Decorating Their Room

Once I’d decided to adopt…really decided…then I started fantasizing about how I would fit these unknown children into my home. I have a three bedroom house with a loft area that had been set up as a pretty comfortable exercise room. One extra bedroom was my office and the other is an extra bedroom for Mom and Mel to stay in when they visit…or anyone else, but no one else visits. In any case, where would I put the imaginary boys?

I was trying to decide if they should go in one room or two. Well, doesn’t it depend on how many of them I get? I decided to imagine two. Should they share a room or get their own? Should I give them the choice? One of my Facebook friends suggested that what kids want most is to know that I’m decisive and dependable. He said I should decide and tell them, not wait and ask them.

I decided to put them in the office. So, I methodically started getting rid of all of the office furniture and as much of the paperwork and books as possible. Anything work related, I took to the office. Then I created a new office in the closet in the loft. Yes, that’s what I said. I put a file cabinet in there and lots of shelves. My goal was to get my office needs reduced enough to fit in a closet. I’m happy to report that I was successful in that endeavor. Once the room was emptying out, I was ready to fill it. But I didn’t have kids yet…didn’t even know how many or what ages I would end up with. The room stayed empty.

When I learned of Josh and Joey, I was ready to start buying bunk beds and such, but the case managers told me to hold on. They said I could get rid of anything that, if everything was to fall through, I’d still have wanted to get rid of. They cautioned that anything can happen in these situations and to just be patient. Ha! Be patient? Ugh. The room stayed empty.

Once I’d been picked to get Josh and Joey, I knew much more about what furniture I would want. I decided on bunk beds. Can I buy furniture yet? Yes, but be careful. I went to Rooms to Go Kids and found the coolest set of wooden bunk beds with a matching tall dresser and bookshelf. It was pretty expensive, but my kids are worth it! They had 0% financing that day so I wanted to buy it, but I was supposed to “be careful”. Hmmm…When I asked about returning the furniture if it was never used, they explained their policy. After it’s delivered and assembled, it’s mine. No returns. But before it’s delivered, I could delay delivery or cancel delivery and get something else. No option was to cancel altogether. I decided to go ahead and buy the furniture but to put off delivery for a few weeks. Once I knew when the Presentation Staffing would be I could call and delay delivery until after that. The concern, of course, was that something might go awry that day and I’d have furniture for kids I wasn’t getting. A few days before the delivery date, I called and delayed a few more weeks because the Presentation Staffing still hadn’t been scheduled. This happened a few times. Finally, the staffing was scheduled for July 23rd. I called and schedule my furniture delivery for Friday, July 31st.

The walls in their room were eggshell color and had splotches of sheetrock repair that had been behind pictures. Obviously I needed to paint. What color? One color? A design? To decide I went to an expert. My friend’s 11 year old son, Gavin. I asked him what color he would have wanted his room to be when he was 7 years old. His answer was quick and decisive. Blue. Okay then, blue is what it would be. He was so certain, I never questioned the choice again. I went to Lowe’s and compared tons of blues. I had saved 2 cartoon prints from the pool room I’d had in a previous house and I’d decided to put those in the boys’ room. One was of Taz dunking a basketball and the other was of Sylvester staring at Tweety in his cage. I took home the paint cards and compared them to the prints to pick the perfect blue. Then I enlisted Meghan, Donna and Christine to help me paint. I chose the paint color the day before heading to San Antonio for the Presentation Staffing. I had been told that, if all went well in the Presentation Staffing, typically the boys would be permanently placed in my home within about 4 weeks. I had a plan: paint, furniture delivery, buy sheets and some toys to decorate. I had weeks to continue to prepare…so no sweat.

When I arrived at the Presentation Staffing and was chatting with the San Antonio caseworkers before the foster mom arrived, the senior caseworker suggested that I stay overnight and meet the boys the next day for an hour or so with the foster mom, on Friday. She then said I could then stay Friday night and pick them up and spend the day with them on Saturday. She said the following weekend I could come pick them up and take them back to Austin for the weekend, then the next weekend they could be placed with me permanently. What? What did she say? WHAT?

