Flips

While I had a long conference call with my co-authors on Saturday, Jeff took care of the kids. He made them pancakes. They played with the trains and played on Couch Mountain.

At 9:45AM, my meeting took a pause. I had told my co-authors that I was going to be unavailable from 10-11AM. They went out to lunch. I did some last minute touch ups around the house. Carmen, Miss R's CPS caseworker, arrived at 10AM. It was a short meeting. Jeff had spoken with Carmen on the telephone earlier in the week, and Jeff knew the information from the CFT. Carmen is going to be recommending severance to the Court, but she needs to talk through the evidence with the state's lawyer. She said that there is a chance that the Court will let the parents have more time on Miss R's case to match the time set for her siblings. Technically, the issue is supposed to be decided for children under 3 within 6 months of their removal from the home. Children older than 3 are supposed to be on a year long plan. We're pretty sure that at least one of the siblings will "age out" within the year, if not both. But I guess judges often ignore the law or interpret it in a skewed fashion. Carmen didn't stay long. She was out the door by 10:23AM. She was satisfied that Miss R is doing well and commented on how happy R looks when she visits.

Jeff got the kids down for naps at 12:30PM. My meeting ended around 2PM. I took care of the kids while Jeff attended a meeting for his work. Miss R was up at 2:30PM. Henry got up around 3PM or so. We colored. I took a good portion of their artwork from school and made collages for the dining room. Jeff purchased poster frames a couple weeks ago. Now we need some bins for the toys, and the train room will be in good shape.

After dinner, we walked the dogs as a family. We saw Yvonne and her dogs, Chocolate and Banjo, and Swanee, Hal, and their dogs, Luke and Annie. Miss R walked a good part of the way on her own, which was nice. She and Henry started off the walk screaming at the top of their lungs (happy screams). Jeff and I aren't quite sure what we done to produce such loud kids.

Henry sang a large portion of the One Two Buckle My Shoe song. Miss R said "Happy Feet" in a very clear voice. We allowed the kids to watch a movie tonight. "Happy Feet" was the choice. After 15 minutes, Henry stopped watching and played around. He wanted Miss R in the ball pit but she wouldn't join him. So I joined him. This thrilled him at first until he realized that I took up a lot more room than Miss R. So he said, "Get out, Mommy." His big accomplishment was learning to flip backward into the ball pit (see 3 second video below).



Miss R crashed during her nebulizer treatment. She didn't make it into the bathroom from brushing teeth. Henry did. He brushed his teeth well and let me cut some of his nails. That earned him two stars. He learned to climb on the rim of our tub (which is much higher than the standard tub). We aren't thrilled with that b/c it just means more locations for Henry to get into trouble. Jackson, our cranky cat, loves to lay on the rim of the tub toward the back. He'll no longer be able to use it as a sanctuary from the kids.