Vignettes - Early May

-Birth Grandma, is here for a visit this weekend. It is very easy for me to judge her and the choices that she makes and if that was all I did, I would not be able to manage a relationship with her at all.
Instead, I just try to take anything she tells me with a huge grain of salt.
Although I had some warning from Obie (older bio. brother in care) that he expected her to visit this weekend, the first news of it that I had from her personally was when she called at 4:30pm on Friday to tell me she was at the mall 5 minutes from my house and could she drop by for a visit!
Which complicated my already busy supper hour and preparing to get Monkey to her soccer game for 6pm.
Still, I did it.
Birth Grandma still doesn't seem to know what to do with my older kids and from past experience they are uncomfortable around her. The good news is that she didn't show up with gifts for just the youngests this time. There were no gifts for anyone, which in itself is odd because she did miss both Buddy's and Monkey's birthdays completely.

-Birth Grandma, Obie (older brother in care), all four of my kids and me (I?) met up for dinner last night at a nearby restaurant. This was the first time that the three teenagers were together. It went fairly well. Even taking into consideration Bunny (my oldest daughter) asking me if it was okay if she read her book at the table because all of the "birth" family were talking mostly to each other.
Monkey was sitting next to Obie and that made for some very interesting things. He is six years older than her and three years older than Buddy and when he lived with them he was quite parentified. He sometimes refers to himself as having raised them. That dynamic began to play out right away.
Monkey reverted to an almost three year old level, it would have been sickening if it wasn't so unconcious on her part. Some of the time he was playing with her and some of the time he was spoon or hand feeding her food. It bothered me, but I am very conscious of his feelings and try and step around them. When I said that he wouldn't be able to do that kind of thing much longer, Monkey leveled a look at me across the table and said that Obie could feed her whenever he wanted. Unfortunately that meant that Monkey ate way too much, way too quickly and she felt quite sick for hours afterward. I tried gently but firmly to tie the the two things together and will probably revisit it in the morning. Underscoring the idea that she needs to listen to her body and what she needs ahead of trying to please someone she loves.
Big things are in the works for Obie. He has finished doing his time in juvenile jail, which included a mental health assessment at the local health facility that specializes in that. He is looking healthy and good and seems ready to move forward into a treatment program for addictions. Obie has talked about how he would like to be in a longer term secure placement, because he has found that helps him stay focused on doing his school work and staying out of the trouble that is so plentiful in so many places. His social worker is trying to find him one in a rural setting where he could do some work with animals, like his little brother and sister, he is really fond of any kind of animal. I am cautiously optimistic.

-There have been many mini breakthroughs with Monkey. She is telling me more and more about the things that she has been through and she is using words more and more and seems able to express herself in a healthier way.

-Iamsodamnedtired.

-I awoke to what I thought was a house shaking thump at about 3 this morning, I don't know if it was real or I dreamed it but at any rate it meant that I wandered the entire house checking things out. Aside from discovering that we had forgotten to lock the front door (duh), the only other thing I found was:
an inch of water in the basement.

after we thought it had been waterproofed to the tune of $4000.00
i feel sick.

-tomorrow I am taking off of church so that I can take Buddy to babysitter training and be available to him for the day. He is nervous but I think he will be fine.

-yesterday I accepted a last minute invitation to be part of a parent panel for a training course for adoptive and foster parents. It was worthwhile on many levels for me. Not including the $25 I will get as payment for doing it. One of the adoptive parents to be did get on my nerves right away when he said that adopting a kid from foster care was like buying a used car (bite my butt buster), and another guy who was there for foster parent training and therefore apparently not interested in what an adoptive parent had to say, actually spun in his chair a few times while I was talking and kept moving the blinds so he could peer out the window until his wife hissed at him to stop (I hope you get hemmerhoids mister!) but other than that, I would do it again.
Someone wants me to talk about my kids? I am so there.

-I have to revisit the fact that my basement is wet.
This means so much that is bad in an expensive sort of way and I just am not sure how I am going to swing it all and did I mention howfreakingtiredIam?

There is so much good in my life to celebrate and so much that is goofy:

I was in a rush to get changed and spiffed up for the training so I washed up, got dressed and was distracted at the last minute by Monkey having shut her finger in a door so it wasn't until I was literally in front of the building that I realized that I forgot to put on deoderant and it was the kind of day that I needed it. I rummaged through my purse and decided against corn chips and lip gloss as alternatives when I came across an herbal foot creme and used that instead, it worked but felt weird, my armpits are still slightly itchy.

Now, in the spirit of attempting to address the i'msotiredI'mnotsurehowI'mfunctioning issue, I will attempt to go back to sleep.

And not think of the water puddled in the basement.

Splish splash