Dear FBI,

With all due respect, I want to understand just what goes on in your department when it comes to the clearance of ones fingerprints.

I am just a woman waiting for your go-ahead. Once I get your approval I will be able to have children in my home that may not otherwise know love, trust, comfort, warmth, stability, safety and other basic needs that all children deserve to know. Do you know this?

Do you know that there are children hurting all over the world, the country, the state, your city who need people like us to rescue them and it all has to go through you?

Do you know that my home has been ready and willing with a mom and a dad and two big brothers who flip over babies for over a year and a half?

Do you know that a nursery has been all set up complete with over 20 pairs of baby shoes, blankets, bibs and burp rags collecting dust just waiting for your response?

Do you know I have never even had a speeding ticket? I have lied a few times to spare feelings but I've worked all of that out with God and I also stole Megan Lemke's Valentine's necklace in the 3rd grade (also dealt with God on that) but other than that my record is completely clean. Now, I have no documentation to prove this, but the whole idea to get foster children in the first place was Gods, and He certainly knows more than you about my history, again, with all due respect, so perhaps if you could just communicate with Him directly we could get things moving much quicker?

I know what you do is very complicated. I know you have a lot going on in your FBI life. Fingerprint clearance may or may not be on the top of your list. But please just know that it is most important for me and the other families who are waiting for children, but more importantly for the children who are waiting for us. Imagine being a child in a desperate, hopeless situation and then try to tell yourself "one more day won't make much of a difference". I can only imagine that each day must feel like an eternity to them.

Do you hear my heart?

Do you know how bad I want to help?

Do you know you are the only one who is standing in my way?

Please, oh please eat your lunch at your desk until there are no more fingerprints to be approved.

And if the system isn't running right, CHANGE IT. This is not clearance to get a job, this is not clearance to go on vacation, this is clearance to save a life. A life without a voice. Save the life. Be the voice.

I can still wait, and I will wait until my prints are finally good enough for you. But I just wanted to make sure you knew the story behind the tiny black lines pressed on the white paper...to push you a little harder at the clearing of the prints job...to encourage you to use your power wisely and swiftly because with that power comes a responsibility to do the right thing. For the kids.

I'm ready to do my job...to rock, to calm, to cuddle, to sing, to laugh, to hold, to teach, to love. All I ask is that you do yours...

Sincerely, Future Foster Parent Darbi

The Tale of the Chubby Homecoming Queen, Her Strapless Gown, and a Dance with her Very First Prince...

Well, it's been so long since I've blogged, I knew I had to make it good. (No pressure, right Rach?)

It would be an event of the year. My cousin-brother's wedding was coming mid-September and I would be a bridesmaid. One of eleven. The color? Mango-Tango. The dresses? Strapless. Chubby girls don't do strapless. The solution? I had over 6 months to loose weight! Very manageable. When did it become unmanageable? The week before the wedding when I was still the same size as I started. Darn it. Time to buy those fancy underwear and suck it in. I've heard if I constantly place my right foot forward people won't notice my size. I'll try anything.

Wedding week was here before we knew it and I was so excited. I got to get a new sister and Matt's choice was more than perfect for me. If I could just go to the New Sister store at the mall and order one I would pick her out exactly...her humor, her laugh, her listening skills, her sensitivity, her fashion sense, the drink she orders at Starbucks, and especially the way she loves my Matt. In the next few days we would get pedicures, practice our walking and lining up, have toasts, celebrate love, visit family and friends AND (enter scary music: dun-dun-dun!) be re-united with my first loves. (No, that's not a typo. There were two of them.)

Yeah, I was excited to see them, they were Ryan and Streiter. Who wouldn't want to see them? But here's the deal...life has been a little rough on me. Between my 4 babies, three pregnancies, lack of motivation to exercise regularly and love for mochas, I've put on the weight of a good sized 3rd grader since high school. I literally hadn't set eyes on those boys since graduation 14 years ago, when I was the size 3 homecoming queen. Would they even recognize me? Or would they say "That's a nice decorative mango-tango punch table. But where's Darbi?" A very secure 32 year old woman suddenly found herself back at the 7th grade formal, afraid nobody was going to ask her to dance.

