Annoyed. A good thing is that we met Alison, our family specialist. We should have met with one the first night. Better late than never, I guess. She asked us where our paper work was (I felt like someone was telling us how behind we are...when it is their own darn fault...why didn't someone collected it the first night?). I said that we had it filled out the first night but didn't have a family specialist at that time. Robert took our paperwork this past Monday night. She then checked on where it was and said "I just have your criminal history, but you'll need to turn in the rest." Ummm...we did. Filled out LOTS of forms. And made copies of our vehicle registrations/insurance, Henry's vaccination records, animal vaccination records, social security cards, bank statements, etc., all per instructions that we were sent over the holiday.
Bored. It wasn't a content heavy class. The instructor kept asking "OK, is everyone with me?" for the umpteenth time. My feeling is that if someone doesn't "get" a basic instruction like "Sign this form" or "Pass this sheet of paper around" when the instructions are given multiple times, they probably don't have the attention span to be a parent. The last 45 minutes were spent on yet another "get to know you" activity. It was fun. And I like our classmates, but I can't help but think that this isn't exactly rigorous training to become a foster parent. Maybe they just have to "fill" 38 hours. It really isn't about the training but about seeing who is willing to jump through a 38 hour hoop. Guess it is working. Some people have already dropped out.
One classmate, whom I will call Gal S (we have agreed as a class to honor each other's privacy and not discuss names outside of class), said that she was a little leery of the system given a story told by Robert Monday night about a mom who was taking care of a couple foster children. She had adopted, I think, one or two as well. Anyway, she was giving foster baby a bath and noticed a slight bruise near baby's diaper area. She didn't think much of it. Bruises do happen. Don't know how it got in the diaper area but kids do fall in all sorts of ways. Baby goes on a biological home visit over the weekend. Biological mom also notices the bruise. Biological mom calls CPS and wants to know why foster mom gets to keep baby when she's doing no better than bio mom. Not exactly the most astute argument that could be made, but nonetheless, CPS responded by calling the police and getting all kids out of the house, including foster mom's adopted kids. An investigation was conducted. No wrongdoing was found. But wow. Having your legal children taken away from you b/c some crack mom wants to stick it to you. Yikes. Roberts point was that you need to document everything, even slight scratches in incident reports, to avoid this scenario. But I think that it still leaves us parents worried that our kids could be pulled out of our homes b/c some crack head parent wants to stick it to us b/c they resent their situation. Henry gets a couple bumps and bruises a week. Small ones of course. I wouldn't be surprised if he has had a slight bruise that I did not notice. It's possible. Just found a slight one yesterday on his left shin. Anyway, the described scenario gave us parents pause. Phylis was kind of like...well, you take chances. Can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. These are the facts. But we tend to give worse case scenarios so that you are prepared.
Another classmate, Lady C, asked if we would be taking drug tests. A reasonable question. But apparently they don't do that. Not that they couldn't, but they don't as a general rule unless someone seems suspicious. Doesn't it seem like all foster parents should be required to take them? One way to prevent druggies from trying to become foster parents for the money. Besides, the major nanny agencies in town have all of their employees take drug tests.
Henry was super cute when we picked him up. He is a great eater for my parents. My mom mentioned yesterday that she thinks Henry is getting a little pot belly. Maybe he's getting ready to shoot up tall.
He continues to be a bear in the morning to walk up. He's defnitely my son. :-)
On Thursday morning, he decided that he wanted to help Patty mop up the floors. She taught him push-pull. He was fascinated. Then, Karina decided that she wanted the mop too. They had a bit of a tussle.
Jeff gave Henry a bath in the afternoon. He can same the word "Gumby" in reference to his toy. He also says "guys." And...much to Jeff's pleasure, Henry has put together the words "golf balls."
Jeff and Henry took the dogs for a walk. They ran into Hal and Swanee. Roger got cactus in his paw. Jeff ended up chasing him around with the comb. Roger is a huge wuss about his paws. Very hard to get him to let us help him. After Jeff got it out, Henry wanted the comb and then started chasing Roger around with it.
We had Chinese over at my parents' house. Jeff brought Henry home, while I worked with my Dad on something.
That's about it from our end. We have a PT appointment with Shirley this afternoon. Elsa is supposed to be coming as well.
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