Court part...whatever

Well, court was yesterday. Basically it was no big deal, it was an exception hearing. I guess once kids have been out of home for more than 15 months (these kids are going on 18 months) there has to be a really good reason to not terminate rights. In this case, the really good reason is that bio mom is making excellent progress. The state, the Family Permanency Specialist, the kids' GAL, and bio mom's attorney all testified that they felt that giving the exception to continue out of home placement was a good idea. They all sung mom's praises far and wide.

Then the judge got to dad's attorney, and he was all "Well, MY client has been doing really good too!" It was so funny. No one cares about goober man dad. He doesn't even want custody and even if he did I doubt he would get it.

Anyway. Basically several people during court said the kids would be returning home "soon" (whatever "soon" means). I am a little nervous because right now, bio mom only has all 4 of her kids at once for 6 hours per week. She has 38 hours of visitation a week total (21 hours of that is D's overnight visit), but most of that time only 1, 2, or 3 of the kids are there. I know that personally, after a few hours of having all 4 of the kids at once I am a little stressed out! Dinner times are totally nuts when you are the only adult with 4 kids, especially if anyone is in a less than peachy mood. I sent an email to everyone asking if there was a plan to get her more parenting time with all of them....we'll see what they say.

D's first overnight visit is tonight, and he and I are both pretty darn excited! I asked him if he and his mom had any plans for the night and he said "You mean, besides staying up all night?" I bit my tongue - but that is exactly why I wanted him to stay with bio mom all day the day after an overnight visit. :) Anyway, it will almost be like a night of respite - we won't be able to go anywhere, but we will be able to put the kids to bed and then have several hours to watch a movie or whatever!

I have been watching our friend's baby for the past two weeks. It's not a huge amount of time, just from 6:45 a.m. until 11:00 a.m. three days a week. But I have been getting up by 6:15 or so to start coffee and do my Bible reading and stuff...and I gotta tell you, I am looking forward to not having to get up quite so early next week! Normally I wake up on my own at about 6:30 or 6:45 every day, and even though I am still tired I just get up because I know the rest of the house will be getting up soon and I savor those moments by myself before the day starts. It's funny how just losing 30 minutes or so of sleep a few days in a row makes you feel so exhausted!

Fall has arrived with a vengeance - the high on Monday was over 90 degrees, and now suddenly the highs the past few days have been only in the 50s and 60s. And the last two mornings my car temperature thing said it was 43 degrees! Brrrr! That kind of weather is coffee-twice-a-day weather. :)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The news

In the spirit of this being my blog, and knowing that if anything were to happen I'd be blogging about it, I am sharing my news. So, several weeks ago I started feeling sick. We have been so lucky this year, we really haven't been sick at all which is really saying something considering the number of people who live in this house. I figured we were due, and wasn't too worried about it. You already know where this is going don't you!?!?!? A few weeks later, I really wasn't feeling any better.  Suspicious, I took a pregnancy test. Positive! What??!?!??! Yeah. Ben is 13 months old today, and I am 8 weeks, 4 days pregnant. Due September 25.  I am still nursing Ben at least 6 times a day, sometimes as much as 8 times. Apparently I have become Miss Fertile at some point over the last 2 years, after about 5 years of being Miss Infertile. There have been some moments of panicking, like when I called my mom because I was so scared to tell Brian because I thought ...
Read more

Big News

Alright, I think I'm ready to share. I was going to wait a few more days for more confirmation, but honestly I feel like all of you that follow my blog are my friends, and so if this doesn't work out then I am going to be on here crying and everything about it so I might as well just tell you, right? In July I started feeling really ill. I was having a hard time with getting out of bed in the morning. I was also training for a 31-mile race which takes place in October, and I noticed that physically I was just falling behind.  I religiously time my runs and I could see that my paces were getting slower and slower, and in the mean time I felt like I was working harder and harder.  I never felt well; in fact I felt downright awful. I just wanted to sleep all day, or at least just lay on the couch and watch TV. I had another symptom which made me very suspicious. My boobs hurt like nobody's business. Usually this is a sign that I am about to start my "surprise" pe...
Read more

Birth Story

Image
Before I worry all of you, I want to let you know that at 5:24 a.m. on Thursday, January 17th, I gave birth to a 3 pound baby boy. He is healthy and doing awesome so far. I was exactly 29 weeks into my pregnancy. This is my birth story. The evening of the 15/16th I was having some contractions. Nothing too crazy though. The morning of the 16th I complained to Brian that every time I moved in bed I had a contraction.  After what happened last week (having contractions, went to L&D, nothing was wrong) I just assumed it was basically the same. The 16th was my 30th birthday.  I felt pretty crappy all day.  I assumed I was either starting to get sick (since my 3 little ones had been sick) or else that my body was working hard to fight off the sickness. I went to the Social Security Office to request new SS cards for the kids, came home and took a nap, and swept and mopped the kitchen floor. That was pretty much all I did, other than making dinner and general kid ta...
Read more