Update on life

I found a day care willing to take all three littles, and went and visited there yesterday. It seems pretty cool - they teach the kids spanish, letters and numbers and how to write them, and all kinds of things. Ages are grouped together so kids can play with kids their own age, but sometimes kids are held back or pushed ahead depending on their abilities/development. Basically it seemed like a good place to me, though I have literally NO experience picking out a day care so really what do I know! When I was there visiting kids were singing their ABC's and a lady was singing to a baby as she changed her diaper. I think those are good things! It seems clean, they have regular nap times which is important, and the workers all seemed very kind and helpful.

So basically (if this works out the way I hope it will) the kids will go there on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays from 8:30-ish until 2:30-ish. On days they have visits they will go there from 11 a.m. until they leave for their visit. If the visit gets canceled, they will have to stay at daycare until 5:00 in order to get the 6 hours that is required (being gone at a visit can count as time towards daycare I guess). So basically in a normal week assuming visits don't get canceled they will be at daycare for about 24 hours, and a good portion of that (10-12 hours) will be napping. So I think that is not too much time. When they are not at daycare I will still have the baby. I won't get paid at all, so basically I will be doing it out of the goodness of my heart. I am barely getting paid for watching her now though, so I won't even notice, really. ;)

Speaking of the baby, her foster mom has confirmed that she does not want to provide permanency for her. I am hoping she can come live with us. I am sad for the baby and I hope she doesn't have to go live somewhere else. :( It's hard to know what the best thing to do is. Bio mom just got released from where she is, so now is her time to fly or fail - I am waiting anxiously to see what happens but I know it will all take time. Time, time, time...that is the mantra of this case and I'm sure for much of foster care. It has already been so much time (13 months and counting!) and I feel so badly for these children. I feel like M is very attached to her FM (and to me, somewhat) and Y is very attached to me. The other kids are not as much, but I know C is getting more attached, and I think D is very attached to the idea of having a "dad" like my husband is though I doubt he would ever admit it.

The whole thing is just sad.

D allowed his ex-girlfriend to manipulate him in to becoming his girlfriend again. Apparently she "asked him out" while she was already technically with some other guy. She sounds like a real keeper! I know they are 11 and it's not serious but sheesh. I asked him what is good about her and he could not think of one thing. I think something that he likes about her is what they have in common, which is that they both have apparently had abusive men in their past and they were dealing with it at the same time. I am sure that is a strong connection; I know at that age how it feels like no one understands what you are going through. I just wish he could see through that, but we are trying to help him work through it. It seems like his main requirement for a girlfriend is that she likes to talk - other than that not much else matters! He has already said he will break up with her over the summer and apparently she knows this too. Kids are so weird.

On that note, we have asked to start doing respite again for boys around D's age. I think it would be good for him to be around some kids that are kind of in the same boat he is, just so he doesn't feel so alone. I told our worker that we don't want any kids that are too crazy, mainly because of the little ones we care for. I asked her maybe if we could do it for the old C and Y, and she said she wasn't sure where they were but she could find out. So we'll see what happens with that!

So that's the latest I guess. We get to meet our new SC tomorrow which I am pretty excited about. I hope she will be good! :)