Bye Bye Drama

Drama Boy left on Wednesday but he held true to his blog name until the very end. On the night before Sparky left a few months ago, DB had a big crying fit over something. I can't even remember what it was now except that it certainly had something to do with something he thought he should get but didn't. On Wednesday he was teary and rude because he thought Ana should have brought him a present and a better dessert when she went to the store. Oh, boo hoo. She bought him a drum at the thrift store the day before even though he acted like a bug when we found clothes for The Boss and the girls and not for him.

Anyhoo...never at a loss for irony....we packed up two bins of toys, two huge bags of stuffed animals and bedding, two backpacks full of stuff, a gigantic suitcase plus a box of clothes, three guitars, two amps, a tv and game system, a box of outdoor toys, and the drum. He had like 50 shirts (not kidding) and at least five toothbrushes that I packed. It's a darn shame nobody ever bought anything for the kid, or so he told his mom who told it to the social worker who turned it into a referral and an investigation.

And just to show their conviction of his deprivation, his grandma was going to transport their mom, both boys, and all of their belongings in a Saturn. We had to wedge his stuff into every available space in my Expedition with only a small hole for him to squeeze into. When Sparky left he also had a huge suitcase, several boxes, bedding. He left some things with DB that we had to send on Wednesday too.

We've had several occasions that the parents have been so upset and angry over the loss of their kids that they have insisted that the kids are in more danger in foster care. One nutty mother even alleged that her two year old girl was molested by a little boy in the home. That boy was practically a baby and still in diapers. It's sick that some of these kids will always think they were victimized when it's a complete lie.

At least Sparky and Drama Boy's grandma knows the truth even though she made all sorts of crazy accusations in support of her daughter (cold hotdogs? good grief). She told Ana thank you and said if we ever need anything or have any kind of emergency we can call her.

Yeah, thanks. If ever we need an emergency knife in the back we'll be sure to call.

Almost Too Easy

After dealing with Sparky's daily antics for so long it's almost hard to know what to do with peace...okay semi-peace. Drama Boy still takes every opportunity to have a go at Lucky while she continues to put herself in the middle of everyone else's disagreements. Seamonkey and The Boss argue all the day long. Squeaker has an hysterical edge to her voice when talking about math class and has been more irritable than usual since school started. (After talking to her special ed teacher, it comes as no surprise that she is creating the problems for herself in math class.)

Still that's a far cry from over-turned furniture, kicking holes in doors and walls, screeching to annoy, and outright defiance.

Sparky did come for the weekend and was friendly, helpful, generous, appreciative, and entirely pleasant. We hope this keeps up on visits so the boys can see each other regularly. It was an easy weekend for a visit since three of the other kids were gone visiting different family members.

Court again today for the boys but Ana couldn't go because Lucky had a doctor's appointment at the same time. Can't wait to hear what the judge decides to do next especially in light of their mom and grandma's obvious disregard of his instructions last time.

This Just In

News Flash! Drama Boy now saying he really wants to stay...but wants Sparky to move back in.

Poor emotionally fragile kid getting mucked up by family visits every weekend. By the time he recovers and comes to his senses it's time to go back for more.

That judge must have some seriously loose screws to be allowing this.

File Under "Shoulda Known"

Drama Boy called his social worker today to ask if he can move from here, stating that he "really missed {Sparky}". Funny that he didn't "really miss" him until a weekend visit when his mom and grandma could go to work on him. Both boys said they wanted to live apart and DB was going to move too but begged to stay. Now all of a sudden he is clawing to get out and back in the group home. Maddening.

Even though he promised that if he stayed his "getting out" behavior would not continue, it flared up today with a half hour of gagging and crying at breakfast about scrambled eggs. He decided that we were making things he didn't want to eat on purpose just to be mean. Although to be fair, I did tell him maybe I needed to cook foods that weren't his favorite so he could learn to eat them politely as that is an important social skill to develop. I forgot for a moment it is his God-given right to eat only foods that are entirely pleasing and delicious to him.

He was finally excused from the table and then wailed and slammed his dishes around because he is so persecuted. For crying out loud, kid....you won that battle. Does it have to turn into a big drama about how much you hate everybody?

He started in on Lucky again and he keeps asking Ana how soon he can move. He can't seem to understand why that is somewhat irritating after his big, weepy campaign to stay. Ana had to remind him that he is here by his choice and if he wants to leave he needs to be the one to tell his social worker and attorney. Now back to the chore of getting him to do so without his feeling the need to be hateful and make false allegations to get what he wants.

