An Unexpected Turn

Pictures went really well yesterday.  Oscar's dad, grandma, grandpa and aunt were there.  They also brought along his grandma and grandpa's adopted twins, who are about to turn four years old... meaning Oscar has an aunt and uncle that are a little over three years older than him.  From the beginning, when we got the original call to take Oscar in July (sadly, we had to say no at the time), we were told that he was a mixed race baby... the races being caucasian and latino.  So when I got there yesterday, I was fully expecting a latino family to get out of the car.  Like... to the extent that I will randomly say things to Oscar in Spanish, just because we knew that someone in his family spoke the language.  As of yesterday, we now know that no one speaks Spanish as a first language... because they are not latino at all... they're black.  Everyone was super sweet and wanted to take their turn to hold him, even one of the twins.  His grandparents bought him some new teething chew things and a new outfit for the pictures.  They took a few pictures of everyone, some of just the kids, some of just the little kids, and then they did some all girls and all boys pictures.

Leonard and Penny were taking a nap when I left, so The Wife stayed home with them.  As Oscar and I were leaving to come back home from the pictures, I asked his grandma if she'd take a picture of Oscar and his dad, so I could show the kids and The Wife.  She took it and then sent it to me in a text message.  When I got home, I showed The Wife the picture and she thinks that Oscar looks like his dad... I don't really see it.  Then again, I'm really bad at seeing resemblances like that.  I showed the picture to the kids also and they didn't really comment other than a slight "aw" from Penny.  A few hours later, as I was getting Oscar ready for bed, Penny sat down next to me on the floor and was looking at him.  She turned to me and said, "So he's black?"... I guess it just took her that long to put it together with the picture she had seen.  Then she just said, "That's just how God made him"... oh the sweet innocence and reasoning of a four year old.

He's Not a Dog

Those are actual words that I just had to say to Leonard as he threw Oscar's toy toward him and said "fetch".  Clearly this is a child with little to no experience with babies... but perhaps some with puppies.  Oscar has been laying on the floor being entertained by Leonard for about 45 minutes.  The fetching incident was just a brief lapse in judgement by a two year old.

Insensitive

We have come to the conclusion, over the last three and a half months, that Leonard feels no pain.  He is constantly falling down and causing bodily harm to himself.  Occasionally, he'll even run full speed into a wall... just because he doesn't stop.  He ran past me a few minutes ago, caught his leg on the ottoman, and went flying through the air in sort of a flip.  After he hit the ground with a thud, he looked up at me and laughed.  I think there have been maybe three times that he has cried due to an injury, but at this point, I am willing to attribute that to being scared more than hurt.  Maybe he just has a higher threshold for pain than anyone... ever?  Who knows really.  We're going to go to the park today or tomorrow... he'll probably fall off the top of a slide and then get up and run back up it to go again.

Not Our Family. Just A Family.

Ok... his family... but it's funnier to say "a family".  Oscar is going to get a family portrait taken today with his dad's family.  They didn't even know that he existed until a couple of days after he came to us, which was about three and a half months after he came into care and almost seven months after he was born.  I called Oscar's grandma back last night and let her know that I never heard from Elaine on whether or not it was ok for them to take him, so I would just come meet them for the picture.  We didn't have anything planned for our day anyway, so no big deal.  Grandma even bought him a new outfit for the picture.  They have gone from not knowing about Oscar at all to wanting him to come live with them and see him all of the time in a matter of about two weeks.  We think things are looking pretty good for his future with them.

Visits and a Call

All of the kids had visits today.  And everyone even showed up this week.

No real news from the visits that I know of at this point.  I did learn that Leonard and Penny had ravioli and sandwiches for lunch.  Both from their mom.  I feel as though one of those two things is inaccurate to some extent.  The only mention of food that came from their dad was some milk... which we all know cannot possibly be true.  You can't go from $40-50 of terrible food to just milk.  I really don't think he has it in him.

Oscar's great grandma and mom came to the visit today.  Mom was something.  She sure seemed to know a lot about Oscar, even though he has been in care longer than he was out of it.  She referred to the way he is, in reference to eating, sleeping, etc., and all I could think was "how could you possibly know that?".  I can assure everyone that this baby is not anywhere near the same baby that he was even two weeks ago, let alone seven months ago.

Elaine is leaving in two weeks for her maternity leave.  We're skeptical as to if she will ever return.  Of course, if she does come back, there's a chance we would never know, because she doesn't do the whole "updating us on anything ever" thing.

Oscar's paternal grandparents called me today to ask if he could come with them for a family portrait tomorrow afternoon.  I'm in the process of checking on this with Elaine, but obviously she is nowhere to be found... going on three hours now.  She was ok with him going with them next week for a family dinner, so it will probably be fine for tomorrow also, but we don't want to risk it without permission.  It's hard to say how involved his dad is or is going to be, but his grandparents seem willing and able to take care of him, whenever they can get things sorted out between the agency and the state.  It's nice to have someone connected to one of our placements that can (and seemingly will) do something about making a better place for their child or, in this case, grandchild.

An Email

I got an email from Oscar's grandma today.  They are having a family dinner next Friday night so the entire family can meet him.  She seemed super nice and said that they were very excited to have their first grandchild.  Through her email address, we can tell that she works at a local hospital, so that at least gives us hope that Oscar will have a well-established, loving, responsible family to go back to when is time with us is over.  Yes, I know working at a hospital doesn't necessarily mean those things, but since she at least has a job, I'm hopeful... that's more effort than his mom has made since he came into care almost four months ago.  I gave her my phone number so she could call and set up a time and make the arrangements for next week, so hopefully she'll call soon.

Halloween

The kids had a good time trick or treating.  Penny told me that they hadn't ever done that before, but that she really liked it.  Leonard would be too young to remember even if they had done it.  We walked up the street a little ways, with Oscar watching everything from his stroller, and stopped at the houses on the way back toward home.  The Wife texted and told me to drop Oscar by and she would feed him and put him to bed.  We stopped by the house, dropped the baby off, and went back on our way so Leonard and Penny could stop at some more houses.  All in all, I think we were out for about 45 minutes, but the kids took in quite a haul for that amount of time.  Everyone thought that they were very cute in their costumes and Leonard only tripped over his cape four or five times.