's not polite to pretend to shoot anyone... but thankfully our social worker is super-nice and has two boys of her own. ;)