No matter how much he might have wanted to stay, we knew that eventually he would cave to the pressure that his family continues to put on him. He was cooperative and happy for a few weeks after Sparky left and then as soon as he had an unsupervised visit he was back at the same old family line, parroting their exact words. Wrong of them but we're pretty tired of getting jerked around by him even though we know it's a direct result of his family jerking him around.

I think this time we've learned our lesson.

Different Day, Same Old Stuff

Quiet weekend with Lucky and Drama Boy gone on visits.

DB's mom and grandma must have been working on him the whole weekend. The first thing he said to Ana when he got in the car was "Can I go live with {Sparky}?". At dinner he asked Ana "When can I move?" and then laid his head on the table and moped when she said she could not discuss it with him so stop bringing it up. Here we go again. The social worker predicted that he would return from the visit asking to move after spending time with his family. The judge quite severely warned them to stop discussing the case, including placement, with the boys. But they have blatantly disregarded the judge's instructions and rulings for months now.

Lucky and Squeaker were wild and loud at bedtime, Squeaker smart-mouthy too so I hope they enjoy their earlier bedtime tomorrow.

The Boss, while somehow calm and well-behaved at Auntie L's house, has a complete inability to be still or quiet at home. He squirmed all over the seat at dinner then bounced all over the room while getting in his jammies and then flipped, kicked, wiggled and somersaulted all over the bed before finally falling asleep. I was laying on the bed with him reading until the constant bombardment of his flailing hands and feet about drove me batty. That kid needs to get over his fears and sleep in his own bed before he sends me completely 'round the bend. I keep piling up pillows and telling him not to cross them but the little furnace tells me he wants to be right next to me and rolls right over the top crashing into me, stuffed cats, dogs, and bears tumbling behind him. Then he says in his sweetest voice "Sorry mommy for kicking you and bumping you." and "I'm not scared when I'm with you."
Awwwwww.....okay, one more night. I'm such a sucker for those big brown eyes.

Next Stop: The Twilight Zone

In a bizarre turn of events, the judge denied the mother's petition to terminate my guardianship of Sparky and Drama Boy but then ordered increased visitation with a transition schedule to return them to her custody. How does that happen?

My attorney told me this in a "how dumb can you be that you didn't know they were offering a reunification plan" tone of voice as I gaped at him and sputtered my disbelief.

The boys have been in foster care for over four years. That's 2 1/2 years after the manditory deadline for completing a case plan. Not only that, they are in a permanent placement with a legal guardian. As long as parental rights are not terminated, parents can always file a petition claiming "change of circumstances" but, after all this time and all the obvious lies and manipulation...yeah, I'm a little surprised we're now looking at placement in 4 months time.

The social worker had asked me again if I could keep both boys if there was a no contact order (the agency's recommendation) however, now that this is a reunification case, we believe that Sparky's behavior won't allow it. He will move next week. Drama Boy will stay for the time being and start weekly visits and conjoint therapy with his mom.

Now we are called upon to support Drama Boy emotionally during this transition that we so strongly oppose. As for Sparky, it is with supreme sadness and also some relief that we let him go.

It is sadly ironic that the system that tries to prevent attachment issues often is the cause of them and that the result of a child's challenging behavior due to many moves is another move. Yet we must weigh that against the safety of the other children. It is a terrible decision to have to make.

Ramble-Brain and Other Serious Conditions

I could never live alone because I'd have no one to rant to. Every time Ana and I have lived apart we would have hours long "debrief" calls every night so we could blow off all the irritations of the day and figure out how to turn them into funny stories for later.

I'm home alone with the littles as I was all yesterday morning too. I should be working in between sorting out squabbles, getting more toys down, changing laundry loads, and letting the dogs in and out but I can't quite seem to concentrate. I keep wandering around the house turning off lights and fans and closing blinds against the increasing heat.

When I came back from dropping Drama Boy at school I noticed the front window was open. A perfect invitation for someone to crawl right in when we are gone. I closed the window, closed the blinds, turned off the fan, let in the dogs and got to work. About twenty minutes later I heard a door creak upstairs. I got that ouchy heart lurching feeling that I got once when Ana and I walked in on a burglar still in our home. I saw the kicked in back door and realized she had just gone upstairs where the guy was still lurking. Fortunately this time it was just doors flapping in the wind of open windows and half a dozen fans left on by the kids. Sodapop did take the opportunity to follow me up the stairs and pee right where I was sure to step in it. Lousy dog.

