The Birthday

Leonard's birthday, as I mentioned in a previous post, was last Friday.  He's 3 now.  In foster care terms, that means we got to take the baby gates down... which is awesome.

About a month ago, he told us that he wanted to go to the farmstead for his birthday.  He wasn't interested in a party or anything, so that's what we did.  We went for about an hour and a half and the kids were ready to go home.  It wasn't super warm out and it was very windy, so it wasn't the best day to be there, but they had fun nonetheless.

That evening, The Wife's parents came over for a little celebratory dinner and gifts.  It was a nice change of pace from having a bunch of kids (and adults) over for Penny's birthday back in October.  Had Leonard wanted it, we could have had a bigger party for him, but it's just not his style.

The Dentist

Leonard had his first (and probably last, sadly) dentist appointment today.

Well... I take that back.  He gets to go back in two weeks to get his five cavities taken care of.  Yes.... five.  The Wife took him and he was all smiles and happiness until things started.  Then he freaked out.  He got over it fairly quickly and was back to happy.  He did really well for the most part, considering this was his first ever personal experience with something that can potentially be very scary.  They recommended brushing his teeth three times a day, but short of daycare suddenly implementing a new part to the day where everyone brushes their teeth, there's really no way that can happen.  At least we'll be able to get the current cavities taken care of and he will be sent back to his parents with a healthy set of teeth.

Upside is that I guessed that he'd have six... so... that's something...

Examining his new stuff

Just hanging out... waiting....

Schedules

Penny is obsessed with them.  She wants to know every step of every day.  For us, that's great.  We have a schedule that we lay out and stick to.  It's not super rigorous or anything... just a schedule.  We learned early on that if you deviate from the schedule... bad things happen.  Meltdowns, crying in the night... all sorts of fun results ensue.  Side note... as with most things, Leonard is indifferent to knowing what is going on, but is still affected by any changes. Here is the email that I wrote to the kids' caseworker yesterday:

--------------------------------------------------------

Gloria,

Here are the kids’ schedules that we keep them on.  They love their schedules and we find that any variance tends to have undesirable effects.

Thanks

-------------------------------------------------

We estimate this schedule will be completely dismantled over the course of the next few weeks and then the following months, once they have left our home to go back with their parents.  But who are we kidding really?  The schedule will be gone within three days of leaving our house, if not less.  It won't be our problem obviously, but that doesn't change the fact that it will really affect their behavior and well-being.  We just hope that one or both parents realize that... before it's too late to go back to it.

Here are the schedules... like I said... nothing rigorous.

One Down... So Many to Go

The first extended visit with Leonard and Penny's mom was yesterday.  She picked them up from daycare and then dropped them off at the end of the visit.

I asked them what they did with her and they said that they went to a restaurant and ate and then they went to the park.  That's all fine and well... except I'm reasonably certain that it was fast food and the kids just don't know the difference.  There's no way it was a real sit-down restaurant.  And, of course, there's the fact that they eat lunch at daycare at 11:30am or so... then lay down for naps/rest time at about noon... and then she picked them up at 2:30pm for the visit.  So... yeah... they had two full-blown meals in a span of three hours.

As I write this, they are with their dad for his visit and I'm sure they're about 90 minutes into a massive junk food feast.  Just think of all the blueberries, chocolate milk, fish, pretzels, bananas, random vegetables smothered in ranch, pudding, and other crap he can stuff into them with three hours instead of only one or two.  I know that sounds like good food... but it's really not when they won't stop eating it for the entire visit. It generally ends with Leonard throwing up when he gets back to daycare or when he goes to bed.

Leonard is 3 today.  We have a small celebration planned tomorrow.  He told us a while back that he would like to go to the farmstead that we visited last fall.  Tomorrow just happens to be opening day there, so we will be going to celebrate his birthday and what is supposed to be a beautiful day of mid-70 degree weather.

Fifteen

What is.... the number of hours it took before the news of things changing had an effect on Penny?

Correct.

