The Week In Review

Shadow is ... Shadow, though less shadowy. She defies me in small subtle ways. Like, she will do her chore (with TONS of reminders by me) which is vacuuming, but she won't empty the canister. Or she will empty it but not take it apart to wash it so I'll find it sitting beside the sink with wet hairy gunk all over it. Meanwhile every time we are around another foster parent, she is their BFF. Can't get enough of them. They are the greatest mom EVAR. At an event recently, she hung out with an 11 year old. Shadow kept saying "I can't believe I look just like Swimmer* and she is only 11!" and I wanted to say "I can't believe you act just like Swimmer* who is ONLY 11!"

Shadow and I had a talk where I told her that she needs testing. She thought it was so bizarre that I could read her so well as to notice that she focuses on a guy and obsesses to a stalkerish level. She obsesses about getting tested now and whatever I said 5 minutes ago. She thinks The Husband and I are hilarious together and goes way WAY out of her way to let us know this. She is mean to The Daughter. She is weird to BabyBoy. She has begun to show serious signs of the sneaky ... which is actually more age appropriate than almost anything else she had done. So, yay.

Another foster parent who substitutes at Shadows school has been asking Shadow to come live with her. She also used to work at the place where Shadow received counseling (she will be going somewhere new now) and has been telling Shadow information that the counselor gave the foster parent about Shadow. Hello, break of confidentiality rules! This is the same foster parent who said our 2nd teenager got pregnant while living here. Although she didn't get pregnant here, nor after, and still has never been pregnant. But CPS won't do anything about this foster parent because her relative is a SW. And her husband is a detective. And they go to a popular church. Meaning, she can make up shit and spread rumors and not a damn thing will be done about it. Instead everyone will think she is a saint who shits fairy dust. Also, she told Shadow about the stuff that happened concerning me and The Husband and BabyBoy ... stuff that this foster parent should NEVER have known about ... and had NO BUSINESS telling our new foster kid.

In other news, I've been busting my ass doing foster parent association stuff and not a damn soul has noticed. People assume it's someone else doing all the work. The last two meetings have had only 3 or 4 people show up. I spent 2 hours calling all foster parents about the Christmas party and sent it out in the newsletter and emailed it and put it on our website and yet still they didn't RSVP. My sister and I spent 4 hours decorating for the party and putting up our own trees for the Santa picture backdrop and then I made a Christmas song CD and bought gifts for 36 kids. My sister and I spent another 2+ hours wrapping said gifts and labeling them by age and family since we weren't allowed to have their names or something. And yet other foster parents think I'm too young to be the VP or too inexperienced or too rude or whatever. They apparently don't think I'm capable of doing all the shit I've been doing.

The association president is stepping down. She wants me to move up. I said no. I already plan the meetings, get guest speakers, order the food, buy the drinks and plates and such, clean up afterwards, ensure that childcare is provided, and run the meetings when the president can't be there. Oh, and run our website. But I also have been taking minutes, writing the newsletter, and sending thank you cards because our 1st secretary quit and the 2nd one doesn't do her job. But I'm the last to hear information. They make decisions without including me. I hear about them going out to dinner after the fact (though they did invite me on a couple of occasions and I had a blast). And I walked up on the secretary talking about me at the christmas party. I'm done. My term ends in May and then I'll just be a regular ole foster parent who doesn't get involved in the association.

The adoption is supposedly going forward yet we've not heard from BabyBoy's worker. I've called and emailed. She still hasn't gotten his daycare assistance taken care of from back in August when I was working.
Update on this - "placement meeting" supposedly happening soon. BabyBoy's worker finally got the daycare assistance submitted but did it starting Dec 1st instead of back in August when I was working, so guess what? They won't go back and pay. She is such a blankety blank blank.

Another worker told me that we aren't going to get BabyBoy's sibling. This is the same one who warned me that BB's worker was on her way to remove him from before and that allowed me enough time to figure out how to stop it all. She said normally they place a baby with its sibling but every situation can be treated differently according to politics and other stuff. Basically CPS is hand picking who they want to adopt BabyBoy's sibling.

The kids have colds.
Update on this - The Daughter had Strep with vomit. Three doctor visits, one shot, and a bunch of exhaustion later she is still sick. She missed 4 of the 5 days of school. Last year she had Strep 3 separate times in October, 3 times in November, 1 in December, 1 in January, and 1 in April. Each time we would have to do two separate antibiotics. Each time I would have to bug the shit out of the doctor to get The Daugher well. She missed an insane amount of school last year. This time the doctor thought a shot would do the trick. Mom doesn't have her MD so what the fuck does she know? The shot didn't do the trick. We're going to a pediatric ENT way far away at a special hospital this week. She has to miss more school just before the big holiday break. The Daughter gets to fall further behind her peers again this year. Why? Because doctor's won't fucking listen to me.

I went way over budget on Christmas gifts. Still no job. Volunteering has even been cut short due to kid's being sick.

I may not make it through Christmas Break without using respite days for Shadow (and I've never used respite before). I think about disrupting almost every day. She went to a friend's house one day last week because I had a dog and pony foster parent thing to attend and didn't want to leave Shadow home with The Husband. She came home 45 minutes past curfew. Then she didn't apologize or seem concerned in the least. I often wonder if she even has a conscience. She doesn't act anything like the previous 3 teenagers we've parented. She has decided she wants to work with polar bears after college. Why? Because the polar bear is The Husband's favorite animal. Then she said she would like to have a job like his. I told her what to study in college in order to get that job. She said she wasn't interested in that. She said she wants to go ROTC and then be in the Army and kick doors. I told her she couldn't kick doors as they don't let females do that. Closest you can get is MP. She was disappointed that she couldn't be in The Husband's old unit. Still said she was going Army until we told her that meant she couldn't just say no to deployments because they interfered with her holiday plans. So then she decided she would just wrestle alligators like they do on TV. She actually asked me what she needed to study in college in order to get a job wrestling alligators. I asked her if she would actually touch an alligator and she said "No Way!" and then I had to break the news to her that in order to wrestle an alligator, she might actually have to touch it. *Gasp* Now she has decided she will be an interior designer even though she has no clue what this consists of. She also wants to feed the animals in a zoo. That's a job she won't even do here at home. Poor kitty would starve if I didn't occasionally feed her.

We went to see the movie The Princess and the Frog at the drive inn theater and Shadow spent more time staring at The Husband than she did watching the movie. And she would CONSTANTLY say "this part coming up is my favorite part" or "this song is my favorite" or "I love this song. It's my favorite!". She also did that through the movie Old Dogs and I finally said to her "I'm sorry, have you watched this movie before?" because OMG she drives me crazy!!!!!

While I was writing this CPS called to ask why The Husband didn't sign our last financial statement. Umm, because he was in Iraq. Remember?

So back to Shadow. Her worker is back from maternity leave but has yet to make any contact with me whatsoever. The supervisor took 3 weeks to reply to an email and phone calls regarding important school related stuff. Then, they made the check out to the wrong school. Shadow was supposed to be done with the classes by Dec 18th and CPS can't even get the payment in before that date. Shadow took the Grad Exams again. Not sure if she passed. Only one more chance. She may not graduate.

Local foster parents are dropping like flies. False allegations are running rampant. CPS is dictating who can come to events and who can't even though they don't run the association. If I wasn't so committed to the kids, I don't think I could keep doing this.

*Swimmer is not this person's real name.