We've had the girls a week and a half. It seems like so much longer. So many decisions have been made - so many things have changed - so many things have happened. I can't believe how much was packed into that first week. And this week has been as beautiful as a week as could be wanted. Things that just bring tears to my eyes they are so beautiful. Picture perfect with these girls that have had their picture ripped up and shredded by the poor decisions of their parents.
Quick Review:
Friday - called at 4:30 pm in need of a placement for two girls.
Saturday - spent the day at home getting to know them. Alaska is in love and has a new best friend. Also, combing through hair for lice took up about half of the day. Over the weekend I spent 9 hours combing through hair when it was all added up. My feet were swollen each time afterward and my back ached.
Sunday - Church and then went up to my parents' house for John's birthday dinner of steak. We had celebrated the week before (Easter) but he needed his special birthday dinner rather than Easter spread. Which I was grateful for. The girls did great - getting rowdy about the time they got tired. The volume in that house was huge.
Monday - D didn't want to go to school. She had been telling me all weekend she didn't want to. I called the school in a panic, explaining our situation and her not willing to get out of bed. The secretary had relief spread through her voice over the phone to me, expressing her concern for this little girl and how grateful she was that D was in a safe place and how they (her teacher and this secretary) had been so, so worried for her. Especially since she had missed all of the week before of school. Which I can only imagine. I am sure it was the school that had called the situation in - probably had been calling the situation in since D was in kindergarten. But it finally stuck. Because there are small consequences for what they call 'chronic neglect' - it takes a long, long time. And then for the call to be made that makes the difference and then to not have that child come to school all the next week. Yes. I bet the secretary was extremely worried. Turns out, the safety plan that the kids had been put in, had failed on Friday and that's why I had gotten the call. The safety plan that was supposed to be the best for them - better than ripping them out of their life that they knew and the potential to keep them out of a foster home - had busted. Grandma hadn't been able to get D to school all week and other things added up and that landed them in our care. We were 20 minutes late to school, but got there with braids in her hair and clean clothes. I literally dressed D while she was in bed - pulling her jammies off, slipping a shirt on - pulling her jeans on. She knew I was serious at this point and she worked herself out of bed for a bowl of dry cereal (her preference) and braids in her hair.
Also this day is the shelter hearing. This is the hearing that foster parents are often invited to - but it's usually a last minute call of, "Court is in a hour, will you be there?" It has to happen within 24 hours of the kids being placed - so they are usually in the afternoon. In our case, since placement was done on a Friday - shelter hearing was done on Monday. I waited until 11:30 without hearing from anyone from DHS. My patience was about shot. I packed up Talmage and E and headed down to the court house to check out the roster. They won't give any information out over the phone and even when I got there, I found I had to have a case number, which wasn't on any of my paperwork. Thank goodness someone from DHS was coming down the stairs the same time I was standing at the front desk flustered about not being able to figure out which case was ours and let me know the hearing would be at 3:00. Got a call from DHS at 1:30 - "Hey, shelter hearing is at 3. Will you be there?" Right. Because I would have had to find childcare within a hour and a half if I hadn't done this rodeo before. So dumb.
Thank goodness for an amazing mother-in-law who empowers me and is able to watch the kids. I had let her know that morning that I would need her to watch the kids, but didn't know the time and wouldn't know the time until later - but that it would be in the afternoon. I messaged her when I was back in the car after visiting the court house and letting the kids go up and down the huge stairs a couple of times. C was also going to be dropped off while I was at court, for dance. A houseful.
The hearing was horrendous. Not bad as in abuse, that so often first comes to mind, but bad as in neglect. My eyes welled up with tears thinking about the hard things these two girls have been through. And how sweet they still are. Neglect has a wide spectrum - none of it less or more than the other side of the spectrum - it's just super wide. And heartbreaking.
Tuesday - Steven had the day off. Another thing that just made everything add up just right. And I had my glucose test that day. We had arranged it this way so Steven could watch Talmage instead of me taking him to my 2.5 hour appointment with me - turns out, things just add up in just the right way. The girls had visit with mom that morning. Steven took them and reached out to mom and aunt and that was a good step for us.
Wednesday - Amani Center. This is a check-in center for sexual abuse. They used to have every kid who came into care go through this center, and then things got busy and it got put on the back burner and now they are trying to get more kids through here. The girls and their brother went because of their mother's connections to 'unsafe people' and the people that she allowed to be around the kids. A good precaution. And I still don't know the results of this - so I suppose we're all clear. No news is good news. This literally took all day. 9:30-12:30. D missed all day of school for it. Which would usually not be the case, except that there was a bomb threat at her school that day and school was released early. Blessings. I am not yet signed into the school alerts and would have missed the whole thing.
Thursday - this is the day it all went down. DHS had not found a place for all three siblings to go together yet. I am in love. These girls are the most precious and my heart keeps on getting love-taps. Breaking it open, slowly, slowly. I am tired of living in constant turbulence. Waiting for a call from DHS - "We found a home, we'll be by to pick the girls up in a hour." That is not planful at all. The whole week I had been planning for that phone call. The girls' things were still packed, Alaska was still out of her room. The house just felt like it was waiting impatiently for motion. I messaged DHS with my conclusion. I wanted all three kids placed together, and would hold onto the girls until that place could be found. And I wanted a week's notice. If they found a placement on Monday, I could have the girls prepared for a move on Friday. We were going to need a bunk bed.
Savannah was sick this day. She had been throwing up the night before and I kept her home. Talmage was also throwing up. I did more laundry this day than I have done in a long time. It worked out for the best, though, as there is a nurse who comes out to the homes within a week of placement and check on the kids. A general exam of weight and measurement and temperature. She wouldn't have been able to stop by if Savannah had been at school. The attorney had also scheduled a meeting for this day, after school. So many things to pack in.
The court has 60 days to make a follow-up appointment to the shelter hearing. And they always schedule it at the end of the session - so everyone can divy out their schedules. Things are so clogged right now that we ended up using the judge's lunch hour for the following Friday. That meant the kids' attorney needed to get on the hustle to meet the kids and prepare for court in a week.
Friday - I was subbing for my dad. It was a beautiful day again and after the school pick-ups, Tamera had taken the kids to the park. We stayed there for 4 hours, soaking up the sun and the warmth. It has been so incredibly rainy here - it's impossible to think of sunny days and shorts and flip-flops. We're still sloshing around in rain boots. And that was the end to a very crazy, very busy week. We did another lice shampoo ordeal, spent another back breaking amount of time going carefully through hair. Swollen feet. The whole bit. But like I said. This past week has been beautiful. Absolutely heart-tapping. I call them my 'love-taps' and they just add up faster and faster.
Saturday - Shopping day. Tamera helped me with all three girls. Her taking two of them while I did one. I didn't know their sizes and wanted to get them clothes that fit. Turns out - I kind of got the wrong sizes anyways - but they work.
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