The only information she had was that they would be picked up at daycare by their parents this week and visits would be a little bit longer.  We decided the best thing to do would be to take it on a week by week basis, so we don't overload her and give her a ton of stuff to process all at once.  Penny loves having a schedule and knowing it.  She always wants to know what we're doing next or how things are gonna go for the evening or day or whenever.  Even though everything is the same for this week, until Thursday and Friday, just the knowledge that things will be different affected her.  She had a little bed wetting incident last night.  It was no big deal and we knew it was coming... we just expected it after things actually changed.

Meanwhile, Leonard has no idea what's going on.  Nor does he care to know.

Can't wait to see what the next five to seven weeks have in store for us.

A Sudden Turn of Events

So... on the 21st, we were told that the judge in the case had said that he would like to see the kids go home by the fourth of July.  In September, he said by Christmas... but whatever.  We had our monthly meeting last night with Gloria and we also got to meet Annie, our third FSC in eight and a half months.  Gloria filled us in on the new plan, which is essentially a seven week reintegration plan with both parents.  The plan is as follows:

Week 1 - Visits are unsupervised and bumped up to three hours per parent

Week 2 - Visits are five hours and take place at each parent's home

Week 3 - Visits are eight hours per parent

Week 4 - One overnight visit per parent

Week 5 - Two overnight visits per parent

Week 6 - Stay the week with one parent

Week 7 - Stay the week with the other parent

The plan starts now.  As it is currently laid out, Leonard and Penny will be leaving us on or around May 3rd, as the last two weeks do not involve us at all.  We are hoping that the longer visit days (the five and eight hours) can take place on the weekends, so as to avoid meltdowns at daycare and such.  We are reasonably certain that the fairly strict schedule we have been instilling in them for the last eight months will be shot all to hell in a matter of days.  At this point, we just hope they can hold it together long enough to make it to the actual transition.  For two kids, who not only enjoy their sleep, but do it so well, going from getting twelve hours at night with a resting/napping period during the day, back to what we've been led to believe was no bedtime and no naps as a general rule, is going to be a huge mess and fairly nightmarish.  We are going to provide a schedule that they kids have followed since coming to our house.  There is a 95% chance that their mom follows it down to every detail.  There is a 3% chance that their dad does the same... and that number may be generous.

Tonight, we begin the packing of the things.  Hopefully Penny will be able to tell us which house some stuff came from, since both parents have sent a ton of toys and things.

Updates All Around

The baby...

IT'S A BOY!!!  We had to withhold the information for a while, since the family didn't find out until this past weekend.  The Wife is in the 23rd week and all is well.  We have a 3D ultrasound scheduled in May, so that should be a fun experience.  We also have a ridiculous amount of clothes and all things baby.  It's a good thing we have a completely unused closet in our room... along with the better part of one of the closets that is in use.  I'm just saying that a 5'x8' rug rolled up takes up a lot of space.  The rug is possibly the best part of the whole thing... since we got the last one that the entire company had for sale.  I am not at liberty to discuss the three giant rubbermaid containers of clothing at this time.  Or the carseat.  Or the diaper bag.  Or the playmat.  At this point... we're just counting down the days until the room is freed up for putting the nursery together.  We're also waiting on all of the nursery furniture to arrive... but we have time.

The fosterlings...

They're still here.  Court was today.  Their dad filed a motion to have the reintegration expedited.  I spoke with Gloria's supervisor (Gloria is out of town) and she said that court was "a fiasco" and a "hot mess".  The judge thanked their dad's lawyer for wasting the court's time and then denied the motion.  The whole ordeal lasted about three and a half hours and ended with basically the same result.  Nothing.  They're going to work on a new reintegration plan and the judge would like to see the kids placed with one parent or the other by the 4th of July.  This is the same judge that said December.  I guess things change over the course of nine months... at least four of which have been fairly unnecessary.  Gloria's supervisor and the GAL discussed things after court (or during, I'm not sure) and they think that the most likely scenario is that one parent is given custody and the other is terminated.  Otherwise, the parents will have to learn to work together in parenting and that just doesn't seem anywhere near possible at this point.  They have another fifteen years of dealing with each other and haven't managed to get the last two correct.

Every time I write a new entry, I say that there will be more to come... then I take another month off.  Maybe this will be the time it's true.  I can at least manage to get some good pictures up on here... probably.