Being The Perfect Parent In Eight Words Or Less

On Monday, we’re meeting with our social worker from the Foster/Adoption Agency to begin our home study even though not quite all of our paperwork is done. It’s a lot of thoughtful work to fill in some of the forms. One question, for example, is “How would you react to bedwetting?”. You want to say you wouldn’t shame the child and make a big deal about an occasional bedwetting. You want to say that if it were chronic or you suspected it was a psychological reaction to abuse, you’d seek out a therapist. You want to say that you would definitely clean the sheets and have some spare sheets, because even though that sort of answer seems overly obvious, there’s probably no such thing as being overly obvious when filling out a form that will be sent to a government agency . But you have four inches of black line to do this in, so you have to find just a few words to answer all that.

We’re nervous, and of course planning on spending Sunday scrubbing our house down and hiding our liquor and pornography.

And I’m finally, after two months of being waylaid by it, finishing Chapter 3 of the novel. It’s turned out to be quite a good one, but a bugger to write, with a sermon and two flashbacks, balancing action with exposition. There’s nothing like the feeling for a writer when your characters surprise you. Must be a bit like being a dad.