Mother and I attend an evaluation from a developmental pediatrician. The night before the evaluation, I e-mail the mother to assure her that she is the baby’s mother and therefore she should just look at it as if I was there to help her and nothing else. I also assure her that none of the medical professionals involved in the baby’s care have made any kind of negative judgment about the drug exposure, the foster care situation or the mother (she had expressed concern about this); and that since I have been through evaluations like this, that if I believe what they are saying to be far-fetched, I will advocate for a second opinion.

At the evaluation, I allow the mother to take the lead and only answer questions when I know she either looks to me or goes silent and assumes I will answer--but allowing her to be "mom" and me to be "caretaker". Dr. notes things already known about her delays and finds the baby’s prognosis to be good although he notes she is likely to be bipolar. He expresses agreement with delaying additional Early Intervention time for cognitive delays.

A transport worker who had proven to be troublesome for this mother in making false statements to CPS and myself about the mother did the mother’s transport for this evaluation and reported strange behavior after the evaluation. The caseworker calls me to understand the mother’s behavior during the evaluation. I tell the caseworker that I have been in the mother’s shoes with my own biological child for the exact same evaluations (albeit different causes of problems) and have behaved much like this mother did; and went on to explain the emotions involved. Caseworker is satisfied and mother gets her first unsupervised visit on 4/9. I send the mother my cell phone number in case she has any questions.

On 4/16 baby returns from a visit acting strange with disrupted sleep and a fit of inconsolable screaming even though she is not breaking a tooth (and not doing her typical teething things). Mother has been out of touch all afternoon and doesn’t respond to give a feeding/sleeping update—which is out of character for her. CPS advises that Cookie’s grandmother is unhappy here and Cookie’s mothers work hours are so few that the grandmother is supporting them. Grandmother is also a waitress.

In another e-mail, I update her on my sister-in-law who had exited rehab in February (the mother had been asking in January).

Mother goes to her first “commitment” at local mental health facility. This is somehow related to sobriety and she is nervous about speaking.

At this point, there are no more e-mails between the mother and I; but there proceed to be some phone calls

PMS is still a big problem. I need to take my meds more faithfully. 'Nuff said.

Buddy left us a week ago today. He went to a SHSP ("ships") home. They serve "medically fragile" children. We thought the respite foster parent was ridiculous when she said he was choking so frequently, but he was home about 5 days and had 4 incidents of stopping breathing in 48 hours. So on one hand, I'm sorry he left; but on the other--I'm glad: I don't want to have a child die in my care. We tried to find immediate CPR training, but apparently that doesn't exist.

Buddy being in our care started to make us wonder if we could bond with a child of another race. Not just African-American... but any child that didn't look like they could be ours. Combined with the very unsettling incident we had at WalMart (when I was alone with the 3 kids and told by 2 AA women that I should find my own kids and stop stealing black babies) I'm not sure how to approach adoption outside of my race. Is this something you get used to? And even if other people GET used to it... could we?

Wednesday we were told that Cookie would be recommended to go home on 5/19. It's possible that the judge won't wait 12 days (court is on 5/7) and she'll go home immediately. I just went out and bought her a new wardrobe. I would have had to do it anyway because she just hit a new size. She'll start her new life well dressed if nothing else! I'm going to miss her.

The next day we got a call from Trenton to say we had been matched for adoption. Of course it's a little AA girl... almost 2yo. Something is very wrong with her because she's not walking yet and has a ton of Early Intervention therapy. Speech/communication, OT and PT. We agreed to find out more, but are really concerned about her not walking. She may be more special needs than we can handle given Graham's stuff.

Oh... Graham's "stuff"... includes being at a small gathering today at a park where he was the oldest child and 5 of them run off to hide under a huge holly tree. Suddenly, Graham is crying and screaming only to find that one of the kids has thrown dirt/sand into his mouth and face. The two other boys were apparently the culprits and they were 3-ish. All I could think was that we were in for a lifetime of this kind of crap. That maybe I was naive to think he wouldn't qualify for his diagnosis this year.

I'm tired. I just want to sleep. And I'm not pregnant again.

Matt has been in Las Vegas all week at a convention and Buddy has been in a respite home for the week. Graham had been getting sick--which meant he was up intermittently each night. Buddy had his days and nights mixed up. With Matt here--that's doable: he takes one and I take the other. It's broken sleep, but sleep none-the-less. Without Matt, I would get one settled down with a 15 minute break before the other was up again. NO sleep. So I requested respite. Add to it that Cookie went on her first unsupervised visit.

It's been a really nice week. Cookie feels so much like my own that I just felt... I don't know... "normal". I felt like it was me and my two kids with my husband away. There was no trying to adjust to Buddy or being frazzled. Cookie's been here a long time and she's predictable. It was peaceful.

But it's Friday and Buddy came home this afternoon. Matt's plane should be landing in 23 minutes. We had a rough week of it, Matt and I, and it ended with a 4am screaming match last night. I think we were both overtired and upset about being apart. Thankfully, it's okay now.

I'm going to miss Cookie horribly. I'm surprised at how natural it felt to hold Buddy today when he came home. I was starting to feel like if he didn't come back, it was no big deal. I hadn't bonded with him really. I still feel that way--I just didn't realize how accepting I was of him, either. It's somewhat of a relief.

It's raining... so I have a migraine... plus the adrenaline that helps ease the migraine pain. Needless to say, staying up to welcome Matt home won't be too hard.