Red File #3

Only 39 days after the last Red File! I was just relaxing into relaxed, happy, non-parenting mode again after the last Red File, thinking I wouldn't be called again until September 11th. (Remember we are getting called approximately every 72 days) But lo and behold, we have been selected again. This time it is a three year old boy named Juan. I know six things about Juan.

His name is Juan.

He is of Hispanic origin.

He is three years old.

He sees a speech therapist.

His foster family uses a point system to manage his behavior, and it seems to be working.

He loves to cuddle.

Based on the above information (especially the last item!) I said, bring it on! Go to the Red File, Andrea! Kick some butt and get us a cuddly kid.

The Red File is Wednesday. Yep, that's right- the day after tomorrow. Here's the part that might make me crazy. We are in Pennsylvania right now, on the final stop of a trip that included visiting friends Neal and Heather in Baltimore, attending Dave's high school reunion in State College, PA, and now visiting Dave's family in central Pennsylvania. We are staying at my father-in-law's home. We'll be here until Wednesday, when we drive back to Baltimore to catch our flight home. The Red File meeting is at noon. Our flight leaves at 5:00ish, which is 2:00 AZ time. So the Red File will probably not be over before we get on the plane. And of course we all know that I have to turn my darn phone off once we leave the runway, otherwise the plane will burst into flames. We will arrive in AZ at 7:00ish. By which time, Andrea will have already left the office for the day. So a critical decision will have been made about our future and I might have to wait until Thursday to find out the news. I am going to send Andrea an e-mail tomorrow and beg her to call us in the evening after she gets off work. Hopefully this won't be too much of an inconvenience to her.

When I told my mom, she was really happy, but said she was going to try not to get her hopes up. I'm going to go ahead and get my hopes up. I really enjoyed the hopeful period the last time, and I don't think the heartbreaking disappointment would have been lessened by being pessimistic. So here we go again...