I talked with Alison, our family specialist at the agency, today. She had talked to Miss R's CPS caseworker, and it looks like the progression of the case is such that CPS will be recommending severance of parental rights at the mid-October hearing. That doesn't mean, of course, that the court will agree. The judge may decide to extend the time that the parents have to follow the case plan. Alison told Miss R's caseworker that if ties are severed, then we would like to adopt her. She said that Carmen was "excited" that we were interested and told Alison to let us know that it is a lengthy process and can take several months.
Yesterday, when I dropped off Miss R at daycare, her teacher Miss Josie told me that their class (early voyagers) and Henry's class (voyagers) were on the playground at the same time a couple days ago. When Henry saw Miss Josie and Miss Kristen, he automatically searched the playground for R and was concerned at first when he couldn't find her. He eventually found her under the slide. They held hands and played together. Everyone says how cute they are together. And they are. While I was happy to hear more stories about our kids' cuteness, I also got a little bit of a pit in my stomach with the realization that if R were to return to her bio family, it would be tremendously hard on Henry to be separated from R and R to be separated from Henry. They are two peas in a pod.
I think that Jeff and I have done a great job generally speaking of not thinking too much about the future, which is uncertain when one works in fostercare. It is one of those skills that we developed in the NICU when Henry was on the precipice on multiple occasions. One of the foster parents that we met while going through training said that losing a foster child is like having your heart ripped out or your arm cut off. Severance is one step closer to R becoming a permanent part of our family and avoiding that devastation, but a bio relative could come out of the wood works and be given preference over us. So far, they haven't found any relative who would qualify, but in the months ahead, someone may turn up. My heart says that Miss R is supposed to be with us. She melded into our family right away and attached. It only took Henry a month to adjusted from him being the center of the universe to him sharing the center of the universe. That's pretty amazing. My head knows that things are uncertain. So we have to stay focused on the present and not think too much about the future.
As today was a bio family visitation day for Miss R, I picked up Henry to spend some one-on-one time with him. Jeff had some things to do around the house, so I got Henry for the second week running. I think that we are going to tradeoff in the future however. Miss R comes home around 6:30PM, which means some alone time with her for the parent remaining at home. We both want that time with each child, so trading off will work well.
When I picked up Henry, he wanted to know where Miss R was. I said that she was with her bio family, so he'd get to have fun with just Mommy. We were going to go to Monkey Business, but as we left the building, Henry announced that the wanted to "go to the mall" and "Barnes and Noble." I said, "OK. We'll head to the Foothills Mall." But then Henry said that he wanted to go to the "play area." Hands down, Tucson Mall has the better play area. So for the second week running, we went to the Tucson Mall. We rode the escalators several times. Then, we headed to the play area. Henry's climbing continues to be amazing. He loves climbing with the big guys. I don't think that he comprehends that he is smaller than many, if not most, of the kids there.
We shared a slice of cheese pizza for dinner. As we looked around at our other food options, Henry discovered another set of escalators. One was broken, so we had to use the elevator. He found that fascinating. Then, it was back down the escalator and back to the evalator again. He'd mentioned "ice cream" in the car, so I bought him a gelatto. We split it. It was a bit thick, so he needed help scooping it out. Every minute or so, he'd say "I need more ice cream." I'm hoping that some of the fat sticks! While Henry is gorgeous the way he is, I wouldn't mind it if he had a little body fat for the winter...just in case he gets sick and needs a reserve.On our way back to the car, we passed by a Stride Rite. Henry has been wearing size 8s for awhile. We stopped in and I got his feet measured. He is now at a size 8.5! It's hard to believe. In comparison, Miss R can still wear size 4s. I wanted Henry to have shoes that had the flashing lights on them. That's what we found. He wasn't the most cooperative of clients. We ended up getting him size 9s b/c the saleswoman said that one usually goes up a half size from where the foot currently measures.
We went to Walgreens to get Miss R's medication. Then we headed home. Miss R was happy to see us. She was sporting new shoes as well. The person who dropped her off didn't say anything about the visit to Jeff, but we assume one or both of the parents showed up given the shoes. The shoes are cute and size 5s, which is nice.
After some brief playtime in the train room, it was medicine time, teeth brushing, and time to hit the hay. The kids went down without much fuss.
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