I’m a complete control freak and my plan was getting squashed. Oh my goodness. I didn’t react right away because I had a fear that saying “Whoa, that’s too fast!” might come across like I wasn’t ready to have the kids. I was as ready emotionally and psychologically as I could be at that point…but I just wasn’t physically ready. I hadn’t painted. The furniture hadn’t arrived. I didn’t have sheets, towels, toys…anything! I sat there calculating that if I accept this plan, I have exactly 1 day at home to get everything ready. Plus, I could try to get the furniture delivery moved up a day and see if Christine could go to the house to accept delivery. I left the Presentation Staffing with my head spinning. Getting the house ready wasn’t even the most stressful thing now swimming around in my head. I was going to meet my sons the next day and then spend an entire day alone with them on Saturday. The story of how all of that went is for another time. For now, I’ll stick to the story of getting their room ready for them. How could I fit that into the time I had been given? The current plan was for me to pick them up on Friday, July 31st and drive them to Austin. That gave me 7 days until then. I would spend the next 2 days in San Antonio, and I had to work during the week. So, I had 1 day…Sunday. Time to ask for some help.

After meeting the boys on Friday…spectacular story for a different day…I went to Lowe’s and bought the paint. I called Meghan. She and Donna went to my house and readied the room to be painted on Sunday. On Saturday, the first thing I did with the boys was take them to Target where we all picked out there sheets and comforters and throw pillows and some toys. On Sunday, after church, Meghan, Donna, Christine and I painted the boys room blue in record time. Then I went shopping for ducks…yellow ducky towels, shower curtain, rug, toothbrush holder, cup. You name it, we got it with yellow ducks on it. I had called Rooms to Go Kids and they couldn’t move the delivery date in a day. The furniture was scheduled to be delivered on the same day I would be going to San Antonio to pick up the kids. What if it didn’t show up or was the wrong furniture? What if something was wrong with it? That’s when I made the call to the foster mom and explained that I just couldn’t get there on Friday to pick them up for the weekend. I would leave Austin at 5am on Saturday and pick them up by 8:30am on Saturday, but I just couldn’t get there on Friday. She completely understood and helped the boys to accept the situation as well. One day wouldn’t help me fix the furniture if it was delivered incorrectly, but it gave me just a little breathing room.

On Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, they building a house in 7 days. It took me 8 days to decorate one room. But it looked good. The furniture showed up with 2 flaws, but was acceptable and they could come back next week and fix the issues. So I didn’t let it bother me. I had gotten the room ready and I love it! Did the kids love their room? Yes and no. They ran in their room and loved all the colors and all the toys…but the furniture? If someone would have asked me six months ago if kids have the same priorities or tastes as me, I would have said “No, of course not, obviously not.” But I wasn’t thinking like that at the time.

Every time I go in their room I love the way it looks. I think it’s really cool. And I hope they’ll learn to appreciate it the way I do. They love their room! It’s not that they don’t like it. It’s just the…”oh man, its wooden bunk beds instead of metal ones that we can put our magnets on like at Mimi’s house”. Who knew? Not me. Go figure. I could have spent 10% of what I spent on the beds and they would have loved them! Lesson learned. And I still love the furniture, so no regrets!

One of the best things about the way the timing all worked out was having those 5 days between them coming to visit and them being placed permanently. It allowed me to fix so many of the things that I hadn’t even known I needed to fix until they tried to live in the room. As it ends up, having a standard ceiling fan in the middle of the room with bunk beds is fairly dangerous. Particularly when the child sleeping on the top bunk tends to sit up in bed and fling his arms around. I discovered this at about 4am the first night they were here. I heard Joey talking, so I went in to check on them. He was sitting up with his back to the fan, moving around…but the edges of the fan blades were about 6 inches from his head. Too close for me! I put my hand on his back and eased him away from it. Then I hustled over to the switch and turned off the fan. Whew! The fan come down the next week and a stationary fan was hung from the ceiling in the farthest corner of the room. I also learned that first weekend that I didn’t want locks on the doorknob of their room. I didn’t want them to be able to lock that door and lock themselves in or me out. So, the following week while they were back at the foster home, I switched out the doorknob for one without a lock on it at all. The lock is still on the bathroom door, but I continue to question whether or not that’s a good idea. Having the opportunity to let them try out the setup, then leave so I could fix the setup was brilliantly successful!!