One Thing That We Learned Recently

Is that, when dealing with foster care, you can't really count on a schedule of any kind.

Some nights, Leonard cries.  Some nights, he goes to bed without any tears.  Most mornings, other than today, go off without a hitch.  The kids get up, get dressed, brush their teeth and hair, and then it's off to daycare.  Today there was a minor meltdown somewhere between the bottom of the stairs and the car that sits maybe fifteen feet away from said stairs.  The rule, as Penny stated, is "only the animals (meaning his lion and her giraffe stuffed animals) can go with us on the way to daycare... our cups have to stay here".  This morning, Leonard decided to take exception to the rule and just start crying... for whatever reason.  It's not lack of sleep, as they got about twelve hours worth last night.  Yesterday, he apparently spent the second half of the day at daycare crying on and off, which hasn't happened in several days, but is pretty similar to the first week or so that they were there.  Once we got to the car and he was strapped in, the crying subsided and it was like it never happened.  He walked into daycare under his own power and went right into the classroom like normal.  Can't WAIT for whatever is in store for us tonight at pickup.

Back to the matter at hand though... a schedule.  I realize now that I just wrote a whole lot that was more of a tangent than a story.  Anyway... we were supposed to have a busy week this week.  Play therapy was scheduled for tonight, a visit from our lady from the agency combined with the kids' agency guy tomorrow night, then a birthday party for The Kid on Thursday night.  Well, the play therapist called and had to reschedule for Thursday late afternoon (good thing we're off this week), the agency people emailed and said they needed to reschedule for next week, and so far, the party is still on.  We went from having a nice, quiet week at home on vacation, to a super busy week, to a somewhat busy week, with an especially busy Thursday thrown in there.  So yeah... who knows what's next.  At this point, we're hoping that the weekly play therapy sessions don't last a real long time and after a few weeks, we can be done with that... at least as a weekly meeting.  When we work until 5pm and the kids go to bed at 7:15pm or so, scheduling an hour and twenty minutes of play therapy and, oh yeah, feeding them (a healthy) dinner become more of a juggling act than anything else.  The rough part comes when the weekend rolls around and we're so wiped out from the week that we just had, that even with two full days off, we don't want to go anywhere.

I suppose my hope is that once everyone has had their meetings with Leonard and Penny and things have truly settled in like we thought they already had, that we'll have more time to choose the things that we use our free time for, rather than being told when and where we need to be.  I don't want this to sound like we absolutely detest having them here, we really enjoy both of them, particularly when he isn't sobbing hysterically for no reason.  I assume this is just the way it is in the beginning of a placement.  We're learning how things work as we go, so we'll see.