It's All His Fault

Less than a mile from my home, on a road I traveled frequently, lived my 2nd son. I didn't know it at the time, but he would start the ball rolling.
I knocked on the door and was greeted by an older woman with a toddler hanging on her leg. I introduced myself as the CASA volunteer and was waved into the living room. There on the floor was about 25 matchbox cars. All lined up according to color in a very straight line. Pretty good for a 2 year old. I sat to talk to the foster mom, she said this was his morning ritual. The day couldn't start unless the cars were in a line. The more I watched Michael the more I wanted to take him home. Now mind you, I didn't think about adopting him, I just wanted to take him shopping. Not because he needed more cars, but because of what he was wearing. Here was this cute little boy with his hair slicked down with brylcream, polyester pant with suspenders, a long sleeved button down shirt and a pair of old man velcro shoes, in the middle of the summer. Made me want to puke. By the time I left I knew DHS was going to terminate parental rights and they needed to find an adoptive home. So I went home and told Steve I wanted to adopt Michael. He said, "O.K." and it was that easy.  I went to the court house, gave back the case, contacted DHS to start foster classes and on November 9,1993 Michael was officially our 2nd son. Now when you get licensed to be a foster parent the worker checks your home and writes down the number of children you are allowed to foster, due to bedroom size. Ours was 3, yes 3 the magic number. Little did we know in less than 4 months we would go from 3 to 6 six kids.