Monday, August 9, 2010

Just a show?

So we had two great visits this last weekend. However, i am discouraged that they are only letting the youngest stay for two hours. I can understand it, four hours is a long time, especially because he normally lays down at about noon and the visits are lasting till about one. Four hours is a long time for the other two boys as well, especially because we are hanging out at a park or the mall. It is not the best situation. What is discouraging is that the foster mom is claiming that the youngest is not wanting to sleep in his bed for nap time, crying more and won't go to children's church. I hope she is not exaggerating what she is seeing or just plain making things up. We had one four hour visit and they already changed from four to two hours and at first they didn't want to let the youngest attend the 2nd visit. They were only going to give us 2 hours with the youngest for the whole weekend! How is he going to get to know us in a month if they only allow 2 hours a weekend. Luckily we were able to have him for 2 hours each day. He is doing great with us. The first day he cried for about 10 minutes off and on and the second day he clung to the foster mom but only cried for about 15 seconds and was done crying! At pickup time, he saw the foster mom but continued to play, this happened both days. The other two boys ran over and gave her a hug and then continued to play. Also at the end of the first visit the foster mom was standing there when the youngest got his hand stepped on by another child. He looked real sad and was holding his hand like it hurt. I expected him to run over to the foster mom and have her comfort him but he walked over to brian and showed him his hand and let brian comfort him. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm, that says something to me. Unfortunately the caseworker was not there to see this and we definitely let her know what happened but we'll see what comes of it.
I have this awful feeling that they are just letting us have these visits so they can go to court and say that they tried. No one is staying to see how the visits are going or to see the interaction between all of us. There is a caseworker there for the pickup and drop off and that is it. I don't have much confidence in this caseworker. I have the feeling they are letting her do all the observations because she really doesn't have much say. The main caseworker is not there at all. Saturday we were at the mall for our visit, we were leaving and the caseworker who came to watch the pickup said 'oh, lets go say hi to the main caseworker, she's here getting her hair cut.' She was there at the mall and didn't even make an effort to come by and observe even a few minutes! I am feeling frustrated and hope we are not making these visits just to fulfill the states requirement to prove they tried all other alternatives but the best place for these kids is with the foster family.
We have made five visits to grand junction so far and have at least three more to make. This is time consuming, expensive, stressful and it's all starting to take its toll on our bodies. Brian is having problems with his sciatic nerve, twisted his ankle this last weekend and his numbers (diabetes) are a little high right now. He is going to the doctor again today to see how his doctor thinks he's doing. My lower back, shoulders and neck are killing me. I have headaches more often and ten or more hours in the car every weekend is just getting to me. We don't have any type of weekend and this is getting to feel more like work than a fun time. This weekend was a rough one and i sure hope it gets better this next weekend. We have so much fun when we are with the boys but the amount time it takes to get there is sure frustrating to me right now.

2 comments:

  1. Sounds frustrating. Maybe you could do some video taping during a visit? Ask to see the caseworkers notes?

    Hope things get better and you get to spend more time with all three boys.

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  2. oh man. been thinking about this post all day. not sure what to say. i hope it's not just a role play, and i hope the worker that represents you in court is on the ball. if not, make sure you speak to the judge and the state auditor. squeaky wheel gets the oil and foster mom is squeaking hard.

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