Today we had an early call from our foster care agency rep. Apparently our agency blew the whistle on our CPS case worker for baby A at some time in the past (nothing in regard to us or baby A). That might explain the poor relationship we have had with her.
We took the kids to see a new daycare we are considering moving them to. Kate and I had visited earlier in the week. It has a lot going for it. Kate was ready to fill out the paper work. I had a very negative reaction to what I saw today. It seemed very crowded last time. This time it was the noise and chaos that got to me. Kate pointed out that if the facilities were bigger, they are a rather small daycare with moderate sized rooms with lots of kids and things in them, then I probably wouldn't notice as much. That is true but they aren't so I did.
Henry made himself at home. He didn't seem to interact with the kids but he played with toys and one of the teachers showed him how to use scissors which is a scary prospect in his hands. Until he learns to treat the cats better I don't think he'll be having scissors at home any time soon.
Miss R was rather shy as we would expect. I think a transition to a new daycare would be hardest on her. She is the teachers pet in her current classroom and I think it will be a bit traumatic even moving classrooms in her own school. However, I believe I thought that last time she moved rooms and was pleasantly surprised at how well she did.
I'm not concerned about baby A. She can sleep in a bouncy seat in pretty much any daycare.
I dropped the kids off at school. They were slow but fairly cooperative. I tried to pay a bit more attention to how things compared to the other daycare we looked at. I have to say that Miss R's class is rather amazing. They tend to have a fairly good number of kids in there and often have 3 teachers in the room. Almost every time I'm there everyone is sitting quietly listening to a story. I'm wondering if they slip a little something in the sippy cups at snack time because it's almost unreal how well behaved all those kids are.
Henry's class was a bit more authentic. One child comes up and shows whoever enters the room the neat underwear he is wearing that day. He also decided to take his shoes off and throw them across the room. Another boy was trying to take something from a little girl. Repeated warning from the teacher eventually convinced him to give it up. A bit more noise, a bit more chaos. Still didn't seem nearly as bad as the other daycare we visited.
Henry went and worked on a puzzle in the middle of the room. I felt a sad feeling that he was either bored or unhappy. I want him to want to go to daycare. He loves to learn things and he is very bright and social. If he is left to his own devices he gets into trouble but when is directed for the most part he is focused and engaged. We are already planning on pushing to get him moved up to an older classroom, which he should be in. We want him to be potty trained so he can skip the room with Attila the Hun Jr which is for those still being potty trained.
I received a message from baby A's lawyers office trying to schedule a visit. It is required by the court that the lawyers visit with their clients at least once between court appearances. So of course the day before they are calling and trying to work out a last second visit so the judge doesn't rap them on the knuckles. Much like CPS it seems they have no concept that people may have other commitments that might require more than 30 minutes notice. They even considered having us bring the baby to court so that the lawyer could see her a few minutes before hand. That's quality time.
The lawyer's assistant did make it out to see us in the evening. The visit was pretty mundane until she asked, "How is your relationship with CPS?" Well, about an hour later Kate finished recounting all the guffaws regarding transport and privacy etc. The assistant said that transport is a problem for many foster families right now. My theory is that they contract the transport to the lowest bidder which happened to be a bunch of high school or elementary school drop outs who have no clue about what they are doing besides green means go and red means stop and yellow means go really fast.
The assistant is going to relay our issues to the lawyer. If the lawyer should feel that the privacy breach regarding baby A's daycare warrants relocating her to another daycare we will do so. However, I think Kate has relented on moving the kids otherwise. When she picked up the kids this afternoon the director finally apologized for the security breach which was part of what we wanted. Now if they would just adjust their policy so that they would not send the daily info sheet with CPS unless explicitly directed to that would be a true victory. Frankly I could do without the sheets all together. Just tell me what they did that day and if they ate well and napped well and when they went potty last and keep the paper. I've got enough paper at home that I don't know what to do with.
The kids ate reasonably well for dinner. Kate took baby A for a walk with the dogs. As per usual she fell asleep on the walk and then woke up as soon as Kate put her in her crib. I played with the kids in their playhouse where we did "Patty Cake" and "Duck Duck Goose". The latter is more like everyone chasing each other around the living room than anything else.
Henry has been up a few times for water. Kate slept in the rocking chair with baby A for a while. Baby A is doing something rather strange when lying down. She is arching her back and turning on her side. It almost looks like she is going to roll over from back to front. However, the arching just looks a bit strange and she's sleeping like that. It only started a day or two ago. I hope it's not anything serious.
In fun news baby A is trying to grab her toes. She gets to her knee regularly and has made some attempts at her toes. I don't know if we have an official grab yet. I'm sure it will be any day now.
I'm blogging to you from my newly configured treadmill desk. I'm walking a whopping 1mph while typing. Hoping it works out and I lose 30lbs while I work. We'll see. It probably doesn't help that I'm also drinking a glass of wine. Let's see you do that with Taibo! At least the treadmill is being used for exercise instead of as a platform for a dead printer, a cat bed and any junk we don't feel like putting in it's proper location.
Tomorrow is court for baby A and a hearing check for Miss R.
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