Ana just called from court and things are not going well. The agency was going to request no contact with the boys' mom because of all the recent manipulation and the detrimenal affect it has had on them. Apparently that is not going to fly. We agreed we can keep Drama Boy and consider keeping Sparky (with lots of wrap-around services and therapy) but only if a no contact order was granted. We just cannot put the rest of our family at risk. Their mom is the most hateful and spiteful we've ever come across with all the kids we've had...and we've had some pretty gnarly parents and plenty of false accusations before. DB is so desperate to stay and it's going to be so difficult for everybody no matter how it works out. This is definitely one of the more screwed up, messy, painful cases we have gone through and these boys are sure to suffer no matter what is decided today. What a disaster.

Non-Productive to Say the Least

TDM yesterday for the boys was a disaster. These are supposed to be "safe, no shaming, no blaming, blah blah blah" type of meetings. Yeah, my eye.

Even their grandma totally flip-flopped and blamed the boys behavior on their desperation to get away from here. Okaaaay. She allowed them to list "boys behave with mom and family" as a strength even though the boys have threatened to make false allegations against her husband until she told them they would never see her again if they did that and for a while they were not allowed to come for overnight visits because of their misbehavior, stealing, and lying there. Plus boys only have short unsupervised visits with mom. No day-to-day, no chores, no homework, no trying to get along with others. Yeah, I think they can behave that long. Good grief.

Their mom is tryng to make all sorts of allegations to get them moved including saying that the boys told her mom who told a friend who told her that all we feed the kids is cold hotdogs. WTH? That's a new one. "Cold Hotdog" is now our euphemism for "Utterly Ridiculous Complete Nonsense Lie" which happens quite often around here. At least her sources were direct and no hearsay was involved at all. Right. So we'll likely get investigated.

Their mom is adament that they be moved immediately because of the abusive environment here. So far she has on us: 1. We called the police on a destructive, violent kid. TRUE. 2. Ana took one of the kids by the arm and steered him up the stairs in order to keep him from running away out the front door. TRUE. Although their mom used the words "grab" and "drag". 3. We feed the boys only cold hotdogs. Whatever...FALSE. We hardly ever even feed them hotdogs at all unless we are having a cookout and then they are, well, cooked out. The boys often say that at least the food here is really good (despite no tv). Jeez. 4. We favor the other kids. FALSE. Sometimes, due to behaviors, some kids are excluded from some activities. More often, everyone is excluded due to the behavior of one or some. We have to stay home alot because we can't trust the kids to behave correctly. The boys often complain that the others have privileges that they don't. This is, in fact, the quite the opposite of fact since Squeaker, who is two years older than Drama Boy, is not allowed to do some of the things that they are because of her behavior. It's even in a social worker's report that one of their complaints is that they have to go to bed earlier than one of the other kids who happens to be SIX years older than the oldest boy.

The three social workers in the meeting were supportive of us, denied that any of the above would be considered abuse, confirmed that foster parents must call the police if a child is acting in an destructive, unsafe manner. Sadly, their mom would rather have them live in a group home in order to have increased visitation. Their grandma had complained about the boys treatment at their former group home saying "They had to fight for their food. They had to fight for everything. All their Christmas presents were stolen." but when the social worker told bio mom that they would likely go back there but that he would recommend one supervised visit a week she said "Already better."

The agency decided over the protestations of birth mom that the boys would remain here until the trial was concluded. Ana insisted on "no contact" with any of the birth family during this period.

And after the trial they want another TDM since no decision was made in this one. Sorry, there's not enough Peptol Bismol in the world to get me through another meeting with those two women.

Much more on this subject as we can bear to write it. The above barely touches it. This ridiculousness went on for nearly three hours. What a nightmare these people are.

One Week Countdown

Final week before school starts! Yeeeeee-haw!

I wish it had been a more calm and enjoyable summer with the kids and I had mixed feelings about sending my babies back to school. But nope. Can't wait to get them all out the door and back into the routine.

This had promised to be a quiet week with the big boys at camp and just the girls and the littles home, but sadly, it looks like it's not to be. The girls have been meanly sniping at each other all morning. They have now made up and are shrieking through the house to put on swimsuits so they can run through he sprinklers.

We have to run around all week finishing up registration and last minute things for school. We have a "Team Decision-Making" meeting (TDM) tomorrow regarding the older boys. Usually I find these TDMs to be entirely pointless, but at this one we will discuss whether Drama Boy will stay and where Sparky will move. This should be pretty intense because bio mom will surely oppose DB staying even though he has stated quite strongly that that is his wish. Sparky is all over the map--one moment wanting to stay the next snarling his desire to leave. The social worker has asked that Ana consider keeping him here but safety concerns must rule on that score and we already agreed that we cannot do it. The TDM falls during Squeaker's registration so I will have to try to make it up later in the week. Just finding child-care for the girls and the littles while we are one county away took most of the evening last night. The results are not entirely satisfactory but the best we could do.