It was rehearsal dinner time, which meant I would face Ryan. I made my best fruit salad that said, "you shouldn't have let me go in the 3rd grade, you bastard!". You know, the one with the grapes. Anyway, I saw him out of the corner of my eye. "Breathe Darbi." He got kind of snobby toward the end of high school. Would he even want to talk to me? Do I shake his hand? What do I do? "Darbi Fankhauser?" And his arm touches my shoulder. I grab him and I hug him. He rocks me side to side like when you're hugging your sister who came back from college. I look at him. His eyes are exactly the same. His beard...is longer than a loaf of french bread from Albertsons?! It's okay because I am fat. His girlfriend is wonderful. His life is wonderful. I tell him about mine. Years have gone by but to me he will always be Ryan. The boy I got in trouble for punching in the stomach AND the boy who chased me and kissed me on the playground. It's not a feeling of love or what might have been, but maybe it's just a true blessing that I get the chance to see him again and have our families meet...talk about the old days as adults but still feeling like kids. Not everyone gets to have these moments. I want to put it in a bottle and place it on a shelf...

Wedding day comes and this time it will be Streiter. He's the boy I picked out in Kindergarten. And if there's one thing about me and boys, I usually get what I want. ( I picked Mikey out during the first week of college orientation. He had a girlfriend and I had a boyfriend. Did I let those two tiny details slow us down? No! Now 14 years later he'll always be my favorite boy!) So, the wedding itself was flawless. I got to walk down the aisle with one of my high school best friends, Pat and we had the best time. My Aunt mom sang and everybody cried. It was the most beautiful location for a wedding, very fitting for such a wonderful couple. The kiss...and onto the reception. But no Streiter. I saw who I thought were his wife and daughter but not him. Bummer. Maybe I'll see him when Matt and Tara have a baby...I feel an arm around my shoulder. It's someone I don't know. I look down and see the mans shoes. Converse. On a person I knew that'd be totally rad but on a stranger who's touching me, TOTALLY creepy. I look up again and see the eyes and the freckles and they're EXACTLY the same as they were in Kindergarten when I picked him out to be my birthday buddy...It was Streiter. I freaked out. I couldn't believe I didn't recognize him.

We walked over to his table where I chatted with his family, his beautiful wife and his amazing daughter. I am in love with his wife and since I can't be everywhere at once, I'm glad he found her. She's his perfect match. It was so fun to joke about the pain we'd gone through. "Sharing was hard. If we could have got that down maybe we would have had a chance." "Maybe we should share some pearls of wisdom for Matt and Tara that we learned along the way through our Kindergarten break up. We don't want to see them go through the same mistakes." Funny stuff.

After the cake was cut, the bouquet was tossed, and Mike was long gone with the kids (bed time!), the dance floor was still hopping. Streiter was still out there with me and let's just say look out next years "So You Think You Can Dance". We have a robot number that will not leave a dry eye in the house. Eventually the DJ called "last dance" and since our spouses took our kids and left us it only made sense for us to end the evening together. I don't remember the name of the song and I don't remember what all we talked about but I do remember this, "Are you happy Streiter VanQuaethem?" He said, "Yes, I am. Are you happy Darbi Fankhauser?" I said, "Yes, I am!" And then it ended in some sort of a dip. I told you we have moves. That was a very storybook moment for me. I'm going to hang on to that one too.

Most girls sit around and think, "I wonder what ever happened to old so and so" but me? I got to find out. And there they were; My two first crushes and they are healthy and happy and they got to see that I am healthy and happy and we're all grown up and they didn't care that I had back fat hanging over my strapless gown. To them I was still their Darbi. That's who I am and that's who I'll always be.

The craziest part? I still feel like a kid. But I am not. I am a grown woman. A woman with kids. One of those kids is in the first grade. And when I pick him up from school he says things like, "I told Megan if she runs in the field with me at recess I will still be her boyfriend." I totally relate because that's the logic we had at 6 (and sometimes at 32) when love was conditional and parents were so old! I don't know if I'm ever going to feel old or like a grown up, and I don't want to, but I do know this: When Blake is in his 30's I'm going to ask him "What ever happened to little ol' Megan?"