CPS confirms that they will not transition the baby home. On 3/9 I contact the baby’s GAL office regarding this matter and the lawyer contacts me stating that she “could not agree with me more”—requesting permission to use my e-mail in communicating with CPS’ attorney. (Subsequent to this, the baby does undergo transitioning).

Maternal aunt advises that the mother has lost both of her jobs (she was working at 2 diners). I relay to CPS and they confirm this—but were surprised to hear it from me as opposed to the mother.

Service provider worker supervising the visits notes that unsupervised visits will not happen until after 5/7 but caseworker tells me that after a 3/17 meeting they will begin in the next week or two for undefined periods of time. The caseworker tells me that the mother will have unsupervised visits for whatever periods of time I would have wanted Cookie to be in daycare (which at this point she is not). CPS also reverses their opinion that the maternal grandmother cannot be a “safe person” for the baby and supports a waiver to allow the grandmother and mother to live together without jeopardizing reunification. Caseworker states that they would prefer the grandmother live with the mother and child in case the mother relapses—they felt the grandmother would notify CPS.

Mother and grandmother move to a place in-county with all household items and furnishings supplied by a local organization and apparently the current service organization supervising visits will note what is missing for Cookie, and mother assumes CPS will supply it. She later notes delivery of a crib, but doesn't mention shopping for it. Mother and grandmother sharing a vehicle since the accident.

Visits start in the mother's home.

Early Intervention agrees to increase therapy to 2 hours/week due to the lack of significant progression and the severity of the baby's hypertonia and some recent regressions. They consider adding a third hour because she is still cognitively delayed. She's 7 months and starts babbling; and eats like a champ.

Carl left us on 3/11. We really just couldn't take it anymore. He AGAIN tried to throw something at Graham and enough was enough already. I really couldn't take the chance that the judge would keep him in care past 3/20. They sent him HOME and then on 3/20, the older sister was sent home as well (to get her out of the shelter). Graham hasn't even batted an eye. Nor have Matt and I. I don't even really feel bad about it: he didn't belong in a regular foster home. We did well beyond the call of duty.

We have a new resource worker. That's like a caseworker for foster parents. She rocks. When we need something or have a question, she looks up the person we're talking about or the child and gives us the dirt. It's remarkably helpful. Did I mention we like her? LOL! And we find it easy to be honest with her about anything without worrying that she'll judge us. Major plus.

Meanwhile, while he was here, Carl fit in the back seat of the truck. On a lark, we decided to get the extra infant carrier and base from the attic and sure as shootin'... it fit. So Matt and I decided that maybe it would be best to stick to infants. First, I seriously don't have the patience for the older kids. I have NO FLAMING CLUE how I'm ever going to handle Graham at that age. Seriously. We weren't entirely certain we could HANDLE two infants, but it was worth trying.

So Carl left on Tuesday, 3/11 and I e-mailed DYFS on Friday morning to say we could take another infant. Then I spoke to the placement coordinator about the ages we could accommodate with the current vehicle configuration. Monday night, 3-week old Bitty Buddy Bear arrived (aka "Buddy"). He's African-American and has SO MUCH HAIR. He's also been here 2 weeks and has really been miserable. As of today, we changed him over to soy-based formula to see if that helps AT ALL. His mother has had two visits with him. The first she brought an enormous entourage and was told that if she did that again--the visit would be cancelled. The second one, she and her grandmother showed up but the mother left within 15 minutes of the 2-hour visit. Her grandmother (the baby's great-grandmother) stayed.

Buddy has already rolled over 3 times and as of today, he's only 5 weeks old. He went through what LOOKED like withdrawal, but he was born clean (per the tests--which are really not all that sensitive to marijuana, mom's drug of choice). Mom was testing positive after the birth and thus the removal. Apparently, she is from an entire family of DYFS cases (thus the baby is not with a relative). But I think it's too soon to tell whether or not her behavior is indicative of how the case will turn out. Hell, NOBODY thought Cookie would ever go home... and she starts unsupervised visitations soon.

Cookie's caseworker said that DYFS intends to just take her one day--no transition. I told her that THAT would be a letter I would be writing to the judge. I'm also going to e-mail her mother and see if we can get on the same side about it.

I'm addicted to coffee. I'm trying to stop.

Graham is addicted to swimming. I'm trying to encourage! ;)

and Carl IS leaving on 3/20. He doesn't know that yet. It's a matter of whether a judge will send him home, or if DYFS will find a treatment home for him. I don't think he should go home. His lawyer's investigator will be here on Tuesday and she doesn't feel strong about him staying out of his house, then I'm either going to write a letter to the judge or show up in court. This kid has problems. He is certainly responding and certainly getting better--but there really is no way we can provide this level of effort to help him long-term. That's a therapeutic level of care and we have two other kids to consider. We're not set up for that. And we've told him as much.

Manipulative? ALL pre-teens and teens are manipulative. It comes with the territory. But man--this is ridiculous. And you can't even fathom how far he takes it. Then, when it's not working, the fall is really hard. Yesterday, I thought I might actually have to call Mobile Response and have him removed right then and there. I had never seen him so angry in the 3 weeks since he's been here. Matt actually had to get off of a conference call (on a Saturday--so it was an important call) to work with him. The thing is, you can't just do whatever to calm him down. He can't think that he can pull that kind of behavior and get what he wants. We have to work through it. Otherwise, the behavior never changes.

But we are ready for him to leave. We both feel horrible about the fact that we are literally counting the days... but we are.

In the meantime, I saw a beautiful little African-American boy on another state's adoptive photolisting. We were both nervous about adopting outside of our race (we're Caucasian) and the more different a child looked to us, the more worried we were. Part of it WAS us and whether or not we'd be able to look at that child and think it was our own; but another part of it was Matt's family. I'm Caucasian and 1/4 Italian and I am still an outsider. I'll never be one of them. How would it be for a child who was dark-skinned AA? But we both saw the picture and the description and neither of us really cared. He was just beautiful. He's also undoubtedly taken since the profile only marked some speech issues and NOTHING else. We would take more issues, he just doesn't happen to have any per the profile. Of course, the profile doesn't always tell you--but often they give enough info so that if you can "read between the lines", you know there are at least issues even if you don't know exactly what they are. This child had none; but that could be a novice profile writer.

Right now it's just Cookie and I... enjoying the silence. Matt took Graham to karate (he's now a level higher due to his January birthday) and Carl went with them to get out of the house. They're late coming home and I'm hoping that means they got Graham a haircut. I can pray, at least.