Okay, so NEXT week will be calm and peaceful, right?

Them's Fightin' Words

Josh McDowell says, "Rules without relationship lead to rebellion."

Of course, it makes perfect sense.

How then, do you enforce any appropriate standard of conduct and behavior for older, unattached children who absolutely refuse relationships? These are children who curse, scream, cry, throw, slam, and break things if you even imply some kind of close connection to them. They think any time they are corrected we are "yelling at them". They shout their hate and cry abuse any time they are made to follow rules they don't like.

While the girls and little boys readily use family words like "sister", "brother", "cousin", "aunt" and sometimes even "mom" for their foster/adoptive family (us), the bigger boys bristle at the very idea. It's as if they feel disloyal to their original family if they allow anyone else in. That's fine. The labels don't matter so much. We let them call us by our first names, but we still use the word "family" to describe the whole, disorderly bunch of us.

They particularly detest The Boss (which is a common thread among our most troubled kids and even our more normal kids often resent him too) since he has been here since birth and is viewed as favored and spoiled because of it. Interestingly, they often ask if he knows he's adopted (yes) and for a while Drama Boy was making an issue that I was not REALLY his mom and where is his REAL mom and are you going to even tell him you're not his REAL mom? Whatever. I'm not that insecure, buddy, but nice try.

An issue today with The Boss knocking over the boys' clean laundry which had been folded and piled high outside their door for a few days, exploded into Drama Boy yelling at him then crying and wailing that they "always get in trouble and no one else does" and Sparky running around in his boxers shrieking and shouting, which was his show of moral support for Drama Boy (as DB said, "We stick up for each other").

Their view continues to be "them against us" and they rebel against anything and everyone else.

Life on the Rollercoaster

Drama Boy and Sparky's mom has petitioned the court to have the boys returned to her custody continuing a 4 year pattern of starting reunification services and ending with incarceration. Four years of broken promises and high hopes that come crashing back down to earth resulting in even more rejection, anger and emotional trauma.

Granted, at the moment she is doing better than she ever has. She completed a drug treatment program (ordered by criminal court as part of her probation) and currently has housing (albeit at a clean-and-sober living program) however her instability has been evident in her increasing hostility, emotional manipulation and irrational accusations.

We have court next week and I really don't know how this is going to go but I know it's not going to be pretty. All I can do is put my boys in God's hands and keep loving them for all the days that He gives us.

All Quiet on the Western Front

It has been uncharacteristically calm (although never quiet) around here this week. Helping this along is that fact that Drama Boy (11 this month) has been gone for a few days to science camp. With half the wrestling duo gone, Sparky (9) has had to content himself with standing on the furniture, drumming the walls, and sneaking candy off the gingerbread houses rather than going for the ultimate pin....apparently garnering more points for an unsuspecting victim and a tackle that results in screeches, tears, and crashing belongings all over the room. He had a storm cloud over his head last night over a homework assignment and no dessert but managed to squash it before it let loose. That's progress, folks. These guys are in guardianship with Ana and, although we share the house and I think they are great, I'm happy to let her wrangle these two wild monkeys.

My kids have also had a relatively calm week. Squeaker (12) had a good day at school yesterday which followed a not-so-good day. I had to pick her up early on Tuesday to avoid an outburst escalating into a third suspension. We had to endure a little bit of attitude afterwards when she had to stay in her room (except for lunch, chores, snack, and dinner) and was required to write an apology note to her teacher. Some stomping on the stairs, a few door slams and snarky comments were mild and mangeable compared to the raging tantrum it could have turned into. She did write a very nice note to her teacher and pulled herself together to have a "great" day despite her vow (decorated with some choice "colorful" words) that she would NEVER go back to that place. She's making a tremendous effort and I'm very proud of her. She has a 4.0 this year, albeit in a special classroom, but she is doing the work and mostly behaving pleasantly in class. Again, progress. Major progress, even.

"The Boss" (4 this month) and grandson (2 1/2) have been squabbling all week in preschool fashion over whose toys are whose and tattling about who is being naughty. They have been blaming each other for things that I find hilarious.

Everyone in our house seems to have a pretty gnarly edge...except shaggy pooch, Cooper, who is about the nicest dog on the planet. I don't think any of the human types in our house would classify as plain old "nice" like he does. But as a friend of mine says "Nice is not one of the fruits of the spirit". Not that we all couldn't use a lot of work on the real ones! But for now, the blessed reprieve from tantrums, cussing, and bad attitudes is good enough for me!